MEMORIZATION Action and effect of memorizing. MEMORY. Psychic faculty through which he retains and remembers the past.
One of the issues that, as parents, concerns us is the way in which our children learn in school. In the documentary that we recently mentioned, "The Educational Revolution" by Eduard Punset, reference is made to one of the most traditional methods to learn: memorization.
Learning "by heart" personally seems to me to make little sense, especially if one does not understand what is being studied, because then we really do not learn anything. Another thing would be to exercise memory, practice memorization, when we remember data thanks to memory.
Well, as the definition of the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of Language reminds us, memory is a psychic faculty. In reality, a faculty that involves a set of functions that perform the task of perceiving, experiencing, recognizing, reviewing and understanding.
The ultimate goal, then, would be understanding. However, in the path of this psychic process other benefits are achieved that make us say today that memorization is not as bad as we thought.
One of the ways to memorize is the review, the repetition. In recent years, repetition has been banished from the educational system as a learning method. However, it is not as negative as one might think.
As we know in the Punset documentary, repetition improves neural connections and learning, without needing to stop to weigh, and probably leaving room in our brain for other more creative tasks.
This is, in other words, if I learn some content thanks to memorization, my intellectual abilities are arranged for other creative tasks that we could not do if we dedicate ourselves to learn otherwise.
In addition, memorization serves to exercise concentration and attention, abilities that most children do not have because no one has "taught" them and they are very useful not only in their school life but in general. In the Punset documentary, the psychologist interviewed relates the lack of memory exercise with the attention deficit pandemic.
Long-term memory requires a good neuronal functioning, and repetition (the multiplication table, vocabulary, dates, numbers, names, conduction ...) helps to establish a good memorization and learning, the so-called associative learning.
In the associative learning that occurs when repeating, a neuronal receptor called NMDA is involved, which neuronally reinforces the games of connections between, for example, a word or concept and an image.
The receiver sends a kind of acknowledgment to the activated cells in the surroundings, improving neuronal connection, learning and memorization. "Like it or not, the repetition works," the documentary tells us.
Every time I have more clear that in this of the "methods" (to study, to educate, to cook ...) there are no absolute truths and that even the much insulted memorization, in its right measure, has benefits For children and adults. Of course, there are many ways to learn and exercise the brain, you have to explore them all.
