Rote Learning in the math class

I met an elderly man, probably seventy-five years old quite recently at Safeway, MacDonalds and had a long chat. He pursued Chemistry at the University of British Columbia (UBC) several years ago. I told him my program at UBC and excitedly disclosed what I was learning especially the ideas from Jo Boaler and how we could make mathematics more attractive and easy like making a cake with our students. He signed deeply and was quick to add, "Ah! Canada is always changing the way of teaching mathematics, yet children are not able to do simple calculations without resorting to the calculator". I asked how he was taught, and he mentioned drills with a firm teacher. He believes children should be able to memorize facts.

For teachers and parents and the rest of the world, it is such a joy to see our children recall facts from memory with little or no mistakes. For example, imagine a four-year-old being able to recite 4x table or 7x table. Who would not be awed at such ‘intelligence’ at that age? Repetition is fun especially when it involves very weird gestures or actions which depends on the teacher to make it interesting and playful. Eventually, children can understand the concept at that moment and may easily recall overtime, but how well can they relate what they have memorized to real life experiences or logic?

The traditionalists often support rote learning which is a memorization technique based on repetition to help students get to understand a concept. Most students tend to grasp the concept but are unable to generalize, cannot tell when an answer is wrong or cannot see alternate ways to get work done.   However, contemporary research has shown that there are other several ways to help children retain what they have learned forever other than memorization.

For my paper, I would like to discuss the implications of rote learning and how effectively teachers can use it to benefit their students in the math class.