Hi! Thanks for the interesting question.
I have found the following resources, which argue regarding the
benefits of knowing and memorizing facts in the learning process. I
will provide small snippets from the articles I will cite but I highly
recommend that you read them in their entirety to get a more
comprehensive understanding.
Our first few links pertain to memorization as an important foundation
in a child’s learning.
“In fact, children need to be saturated in what is in order to proceed
on to the higher levels of thinking skills. It is the necessary first
step. We would not expect a baby to begin talking in complete
sentences when he hadn’t spent some time on the first step of
individual words. We would not expect someone to go on to professional
athletics that had not spent some time on the first step of practice
and drill.”
“Committing the facts they are learning to memory has important
advantages. When something has been memorized, it is owned. It becomes
theirs. It can be recalled at will, whenever the need for that
information arises. Even most modern educationalists see the value of
memorization with math facts (although that is changing).”
“Overview of the Grammar Stage”
Christine Miller
http://www.classicalhomeschooling.org/grammar/overview.html
“’In some schools, with some kids that may be a good thing,’ he adds.
When students don't have a solid grounding in a certain amount of
factual information, he says, it's hard to engage in other methods
such as teaching through discussion.”
“Rather than inhibiting more creative learning, Mr. Beck argues,
memorization frees students to do different kinds of work with more
speed and enjoyment. ‘A student of creative writing shouldn't have to
sit there and struggle over the spelling of the word 'beautiful' until
he loses his train of thought,’ says Beck. Memorization, he insists,
leads to greater "fluency" in academic tasks.”
“By rhyme or reason? The debate over memorization”
http://csmweb2.emcweb.com/durable/2000/04/04/p21s1.htm
The method of rote memorization has been heavily criticized the past
decades or so but it clearly has is benefits as well.
“The value lies in concentration. While writing the same thing fails,
of itself, to integrate data, it does cause one's mind to focus on the
particular matter for one cannot write with a pen or pencil and
daydream at the same time. Each entry in the task is slightly
different than the former and a mistake requires a rewrite ... and ...
the work was actually checked for authenticity (spot checked). Though
I tried to automate the process,”
“Another effect of rote memorization is the freeing up of mental CPU
cycles to do other tasks. If I know some equations, say the
trigonometric functions, from rote memory, I needn't spend time
thinking about that aspect of a given mathematical problem. If the
context is known from memory, one can focus on the relevant
particulars at hand.”
“On the Value of Rote Memorization”
http://www.ebtx.com/math/rotemem.htm
The Twin Data Stream theory meanwhile fully approves of stock
knowledge as an aide to learning.
“Multiplication tables, for example, if known by heart will endow the
entire mind with an additional data processing dimension that can
never be duplicated by consulting calculators or looking up tables. By
memorizing poetry, a human being does not so much get to 'know' the
works of a particular poet but in due degree actually becomes that
poet. The memorizer's own mind will henceforth be fused with the mind
of the poet and the latter will provide continual illumination, and
enhanced powers of verbalization, throughout life.”
“The Twin-Data-Stream Theory thus endorses the validity of the
classical, pre-modern view of the mind as being, at birth, virtually a
'tabula rasa'. The human mind needs to be stocked with knowledge in
order to become 'knowledgeable'. However, the new theory differs from
the conventional 'tabula rasa' belief in that it states that the mind
is not only capable of being stocked but that the knowledge with which
it is stocked will actually become a constituent of the individual
human being.”
“How the Brain Tells 'the Story of Me'”
By Paul Ableman
http://www.ahiddenplace.co.uk/twindatastream/chapter10.htm
An example of the importance of readily knowing the facts in memory
intensive subjects such as history is discussed in our next article.
“One of these higher benefits may be described as that of training the
critical faculty, through the effort to test the evidence for and
against particular historical facts, or what are alleged to be such.
Perhaps the very hardest thing to get at in this world is the truth,
the very truth, especially the very truth concerning the past
transactions of the human race. From this point of view, it is plain
that the study of history is something more than the passive reading
of certain finished and fascinating books, like Livy, for instance, or
Gibbon, or Thiers, or Macaulay, or Prescott, or Parkman; it is indeed,
the resolute and attentive application of the whole mind to an immense
and complicated subject, -- a process which cannot be carried on very
long without our running up against questions of disputed fact.”
“The Educational Value of the Study of History”
Moses Coit Tyler
http://eawc.evansville.edu/essays/tyler.htm
I have found this interesting article on the value of retaining memory
of certain facts in the field of anatomy and applying it in the study
of exercise physiology.
“It is entirely untrue that the power invested in memorization is
meaningless or a waste of time. To remember facts of diverse
dimensions, a person must have an excellent memory. All students (and
their professors for that matter) memorize bits and pieces of
different subject matter everyday. Remembering origins, insertions,
and functions are as important as remembering physiological
calculations to understand oxygen consumption or mean arterial
pressure. Is there any more sense of importance in remembering the
solution to a cardiac output calculation versus remembering the origin
of the pectoralis major. What about recalling the insertion of the
muscle or the role it plays in inward rotation? If a person should
know the right information about each question, what is the role of
recall? In short, being able to recall the “lateral lip of the
bicipital groove and the fact that the pectoralis major assists in
inward rotation bears directly on one’s ability to remember the
information."
“Anatomy: The Forgotten Piece of the Beginning”
Tommy Boone, PhD, MPH, FASEP, EPC
http://www.css.edu/users/tboone2/asep/ANATOMYandExercisePhysiologists.html
Search terms used:
Memorization value facts
I hope these links would help you in your research. Before rating this
answer, please ask for a clarification if you have a question or if
you would need further information.
Thanks for visiting us.
Regards,
Easterangel-ga
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