R9

Question: So many times I here students say that they wished they had photographic memories. How do we make students aware that it is not whether or not you have an average memory, but how you use your memory? Memory is something that is best utilized when strategies are in place. A lot of students in the classroom have similar memories and it is how they use the information and categorize it that makes the information stick. Memory is like a treadmill; if you have a $5,000 Life Fitness treadmill you can have lots of capability, but if you don’t how to work the device or strategies to stay on the device then you will make it nowhere. On the flip side, you could have an average Walmart purchased treadmill, and if you are able to work it you can make it the same distance as if running on an expensive treadmill.

Quotation: “What you have to understand is that even average memories are remarkably powerful if used properly” (Foer, 2011).

Connection: In Foer’s article on memory, he discusses how the memory was assessed by having the competitors in the memory competition memorize dozens of strangers’ names. This immediately reminded me of the first class I took at the University of Kentucky. I took an intro to Russian culture class. There were 65 students in the class, all of which the teacher had never had before in class. On the first day of class he had every student introduce themselves one time. He then went around the room and amazingly named every single person’s name in the room! I was shocked! I could not believe that he was able to do that. All of the students kept asking him if he cheated, in which he responded that he simply used memory strategies to remember everyone’s name.

Outside Connection: I am so fortunate to have read James as our first book in this course. I must admit that I am connecting to James in a lot of my other course work. I again thought of James when reading the article by Foer. Learning and memory is about associations. James (1899) emphasizes in his chapter on associations that “the more copious the associative systems, the completer the individual’s adaptations to the world” (p.42). In other words, the more associations that children are forced to make, the more they remember. The Foer article discussed how in our society that technology helps us store our memories outside of our brains. Such examples are books, audio devices, photographs, computers, and cell phones. Foer describes that before this technology was created that the memory was the device most commonly used. He explains further by stating, “A trained memory was not just a handy tool but also a fundamental facet of any worldly mind. It was considered a form of character-building, a way of developing the cardinal virtue of prudence and, by extension, ethics. Only through memorizing, the thinking went, could ideas be incorporated into your psyche and their values absorbed” (Foer, 2011). Since this was during the time “without advanced technology”, how can our students of this generation use their memories more frequently when they have access to all of the technology that does it for them?