Nalini’s book is out today!
In honor of Nalini’s release, I bring you a memory test.
So this got me thinking – I know that a lot of us exaggerate our school experiences, having walked uphill both ways barefoot in the snow, but it seems to me that my kids do a lot less memorization than I did. We memorized poems at least once every couple of weeks through elementary school and had to recite them before class. I still remember chunks and pieces.
Like this one, except in Russian:
XLVI
``To me, Onegin, all this glory
is tinsel on a life I hate;
this modish whirl, this social story,
my house, my evenings, all that state --
what's in them? All this loud parading,
and all this flashy masquerading,
the glare, the fumes in which I live,
this very day I'd gladly give,
give for a bookshelf, a neglected
garden, a modest home, the place
of our first meeting face to face,
and the churchyard where, new-erected,
a humble cross, in woodland gloom,
stands over my poor nurse's tomb.
{230}
It’s a very long poem about a country noble girl who falls in love with the rake and it does not go well.
My Russian teacher would murder me for this summary.
Okay, so I will try again. It’s a very touching and sad story about the life of a rake in Imperial Russia. He visits a country estate where a noble girl falls very much in love with him. He gives her a cut – she is just a country girl with her nose stuck in a book, she doesn’t glitter or shine, and he doesn’t want to ruin an innocent when he is not that attracted to her. Years later she is a wife of a much older prominent nobleman, admired and viewed as the epitome of what a Russian noble woman should be. The rake loses his head and falls in love with her and makes an utter fool of himself until he finally manages to see her in private. And she delivers the most well known lines in Russian literature:
XLVII
``Bliss was so near, so altogether
attainable!... But now my lot
is firmly cast. I don't know whether
I acted thoughtlessly or not:
you see, with tears and incantation
mother implored me; my sad station
made all fates look the same... and so
I married. I beseech you, go;
I know your heart: it has a feeling
for honour, a straightforward pride.
I love you (what's the use to hide
behind deceit or double-dealing?)
but I've become another's wife --
and I'll be true to him, for life.''
Natasha was the ideal of a Russian woman. It’s all about duty and honor and we had to memorize huge chunks of this, which eventually did make me hate it. They do make excellent break-up lines.
But anyhow, we memorized things constantly. The only thing my kids had to memorize was the multiplication table. I honestly can’t recall them having to recite anything. I think they would go into conniption fits if they had to do it.
Is it my Russian edumucation or did people used to memorize and recite more? What do you remember from your childhood?
Ilona, you’re right about kids not being required to memorize anything except for their basic math facts these days. I would be one of those teachers who doesn’t require memorization of poetry or other pieces of literature. I couldn’t tell you why the educational system has gotten away from the practice aside from the personal trauma teachers may have suffered as children.
I remember as a 5th grader having to memorize the Gettysburg Address. No matter how hard I tried, I could never get through the entire address. Then I got sick and my teacher forgot to have me make it up. I believe in Divine Intervention!
Nope kids don’t have to memorize today. My son didn’t even memorize the times tables (a crime).
I went to school in the 80′s and only had to memorize a few things.
Oh wait I take that back! Son has had to memorize two things, The Pledge & the pledge to the Texas State flag (yes they really do stuff like that in TX).
I had to memorize a list of prepositions, which I forgot, and a list of certain conjugated verbs, which I remember: “Is am are was were has have had be being been do does did shall should will would may might must can could.” No idea why I had to memorize that and even after my degree in a foregn language, which made me very familiar with grammar, I can’t classify all those words in a single category in which they all fit. I can also sing (yes, sing
) the 50 states in alphabetical order, which has come in handy in ways I never imagined. Assuming the number of states stays the same, I will be teaching this song to my kids. The multiplications tables have stuck in my brain, too, and I’m glad they did. I do wish that I’d memorized some other things, though. It would be nice to pull out random witticisms in appropriate moments, even just in my own head.
That is too funny. I was just thinking the only thing that I memorized that stuck with me was the states song. In music we had to sing the states in alphabetical order. Oh, and the Dr. Suess poem I memorized for Drama. It has been usefull in boring my kids to sleep many nights.
I am going with “Russian Edumucation” being the cause. When I started taking Russian language courses in college in the early 90s(my instructor was a grandmotherly native Russian) I had to memorize more lines of poetry than the sum total of all items memorized in my first 12 years of education.
I have to admit, I rather enjoyed it.
Woot! to Nalini for her release, by the way.
My son has had to memorize things for school. Most recently (as in the last couple of weeks) Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven. (He’s in 9th grade now). When he was in elementary school, they had to memorize poems and specifically studied memorization strategies.
I went to a Christian school and we had to memorize Bible verses. And some speeches and pledges and things like that. I think it’s good to memorize things. I should make my kids do that anyway. Hehehe, they’d probably mutiny
For two years I dutifully memorized a verse a day. Then it occured to me that I hadn’t known what a verse was day one at that christian school, so Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind if I stopped.
I was wrong. They got a list of the verses I failed to learn and I didn’t get to leave the house over Xmas break ’til I could recite them all. I don’t remember them now, but anything I want to memorize is very shortly MINE. Otherwise there were poems, speeches, the states, multiplication tables, etc., all of which I remember. (BTW: School House Rock! If you’re not old enough to remember, you missed out!)
