Memory As A Tool of Learning
We have had another great week of school at Pinnacle Classical Academy! The students are already beginning to settle into a new routine, and all around us minds are digging into the wonder of God’s creation and the story into which He has woven us. It is a great time to be young at Pinnacle Classical, because right now is when so many important impressions, habits and skills are forming.
Take memorization, for example. Sometimes people ask us why this is so heavily emphasized early in a classical education. Well, truthfully, it’s a lot like any other skill. Perhaps it doesn’t come easily at first, but after exercise of the “memory muscle” through chants, Scripture memory and (just plain fun) poems, the brain actually expands its ability to memorize quickly. Like a guitar player who plays every day and gets faster and better, the student who memorizes constantly finds that it comes more and more easily each time. And what a gift this is to give a young learner!
At Pinnacle, each stage of education builds upon the previous one, and the memorization skills established in the Grammar phase are a tremendous resource to take into middle and high school. Memorization is one of the “tools of learning” that helps build our students into lifelong learners, ready to encounter, sift, integrate and understand whatever new information comes their way.
