When a good memory works against you
Friday, April 30, 2010 at 06:51AM 
I was visiting with a local Verizon telephone support person yesterday (we were both chaperones on a middle school field trip - great fun). She made an interesting comment about her job.
When someone calls with a question about his/her cell phone operations, the person providing support is expected to use a database to get the correct answer. If the support person does not go to the database but relies on memory instead, it will result in a negative performance evaluation. Things change so quickly in the field that not checking for the most recent "fix" is irresponsible.
A system that rewards good interpersonal skills and the ability to find and use information? A system in which a good memory is not only unecessary but possibly a liability?
The ability to memorize has always been a critical skill for success in traditional education. (Memorize the capitols of all the countries in Central America, the quadratic equation, today's Spanish vocabulary words, the three branches of government, the dates of World War II ... )
Are we rewarding an obsolete skill set when we give top grades to those with good memories? After all, wouldn't you want your physician, car mechanic, airline pilot, etc. checking for updates rather than relying on a good memory?
Painting - Dali's "Persistence Of Memory"
Reader Comments (6)
I'm not sure having a good memory is ever a liability, but choosing to rely on it inappropriately certainly could be detrimental.
In my experience, people are very good at remembering what's personally important to them. Period. The time spent memorizing arbitrary facts during my youth was mostly a waste. Sure, I remember some of the state capitals, and I know my multiplication tables, but I would have anyway.
It always comes back to teaching kids how to think, not what to think.
How about when a good memory works for you? If I am at the emergency room, bleeding profusely, do I really want to wait while staff look up the appropriate treatment for that, or what possible vessels are bleeding? Maybe I want to cook dinner, but I don't have time to look up a recipe. What about the time the OPAC says we don't have a book, but I know we do, and I walk the student right over to the shelf where it is.
Don't devalue a good memory. I think there is room for both skill sets.
Doug - like most things in education (and elsewhere) this really isn't an either/or question. To answer it in that manner would not give credit where it is due.
Is memorization necessary? To some extent, yes. Math calculations can be extremely long and frustrating for the person who cannot recall simple math facts with automaticity. I have used this multiple times today (I made half my normal amount of coffee today and needed to reduce the grounds by 1/2 too).
But, seeing how this is not an either/or conversation (we either need memorization or we don't), we may certainly be overemphasizing the need for memorization in schools. I'd love to say we are much different today than when I was in school, but it is hard to get an accurate read.
Many of my college level exams in history classes were strictly recall (place these events in order) - oddly, at the same college, my most challenging exam came in the same content area (Does history make the person, or does the person make history - pick one and persuade me that you've chosen well).
We need a lot of things in terms of people-processing - maybe we need to focus on the right skills....?
For the importance of memory, may I suggest Daniel Willingham's _Why Don't Students Like School?_? He gives a good description of the difference between an expert and an amateur, and how memory plays into that (the way we can chunk material to keep in working memory better as an expert, and the fact that we cannot change the amount of working memory we have, but we CAN change the amount we can chunk together.) Memorization is one way we can increase the size of those chunks.
I don't think there's any question here: a good memory is vital in an expert, and some memorization is necessary to the student of any field. An expert must remember what was right before, when to look for a new answer, how to find what's right now, and how to compare these. A librarian, for instance, is better at locating information with more experience - and he or she is trained not just to use what he/she knows, but to look at resources before giving an answer as well. And think how much better the librarian is at searching for an answer when he/she has experience! That memory guides search terms and the places searched.
The issue seems to me to have little to do with "rewarding" memorization skills and much more to do with expecting people to keep up with trends and changes while retaining all the knowledge they had before.
There's a place for both. It's fine for me to remember and ask after a student's assignment, book choice, etc (it goes well with interpersonal skills). It is not good if I keep my records of their fine payment in my head instead of recording it properly so that other staff can access the information.
We need to remember the search strategies so that we can look stuff up in online databases so that we aren't relying on our memo-- hang on...
Hi All,
I think the point of the story is over-relying on memory in situations where the pace of change is rapid. Given my decreasing memory power, perhaps I wishfully read more into this than is warranted!
Doug