My utter contempt for rote learning - Memorization

[charlie cho]

If I had to memorize, I always felt that it had to be natural, not forced memorization.

Upon self learning programming and science, I am faced with people suggesting that I need to memorize this and that to "master" these subjects.

I felt utter disappointment and hatred for myself. My self esteem had gone low. In school, even in Korea, I was good at nothing else but English and Math. I had good teachers tell me that if Math is learnt by rote, it retardates people's mathematical mind. It's bad for both short term and long term success. Simply put, rote learning in itself is the devil in Mathematics. I had always known that deeply. That was why I was always top in my class with just math and english, except with other subjects, science, history, korean...etc, I didn't do any of it. 

As I'm trying to master chemistry and physics and programming, I come upon this dilemma again. And I had to feel somewhat inferior to other kids for getting good grades outside of math and english. I know that physics don't require rote, but it seems chemistry kind of requires it.... 

I feel so much sadness and despair. What about programming? I hear two opinions on this subject of memorization in programming. One party says to memorize and the other says don't. The former was someone who is learning it in school. The latter is a programmer in the youtube advising us not to memorize it because he still was able to be a programming encyclopedia even when he made no effort to memorize. 

What should I do with the fact of rote learning? I hate it... utterly.... so much, I want to puke even thinking about rote learning. As you see, getting a korean education and american one. (America has it too no doubt, but just a little bit better than Korea) 

If you can't be bothered reading all the bullshit above, read below

How do geniuses like Einstein David Bohm Richard Feynman treat rote learning? How do they treat memorization? I hear demons (people) around me shouting at me that I'm not intelligent because I hate memorization. I hear teachers looking down on me, straight A students laughing at me for resisting rote learning. 

How do you deal with memorization? You could see, I'm a lost person right now, but this is important to me.

My goal here is this, how do geniuses learn? Do they completely disregard memory and let it happen naturally? Or are they like straight A school kids who cram in all the bullshit they see just to get some fucking acceptance from other kids and teachers? 

zhugeliang (the person with the white robe) is considered the greatest genius prime minister that ever lived in China

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by charlie cho

[LastThursday]

A large part of learning anything is pure repetition, especially so with physical activities. So it comes down to how that repetition is presented to you. Probably the best way (for retention) is through play and engaging curiosity. I think that's why there's so much gamification of learning nowadays. It's self-directed rote learning.

The problem with the way most rote learning is presented, is that it lacks context and a certain energy. Context gives you lots of hooks to tie together bits of information, making the process more memorable. The energy is how much effort is put into making rote learning engaging, this is the problem gamification tries to solve. A lot of school teaching neither has enough context, play or energy. No wonder you hate it.

[charlie cho]

@LastThursday im crying day and night man. seriously, but what is gamification? The ideas you have just said kind of enlightened me to something..... ? I did say in the post that I'm not against memory or physical memory itself (which would be habits i.e. basketball shooting form habits, tennis foreword hand forms) .............................................you presented the idea the way in which we memorize is horrible. That's an interesting concept. Do you have any more to say?

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by charlie cho

[LastThursday]

Gamification happens with a lot of apps on mobile phones for example. It's where learning is either turned into a competition against others or yourself, or it's turned into an actual game. So this is more to do with mental learning.

With physical pursuits such as basketball, you could shoot hoops from one spot over and over again (rote learning), or you could actually learn through playing the game with other people. Play is a lot more engaging, because there is a lot more going on (energy), but also because there's the flow of the whole situation (context). But the problem with play is that you may not encounter particular situations very often: say shooting a hoop from a particular position. So rote learning is needed to practice those rare situations.

If you want to master a discipline either mental or physical, then you need a combination of the two, play and rote learning. In school however, you generally just get one or the other, not both.