Memorizing Quotations | Page 2

I'm not sure how young kids get to the point where they're memorizing and knowing songs, but I knew the words to 'Missing You' from John Waite probably from when I was three years old. For whatever reason, that was the song that I gravitated toward when it was on the radio and I was driving around with my mom.

Our class has been working since January reading and studying the process of Shakespeare's work trying to understand the language and the scripts. It's challenging. I told my students that trying to learn Shakespeare is a double handicap. Memorizing the lines is the easy part because the emotion behind Shakespeare's language can be tough to learn.

I am terrible at memorizing things. Hence, ad-libbing.

This is definitely the most demanding role I've ever had. It's almost like a job. I've found myself having to do research and really work at this character. It's much harder memorizing lines when they're all in a thick Irish accent.

It really is a forensics type of competition. It is not just like being in play and memorizing everything. They have to think on their feet. That is why it is such a wonderful learning experience.

The sport of competitive memorizing is driven by a kind of arms race where every year somebody comes up with a new way to remember more stuff more quickly, and then the rest of the field has to play catch-up.

Seriously, who really cares how long the Nile river is, or who was the first to discover cheese? How is memorizing that ever going to help anyone? Instead, we need to give kids projects that allow them to exercise their minds and discover things for themselves.