HAVING recently completed junior college education, I understand the dread of rote learning students face ("Weed out outdated rote learning" by Mr Terence Lee Xin Jin; yesterday).
However, I disagree that stress and fatigue will be reduced when lesser rote learning is required.
Subjects like mathematics require immense practice, yet actual memorisation is minimal.
Decreasing the recall components of other subjects would hardly reduce stress, since "rote learning" questions would be replaced by "thinking" questions, which still demand substantial practice.
Lessons lasting till the evening hardly stem from "memory lessons" (most teachers do not make students memorise). Rather, extended tutorials and discussions on thinking questions or endless practice papers make up most of the prolonged curriculum hours.
For the sciences, memory work has already been reduced to the bare minimum; if it were reduced further, clarity of the subject matter may be affected.
While Google is a fair substitute for memory, rote learning is still essential, as memorising certain fundamentals greatly helps learning. For example, memorising algebraic manipulation rules in secondary school greatly helps understanding, despite the availability of the rules online.
Rote learning at junior college often forms the fundamentals of varsity education. I have forgotten quite a lot of what I have learnt in junior college, yet information related to my field forms the basis of my university education.
Damon Tan Jie Hui
However, I disagree that stress and fatigue will be reduced when lesser rote learning is required.
Subjects like mathematics require immense practice, yet actual memorisation is minimal.
Decreasing the recall components of other subjects would hardly reduce stress, since "rote learning" questions would be replaced by "thinking" questions, which still demand substantial practice.
Lessons lasting till the evening hardly stem from "memory lessons" (most teachers do not make students memorise). Rather, extended tutorials and discussions on thinking questions or endless practice papers make up most of the prolonged curriculum hours.
For the sciences, memory work has already been reduced to the bare minimum; if it were reduced further, clarity of the subject matter may be affected.
While Google is a fair substitute for memory, rote learning is still essential, as memorising certain fundamentals greatly helps learning. For example, memorising algebraic manipulation rules in secondary school greatly helps understanding, despite the availability of the rules online.
Rote learning at junior college often forms the fundamentals of varsity education. I have forgotten quite a lot of what I have learnt in junior college, yet information related to my field forms the basis of my university education.
Damon Tan Jie Hui
