As a reaction to that extreme sort of learning equals memorization idea,
in the last 100 years or so,
a new approach has gradually arisen in Western ways of teaching,
This approach says that conceptual understanding,
not rote learning or memorization, is the key to learning,
But in the West, at least, we've now gone off on to the other end of the extreme,
We've gone so far overboard in emphasizing the unique importance of conceptual
understanding that we've lost sight of the fact that some memorization in practice,
especially deliberate practice that focuses on the hardest parts
of the material, is also important in any kind of learning,
In fact, practice and repetition, not to mention memorization,
don't just reinforce your understanding, they can actually lead to a deeper and
richer understanding, as this paper shows,
Poets often say, memorize the poem and you will understand it more deeply,
But why should we in other disciplines let only the poets have all the fun?
Memorizing an equation, for example,
can help you understand that equation more deeply, especially if you're trying
to understand what's going on with that equation as you're memorizing it,
Unfortunately, you'll sometimes hear even advanced educators and
educational psychologists in the West saying, it doesn't matter, you can always
look it up, in regards many forms of learning, especially in math and science,
But that's really not true,
Would you know the French language, for example,
if you had to go look words up every time you needed them?
Would you know how to properly design an engine if you hadn't spent time
memorizing some of the equations, or
at least working enough with them such that they flowed fluently in your mind?
Would you really want your doctor to breeze through medical school without
memorizing any of the hundreds of thousands of facts doctors are typically
asked to memorize during their preparatory studies?
Psychologist Anders Ericsson's work has shown that all expertise develops
through building strong, well practiced mental representations,
That is, large libraries of solidly built neural chunks
that can be easily drawn into working memory,
The main point of this video is that practice, including some memorization,
can help you to chunk key ideas and
procedures, a vitally important part of learning,
Remember how when you're first trying to figure something out,
the working memory of your prefrontal cortex is going a little crazy?
Of course, once you've got that concept chunked, that is, understood and
practiced, you basically have the equivalent of a nice,
smooth ribbon that you can easily bring into working memory whenever you need to,
leaving the other slots of working memory free to process other
related chunks to hook them together to form more advanced thoughts,
This is a key idea,
If you want to see true procedural fluency, that is brilliantly chunked
expertise in action, take a look at Mr, Kazuyuki Takayanagi,
the president of USA, which is actually located in Japan,
as he works with two young children who are learning to add numbers
incredibly quickly in their heads using a technique called,
It's almost impossible to believe that anyone could add that fast,
much less young children, but add they can,
What this means is that the rhythms of quickly practicing addition have formed
fundamental neural structures that these children can access rapidly, easily,
and largely subconsciously, which means that their conscious working memory
can be working on more advanced ideas that build on the simpler ideas of addition,
Some children can actually play verbal games while they're doing