memorization and creativity

I grew up in a communist country where the main (and perhaps the only) teaching style was memorization. I sometimes mention to people that somewhere in my teens I had to learn all capital cities. It wasn't fun at the time but it is fun to know it now.

I always claimed that memorization is such an important part of learning. I think that todays approach of 'we can find it on internet' is taking away our ability to be smart. My favorite example - historian must know his facts and a lot of them because to understand history one has to make connections and comparison to relevant historical events. In today mathematics the biggest breakthroughs are done when connecting two seemingly unrelated fields or sub-fields.

The other day i was listening to First Things podcast episode called 'The hardest course you will ever take' (link). They discuss a class that the famous poet W.H.Auden gave at University of Michigan. The most fascinating part for me was how important memorization was for Auden. How he would encourage (or force) his students to memorize large sections of text. and how much text he himself had memorized.

In conclusion, even to the most creative mind the way to succeed is to memorize.

THE HARDEST COURSE YOU’LL EVER TAKE

THE HARDEST COURSE YOU’LL EVER TAKE