Memory is a muscle

“I don’t remember!” Many a student has been heard to cry about something told to them not forty-five minutes prior. This made me think. 

As a child we would need to remember phone numbers. I remember playing memory games as a child. My parents would place ten objects on a table and each time take one away asking me to remember what was there. We sang songs about shopping lists, we played card games.  Where back then we would need to remember what had happened the week before in Star Trek, we are now reminded each episode what just happened the hour before. Where before we would need to remember the events in the previous chapter of our books, now there is no need to remember anything when you click on an uncontextual and isolated video clip. 

Exercising memory skills is something we can train our children to do with easy games and quizzes. It’s true we are moving into unchartered waters regarding the necessary skills for their future lives, but memory has served us all well over time, and is a crucial part of gaining and maintaining knowledge and references.  

Sam is an English tutor with Newman Tuition, and has led the KS3 and GCSE curriculum for a large English school department. To book a lesson with her, or one of our other excellent tutors, please call us on 020 3198 8006, email us at [email protected], or complete the form on the ‘Contact Us’ page.