I just finished reading a book called ‘Moonwalking with Einstein’ by Joshua Foer for my other pet project, www.readerroundtable.com . The book is about how Foer, a journalist, set out to understand and report on the US and World Memory Competitions and ended up winning the US Memory Championship and setting a US record in speed cards. In it he states that memory is the “seat of our values and source of our character” (p. 269) It also stipulates, in defense of rote memorization in schools, that you must have memorized facts to apply them and that in applying them you learn. I.e . you can’t learn without memorizing. So I thought we should work on our memories this week. (By the way, my one and only Reader Roundtable plug – if you want to talk about how children learn and the benefits of rote memorization in schools and/or any other aspect of the value of memorizing, log in and join our Roundtable book club discussion on Nov 16 th at 9pm EST o...
I am teaching my kids everything from math to reading to manners, and blogging about our weekly thinking cap adventures.