"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India” - Max Mueller
And as legend would have it, ours is a system that relied on committing to memory as a main tool of transfer of knowledge.
The 21st century, true to the claims of the contemporary world has brought knowledge at the finger ends. Anyone has only to wave his finger at a touch screen of the smart phones, ask for any information in whichever field with a few cue words and there opens up an infinite option of information to choose from and zero down on the specific knowledge to be constructed.
The explosive use of the digital tools in every walk of life has become increasingly evident even to the commonest of men. The smallest of provision shops has a youngster who with just the knowledge of numbers could punch in the costs and know the sum due to him with the simplest calculator being one of his investments in business. The bigger malls have more sophisticated machines and the one who could manage the machine managed huge transactions. The so called user friendly contraptions require a very few fertile minds who could train a higher evolved mind on several life problems and come out with a solution, thereby letting the majority minds to be content with the fruits sans the life skills to grow them.
Thus though the contemporary world criticizes the erstwhile concept of knowledge confined to a chosen few called the Brahmins, the great divide between the demands for elite minds vs common minds has perpetually grown wider. A logical consequence is the implication in the Education sector which is essentially Human Resources Development machinery. For all the lofty ideals of the curriculum framers in creating quality minds for the country the final outcome suffers due to layers of dilution so as to accommodate the large scale heterogeneity born out of diverse vested interests affecting the democratic polity of the country.
One such dilution occurred when the capacity to commit to memory, retain, recall and apply has been in a nutshell rejected in the name of rote memory leaving children who could not quote any great man’s thought or remember things that could possibly be ruminated for a higher order comprehension and further evolution at a later date when the mind has matured through more experiences since the day of logging them in the memory. Had they not been logged at all will they be available for a refined appreciation?Many a time several disjoint tidbits in my memory have coalesced into philosophical realizations.
While addressing an audience, whenever I have spoken extempore, when thoughts had flown out and poured out as a verbal discourse the audience have acclaimed that I had spoken from the heart. As a teacher when I had conducted the students along the path of known to unknown at the end of the journey there always had been an assurance that I have reached out to their souls whenever such journey had been in processing thoughts that had a place in my mind and not on any textual materials.
Indeed a perfect communion has to always traverse through the minds and the mind must be able to perceive independently. For this the only instrument is our brain and it has to be trained to receive in RAM and later log in its long term memory. A doctor has to remember all the nerves and ligaments, a pilot his controls. One who cultivates the brain to hold and retrieve knowledge is able to automate actions and render a holistic approach to them, thus displaying an all-round efficiency in results.
“The human brain contains roughly 100 billion neurons [Author's note: closer to 86 billion actually, but now we're just nitpicking]. Each of these neurons seems capable of making around 1,000 connections, representing about 1,000 potential synapses, which largely do the work of data storage. Multiply each of these 100 billion neurons by the approximately 1,000 connections it can make, and you get 100 trillion data points, or about 100 terabytes of information.” - Forrest Wickman
Thus the potential of the human brain to store information is immense. The processing of information is also branched and is complex with such inputs of evaluation that occur in unknown realms of human consciousness.
To let such a gift rust and accumulate dust with lazy and short cuts to learning that are forced from external tools, belies the basic aim of education. If education is internalization and construction of knowledge, the evaluation of one’s experiences should also come from within. What else is available to achieve such a feat except the human brain?
Committing to memory is not advocated to be the end of learning. But definitely it aids and enhances faster and more meaningful learning. Only the methods adopted to promote this should not be punitive or an imposition in nature. The training should be to increase the attention and focus of the senses in their response to stimuli. Concentration is the secret to increasing the retention of the brain. Repetition should be limited to the fact and not in its presentation. The variety of approach to the same fact definitely helps to receive and retain better.
Let us encourage our children to repeat what great men and women have spoken and remember them. Let them commit to memory unquestioningly the available wisdom but not stop there. Let them mull over it with an open mind and who knows they may be the harbingers of changed perspectives and proponents of new dimensions to the erstwhile great thoughts.
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