--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Professor friend of mine in college taught classical
> lit, had her students memorize 40 lines of Homer.
I took a year off from my SW engineering position in 1999-2000 and taught some Computer Science classes at San Francisco State. One of the first things I told my students was not to bother memorizing anything, because it was a useless effort and, after all, in real working life the books would always be there as references. The important thing was to learn to apply the rules, and in the course of using them, a lot would be remembered.
Of course, there are obvious instances when rote learning is necessary, such as in learning a foreign language or spelling. But what is the role of rote learning in other cases such as poetry memorization (besides showing off)?
-Thomas
"...everytime we move it ahead, it's thrown back. But the base camp has been made, and the next wave will come and find your wreckage, and they'll be encouraged to go beyond that."
-Timothy O'Leary
"I want to do something with my life; I want to be a cyborg."
-Kevin Warwick
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