028 Students should memorize facts only after they

[xaero]

I just couldnt figure out good points for this topic in 45 mins. I still dont understand if I've made justice to the subject. [xx(] Lemme know something about it.....

 

 

"Students should memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts. Students who have learned only facts have learned very little."

 

 

 

Facts are the accepted truths that serve as examples or proofs of existing ideas, phenomena and trends. Facts tend to gain ground as they dispel myths and improve the understanding of various sciences. Although students learn better through facts, it would be unjustified to tax the students to memorize them without stressing on the underlying principles.

 

Facts exist to augument concepts to explain certain principles. Unless the students perceives the ideas, the instances that he memorizes comes to little use. For example, a pre-college physics student may learn in his modern physics class that the powerful concept of superconductivity can now be practically implemented and Yttrium-Barium-Copper Oxide is a popular superconductor. However if the student is not made aware of what superconductivity is and why the phenomenon occurs, he fails to appreciate why Yttrium-Barium-Copper Oxideis such a fascinating compound. He becomes a prattling parrot that merely reciprocates what is talked to it, without perspicacity. The principle of education- to widen the student's thinking abilities dies in the process.

 

Memorization of facts, though acceptable in certain areas, should not be made mandatory in all applications. Subjects such as physics and mathematical sciences demand less weightage for facts. On the contrary, Social Sciences and Economics thrive on facts. Studies of ancient cultures, practices, demographic trends, economic ups and downs constitute these affairs, giving little scope for any brain work and logical reasoning. It is warranted that facts and statistics are essential for these studies and more information a student can recollect, the well informed he is. Thus a fine diversity exists in the various branches of education and the generalization of hypothesis regarding memorization and understanding of concepts is unjustified.

 

The ultimate upshot of an educational system is to harbor the interest of the students, enhance their maturity of thinking and support them in the quest for their goals. The requirements of the students should be viewed in a pragmatic way and schemes must be developed to serve them better. Considering the variety of educational fields, protocols applicable to one arena could be fatuous to be implemented in the rest.

[ramya]

Hi Xaero

 

That wasn't as bad as you made it out to be ! Second para was esp. good. But do you really think Social Sciences and Economics give more importance to facts ? I think otherwise. If you look at question papers for these subjects, they emphasize on essay type questions which call for analysis of a situation etc. And I feel you should have restated your stand in your conclusion a bit more clearly (atleast mention a few words of the topic !)

 

Here is my analysis of the same topic. I got carried away a bit, so I think I have digressed from the main topic. Still have a look and tell me your comments!

 

"Students should memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts. Students who have learned only facts have learned very little."

 

 

A fact is a piece of information, while ideas, trends and concepts provide a setting for the analysis and interpretation of facts. All of them together constitute education.The true worth of education lies in reasoning and not in memorizing.Students should learn to apply the facts using ideas and concepts rather than mugging them up.

 

The answer to why memorizing facts is a part of education lies perhaps in history. In olden days, means for documentation and communication of information were not as widespread and pervasive as they are today. Before the written script was invented, in order to propagate mores and traditions, people would learn them by rote and transmit them orally to future generations. In such a mileau, memorization was an integral part of learning. Especially for religious education, students would spend years learning the scriptures by heart.

 

But today, we are witnessing a completely different scenario. Today's age is called the 'Information Age'. Storage and transmission of data were never so easy as now. Thus the human brain need not be regarded as repository of information anymore. Gigabytes of data can be fitted into a tiny disk accessible from any part of the world via the Internet. In the modern world, therefore, the focus of education has shifted from rote learning to critical thinking. Since computers are readily available to perform the mundane tasks of memorizing, the power of the human brain needs to be harnessed to the more important task of understanding.

 

One concept is equivalent to a hundred facts.For instance, Kepler gave an equation which said that the square of the time taken for one revolution by a planet was directly proportional to the cube of its distance from the sun. In the absence of this concept, we would have to rely on a memorized table containing the lengths of a year for every planet. Also, facts need to continually revised as they are easily forgotten. On the other hand, it is more difficult to forget an idea or concept.

