The 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address recently passed, and as a history buff, I was interested in the coverage. I read an article about the filmmaker Ken Burns and a soon-to-be-released documentary titled The Address which explores the tiny Greenwood School in Vermont and its annual project for each student to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address. The film has spawned a project online encouraging others to memorize and film their recitation of this famous address by Abraham Lincoln.
I applaud this effort to get people of all ages to learn the words to the Gettysburg Address. During my years as a middle and high school history teacher, I often had students take on memorizing all or parts of important speeches. Yet I also know that simply being able to recite an important speech from memory does not mean that you will be able to more deeply explain its meaning or analyze its historical context. Similarly, memorizing an algebraic formula for a math test and then forgetting it an hour later does little to promote a student’s long-term problem solving abilities. This recent essay by a high school math teacher does a nice job of capturing the shortcomings of mathematics teaching that places more emphasis on memorization than on making meaning (the author of this essay is also has one of the best-named blogs around: Math with Bad Drawings). There are all sorts of strategies and tricks to aid in memorizing certain pieces of knowledge, but the ability to hold and recall that knowledge should be but one part of a bigger, more important process of learning and application that has meaning beyond the walls of a classroom.
The cognitive psychologist and author Daniel Willingham has made these points and grounded them in research on cognition. Yes, he says, it is important for all of us to know certain content knowledge, but this knowledge should be “meaningful…not rote memorization”. He also makes the case that this knowledge is best acquired in the context of a relevant curriculum and without emphasis on students retaining every minute detail.
All of these points suggest a need for teaching that helps students to develop a base of content knowledge—be it in history, science, or math—through exploring rich and interesting material, not through staid textbooks and hours of drilling on facts. The use of strategies to aid in memory is certainly useful, but focusing just on—even mostly on—memorizing is not serving students well. And, of course, to teach in this way also means we should assess student learning in this way by finding out both what key knowledge students know (that the Gettysburg Address was delivered by Lincoln during the Civil War to commerrate those who had died at the Battle of Gettysburg) and what they can do (draw parallels between the Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, for example). There will be more on this in my blog post next week (which will actually be the December issue of the ANCS “Principles in Practice” newsletter about the idea that “less is more” when it comes to curriculum), but clearly, teaching and learning that is assessed solely by multiple choice tests is much more focused on memorization—the skill most needed for success on such tests. We need to change these practices if we want our students to do more than what can be shown on a battery of tests one week a year.
Though the film The Address doesn’t air until the spring, my guess is that these are all points the teachers at the Greenwood School would echo. The school is actually a boarding school for middle and high school-aged boys with identified learning disabilities, particularly those that cause difficulty with attention, language, and executive functioning. Memorizing and reciting the Gettysburg Address is likely an enormous challenge for most of these students. And for this reason, memorization does not appear to be the primary mode of teaching and learning at this school. From Greenwood’s website, the school describes itself as a place that uses “an intellectually challenging curriculum that builds ability to reason, critique, debate, create, and enjoy a fund of general knowledge”, “avenues for academic success that don’t depend on [a student’s] weakest skills”, and “opportunities to discover unique talents through extensive athletic, outdoor, and creative offerings”. As far as I can tell, students at this school do so much more than just memorizing—they engage in learning we should want for all of our students.