The Art of Memory - Essay Example

The Art of Memory Introduction Enthymeme: in the modern can gain more knowledge and recall more information using memorization techniques. According to Foer, the art of memory comprises of variety of methods used to retain knowledge that has been acquired recently (Foer, Pg. 5). Students who study for examinations face challenges in remembering information and thus they are forced to repeat the learned words of a written description until the words stick in the mind. Since early periods of time, scholars experienced similar challenges while attempting to discover ways to improve their level of intelligence. 1. Background on Raemon Mathews “Talented Tenth” and his memorization technique According to Foer, Raemon Matthews had the notion of improving the art of memory despite popular belief (Foer, pg. 4). Matthews established a group of African Americans known as the “Talented Ten” to participate in U.S Memory Championship. He made his students write essays using a minimum of two remembered quotations while in class. This technique proved to improve the memory ability of the African American students at the time. He aimed at improving the living standards of these students through better education techniques. These students were intensively trained on how to memorize all the learned information to the extent of studying how to cram for extra hours. Hence, he introduced the Rote memorization technique where students were expected to cram information and use it during exams. The basis of the technique was to empower the students with the ability to retain information learned using particular memorizing styles. Raemon opinion about memory method: According to Freire, Matthew argues that education is the simplest method of improving memorization (Page 11). He says. “You make monkeys memorize, whereas education is the ability to retrieve information at will and analyze it.”Matthews provides an informative insight into how students can perform better in exams given that education is a significant factor. He argues that it enables the student to understand information that will be memorized and can be accessed at any time. Matthews believes that through provision of facts to students, they can add more information to their memory. Once the students learn the information they can easily analyze it. 2. Background of Tony Buzan: Tony Buzan is an example of student who began to read up on ways of improving his memory after understanding that his best friend who always came last in class had a good memory as compared to him. He started having interest in college and begun with Reading Greek and Roman reminders that gave him the ability to remember information about previous studies. Buzan began to apply the mapping technique when studying for exams and after being successful, he applied the mind memory technique to teach his students. The technique proved to be resourceful since students who were previously poor performers begun to achieve perfect scores in their tests. Buzan states, “For some of the students who had never got a perfect score on an exam, this was quite a revelation (Foer, p.10).” He was referring to the improvement the students had achieved after teaching them the art of memory. Mind Mapping is memorization techniques created by Tony Buzan and borrows its concepts from old rote memorization technique. It involved note taking of the key points that facilitated innovation and composition with no brainstorming with unnecessary information. This was the key difference from the rote memorization technique. The technique describes how information is summarized into little words and use of images to create an association of information that repeats itself when retrieved by the student. Using this technique, students could acquire more ideas and information that allowed them to create new ideas with ease. How Mind Mapping helps students: Students who utilize the process of memorizing information can become more creative. This is because their brains are trained to be able to recall old ideas to make new ones by reflecting on previous knowledge. Mary Carruthers argues, “As an art, memory was most importantly associated in the Middle Ages with composition, not simply with retention (Foer, p.9).” Students are able to develop memory enhancement through reading and understanding of information that becomes attached to their brains. Later the student can use mind mapping to retrace information in the form of images and establish a way of developing creativity. The art of memory is a way of disrupting previous attitude of memorization to reform the process of memory training. The art of memory provides students with the opportunity to become more creative while improving their ability to memorize information. According to Foer, this can be proven from researchers who offered students with massive content to read (Page 7). This then involved placing a test where a half of the students used a mind mapping technique and the other half used the normal note taking technique. Students who used mind mapping had higher knowledge retention ability. Mind Mapping allows a student to develop new ideas by rearranging information gathered from previous period and converting information into images and restructure a way of describing them on paper. 3. Using memory method According to Freire, when people establish important facts about a situation Mind Mapping becomes an easy experience (Page 10). People who find themselves in problems in the future usually recall past experiences to learn solutions. This is because they attempt to remember what is significant and build on that information to solve their present problem. Using Mind Mapping, a person can draw ides they have repeated before to establish solutions. When recalling information, the imagery of the scenario creates a process of brainstorming that allows the person to connect distant ideas that form a comprehensive framework of how to tackle an issue. Using education, the person learns how to remember basic information that transmits an understanding of how information applies to one’s culture from a unique perspective. When the facts are understood, the information can be memorized with ease and more accuracy. This creates a network of larger facts that allows a person to think different. The person is able to retrieve detailed parts of information using Mind Mapping and establish a new way of thinking. From this process, the person can create a solution to their present problem. Counter argument Education is seen as a system where students deposit information into their brains but are unable to learn because they do not understand the information (Keightley, p.10). Mnemonics ensures that the student can retrieve the information without utilizing lot of brain energy. In addition, the student is able to recall full content rather than small pieces of information to build on the immediate future as required (Torokhti & Howlett, p. 8). However, Matthew believes that the students can benefit from the process given that they learn information that is less likely to be forgotten. This is because the student can learn but not understand the information (Freire, p.6). Matthews states that providing students with basic facts allows their memory to build as it establishes familiar conceptualization of information. Students are able to become more creative from adding information to previous knowledge. This is because it forms a pattern that they can relate as they imagine the facts. This method allows students to benefit because they can understand the information they learn in class. Conclusion Through Buzan we have learned that a person can expand his memory by creating an image of the information being taught. Buzan was able to establish this notion of Mind Mapping that borrows its concept from old memory system. Instead of filling the mind with facts, Buzan illustrates a method of memorizing information efficiently and can be retrieved at will. The technique proves to be a success since the number of students in his class excels in a test after being declared illiterate. Matthews argues with the idea but adds that establishing basic knowledge during the process of learning provides an efficient method of improving the ability of memorization and retrieving information. The compelling arguments are able to assist students perform better in their exams because it builds on the aspect of individual conception of information while discovering a method of creating new strategies. The scholars present students and researchers with an opportunity to build on the current information. In addition, they can recall previous information to establish methods of solving problems in the future. Works Cited Foer, J. Moonwalking with Eistein: Penguin Books, 2011. 1-13, E-book. http://www.academia-research.com/filecache/instr/f/o/1056799_foer.pdf. Freire, P. The “Banking” Concept of Education: 1st ed. 2000.1-12, E-book. http://learning.writing101.net/wpcontent/readings/freire_the_banking_concept_of_education.pdf. Keightley, E. Research methods for memory studies: Edinburgh University Press.2013 Torokhti, A& Howlett, P.G. Computational methods for modeling of nonlinear systems: Elsevier. 2007. Read More