 

It is difficult to apply a fact to any arbitrary situation as facts are specialised instances of past occurrences. To the contrary, we can apply an idea or concept to a wide range of situations. To give an analogy- a fact is an already shaped pot whereas an idea or concept is akin to the potter's wheel where we can shape new pots for every occasion.

 

The importance of facts varies widely from discipline to discipline. For example, in the creative arts like drawing, painting facts are almost non-existent with the emphasis on creativity and understanding certain techniques instead. After all, a painter can never memorise every brush stroke! On the other hand, facts still play an important role in the sciences. However a science student has to additionally keep in mind that a fact is not absolute but it is only what we think at present. For example, light was thought to be a wave before Planck's quantum theory.

 

Any student has to remember a modicum of facts however. It wouldn't make much sense to refuse to learn the English alphabet without understanding the concept behind it or to learn geometry without memorizing the axioms. However facts can only act as a foundation for education. The real construction lies in interpreting the facts and applying them as and when required.

 

The days of memorizing facts only in the name of education are long past. Today we are witnessing a revolution of sorts. New terms like 'lateral thinking' are the buzzwords of the present.Thus before committing anything to memory, students should develop a healthy sense of enquiry and go into the ideas , trends and concepts behind those facts.

 

 

[mukise3]

here is an endeavor in the same context, please read it and grade it.

"Students should memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts. Students who have learned only facts have learned very little

 

facts are the pieces of informations which are estabished truths and people have proved these or found out by many ways over a period of time. human by nature is curious and try to find out the informatins about the things around him or he thinks about them. he remainds insearch of the phenomena behind every action he observes happening around him. man has been seeing the things falling on the earth since his existance but once started thinking over it found out the facts behind this phenomenon. besides some devine facts which human recieved from devine resources and about some of them human still belives a such without and research, he had carried out very detailed studies lapsed over generaions to find the reality behind them. the concept of science is to see every statement suspeciously unless proved with the help of already established facts or with the help of experiments carried out by many in all possible conditions and confirmed by many trying their hard to prove it otherwise. an information remains a postulate, theory or a hypothesis unless it is proved on the bases of above mentioned methodology. even if it becomes a fact, it is published with all its concepts, ideas, conditions and relevaent data which can help explain this fact and remains open to the challenges in the time to come. the way this world is progressing with a very rapid pace, yesterdays facts are becomming todays falacies and todays facts are facing challenges to the changes in the times to come.

 

till a few hundred years ago people were not ready to believe the earth is a round object revolving around the sun and the fact for granted was to belive sun revolving around the earth and many were killed on stating it other way round as it contradicted the religious believes. many did not believe when Neil Armstrong landing on the moon was shown on television for the first time rather many religious scholars daclared these believing this to be liable to be killed but now it is a fact which has been accepted by all. no body believed the psotulates on atom theory unless people saw devastating destruction on two cities of Japan in world War II.

 

but it is also an ignorance to believe the fact without knowing the conditoins for which it is valid and the basic concept behind this fact. for example aspirine is a life saving drug and nobody can deny this fact but if a person is dieing with alcer the same madicine can alleviate him getting rid of this world instead of giving relief form the pain. this is because the person prescribing the medicine only read the first part of the fact which states that aspirine is a life saving drug but did not read the concept behind it which states that it dilutes the blood and gives relief from heart attack and should not be given if a person is a patient of alcer as well.

 

silmmilarly it is the fact that computer helps increase the efficency and productivity but if a sun E-3500 is given to a farmer having 100 hectors to improve his harvest without some suitable help, training to use that machine and the required data to transform it into useful information which can help improve his products and even then a simple farmer will be disappointed to know that such an expensive machine is not doing any thing for him then advising him to use such a seed in such a season or to use such a fertilizer of pesticede and actually it is he himself who still has to do every thing himself. actually the dealer sold his machine to the farmer by giving a very rosy picture of the facts regarding the use of computer in farming by telling him that by using computerised methodology people have increases their production many folds in America, not stating complete process where computer is only aotomating that process and running that automtion software which helps the agricultural tool/machines do thier job as per over all devised automation process.

 

so it is harmfull much of the time to start applying a certain fact without knowing all related details about that and using it as a part in an environment may not be suitable for that fact to hold. a fact is only a fact in its totality and injurios if adopted in a piecemeal.