Comment by gambiting
10 hours ago
There's memorising and there's memorising.
My history lessons at school were entirely "here's 30 dates of these important events happening, there will be a test at the end of the month where you have to name the event at each of the given dates". I just remember sitting there trying to somehow remember what happened on each of those random dates, what event was it that I knew nothing about with zero context other than the fact that it happened. I can confidently say that after I ended my formal education I remember 0 of any of those dates. That approach to teaching history is just completely wrong, I would have loved to be told WHY certain things happened not just when they happened, but the system wasn't designed for it.
But maths formulas or even chemistry and physics - yes, that makes a lot of sense because you need to remember them and then you can actually use them to solve problems later.
Yep. Even for maths, knowing why is king. Once you understand maths there is a whole bunch that makes sense and you can just derive.
> Once you understand maths there is a whole bunch that makes sense and you can just derive
(trigger warning: I'm going to use the word "privilege" and hate myself for it...)
The comment above is your math-brain privilege speaking. Not every kid has the required mathematical aptitude for that. You can reach a level of basic competency with repeated drilling and practice, but not everybody's brain is wired to be able to retain the conceptual foundations and then just derive the rest.
This is where math education has gone off the rails, at least in California. It's great to introduce and emphasize the "why", but the curriculum has completely abandoned repetitive drilling. Kids aren't building up any muscle memory.