I am writing this letter to you today to introduce to you an opinion of a student who has reached the collegiate level. Having gone through many years of school and experienced many different teaching styles from a variety of teachers, I have noticed many common trends in classrooms. While some of these trends are effective in teaching students information many are unable to develop a student’s individual abilities. Personally I have an issue with the practice of memorization and its importance to a student’s learning in all classrooms. Starting as early as kindergarten students are required to start memorizing things from mathematical equations to the steps of a biological pathway. This memorization, while helpful in allowing students to learn important information which they will use in their further academic careers such as mathematics and the spelling of words, can also be a pointless attempt to force students to learn material for an approaching test which they will then forget and possibly never remember following the an examination. I am not simply stating this to suggest that memorization should be completely removed from the classroom and the academic curriculum of a student but simply just revised to only contain the most important material.
I have multiple personal experiences in which I have been forced to learn material through memorization just to realize that following the test I can no longer recollect the material past a few simple details. A very similar experience occurred this year in one of my classes. My professor openly told the class that the material is something that we just have to memorize and there is no other way to teach it. Having had trouble memorizing the material I had been watching videos online on helpful hints to understanding the subject. In one of the videos the instructor after describing the process even stated that in today’s world there is no need for anyone to be forced to memorize this material and that it is simply a waste of time for students to learn this. I believe that this type of teaching does not truly help to develop the students and that there is a more effective way of teaching all material. Also this type of teaching distracts the class from the material which could be more thoroughly reviewed so that students may apply what they learn to their future lives. Also students should be able to learn things that are interesting to them so that they will be more motivated to learn.
I would like to challenge you to change the curriculum of classrooms all across the nation and at all levels. Teachers should focus more on the development of the students and focus their topics on what is interesting to the development of the students beyond simply the basic and necessary material.
Sincerely,
Jake Leinas