I’ve run across far too many kids, of late, who can’t work a math problem without a calculator. Very sad.
=A
We didn’t have to memorize that often, but I remember some poems, and I know that once we should memorize five lines in latin -I think it was the opening of the Aeneis- at which I failed completely. I still like to memorize poems I like, and to recite them to myself when I’m utterly bored.
Other than the Pledge of Allegiance (and they don’t even do that now) and multiplication tables, the only thing as a kid we really had to memorize was vocabulary lists and the sentences that went with them. A list of 20 words, that grew to 50 as we progressed through junior high. I still remember “PEMDAS”(Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally) from pre-algebra! (*snort*) Not very helpful, but 15 years later, I still know it and the order in which to do math.
On a side note though, both my parents are teachers. My stepdad makes his 3rd grade class memorize the presidents and the years in which they served. My mom tries to make her 8th graders memorize the periodic chart. I wish my teachers had been a little more on it in regards to geography. Which I hated as a kid, but that knowledge would come in handy now.
I don’t know what the early grades are like for kids in the English program up here (in Canada), but I spent five years in French immersion and we memorized stuff like crazy. It wasn’t always presented as memorization, though… it was just normal to go through the past tense of avoir and être every morning after announcements. We also memorized all sorts of stuff about English grammar once we started taking English in third grade. We had dictées pretty often-I think that’s “dictation” in English?-and memorized math stuff, too. But we didn’t often memorize poetry. When I was in grade seven (and in an English program) we started doing Shakespeare, and from that year onwards we always memorized part of whichever play we were doing for the year.
We did a lot of memorization, as well. I can remember some form or another from kindergarten (ABC song, with the letter sounds paired with a word…ie “A-a-apple, b-b-ball…”) through senior year when we had to memorize the prologue to the Canterbury tales. In Middle English. “Whan that appril with his shoures soote, the droghte of march hath pierced to the roote..” I still remember the whole damned thing. Drives my husband crazy when I abruptly burst into recitation while cooking dinner.
we had to memorize quite a few things when I was in school. Der Zauberlehrling comes to mind. I can still recite huge chunks of it.
Hat der alte Hexenmeister… and so on. German/Austrian/Swiss people most likely will know what I’m talking about.
And of course a big YAAAAAAAY for the release!!!!
Besen, Besen, sei’s gewesen!
Yep, I remember it. We even listened to the composition that goes with it.
und nun komm du alter besen, nimm die… hm schlechten? …lumpenhüllen, bist schon lange knecht gewesen, nun erfülle meinen willen
walle, walle, manche strecke, dass zum zwecke wasser fließe und so weiter und so weiter…. aaaaaaaaaaaargh.
got it stuck in my head now again.
Congrats Nalini!
Maybe it depends on the school – we memorized our assets off. History, French, English, Math, Chemistry (how can you actually learn Chemistry without some memorizing?), etc.
My parents and sister are all teachers. They inform me that the country went through a new-fangled edumacation phase that removed all memorization (removing the learning too I would think) as being too boring or something. Hence the no times tables. That is now going away, thankfully.
I myself did not last long as a teacher. I did not make it much beyond the first time someone asked me if they really had to do the homework (or the time someone insisted there was no need for writing skills in modern life). My responses were not diplomatic.
I can still remember the first paragraph of the Gettysburg Address from my fourth grade teacher making us remember it.
Oh yes, memorization all the time. Of all kinds of things. Poems, dates, etc. As I reached high school in the mid-90s, this was falling out of favor (at least in Michigan) in an attempt to be more accomodating to those with various learning disabilities.
As a person with pretty severe stage fright who was forced to work through it for these memorization/recital thingies, I have trouble finding the sympathy I probably should. Just ’cause something’s hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, that sort of thing.
Anywho…
Congrats Nalini! I remember having to memorize poems, the states their locations, the Presidents, the African Countries, the times tables up to 12×12, monologues from plays…Lots of things. Can still recite some of those too. Scary.
Failed the memory test tho..it kept telling me I was cheating and I don’t know how.
In grade school, I remember having to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution and part of the Gettysburg address. Those are the two major chunks of memorizing I remember. Of course there were loads of little things like Roy G. Biv (the colors of the rainbow) and that little poem about how many days are in each month (that one has come in handy a lot).
My eldest is only in 2nd grade and so far he’s had to memorize the Pledge of Allegiance and the school fight song. He can also recite entire episodes of SpongeBob, but that hasn’t been requested in class…yet.
I’ve had to memorize things for school. Not very many things in elementary school, but in 4th grade everyone in my class had to memorize a speech and present it to the parents of the class. And we learned the Preamble to the Constitution, in 5th and 8th grades (go Schoolhouse Rock!). And my English classes in 6th and 7th and 12th grades had me memorizing poetry (the beginning of Hiawatha, a few lines about the charge of the light brigade, and a Shakespearean sonnet are the only things I still remember). Poetry kind of has a way of sticking in my head, I think, because I unintentionally memorized some of The Walrus and The Carpenter by hearing my friend recite it a ton.
We had to memorize Chaucer.
I hated Chaucer.
Me, too. (see above.) Do not hate! He was so delightfully… Naughty…
Me too. I had to memorize the first part of The Prologue of THE CANTERBURY TALES in the original middle english. PAINFUL
I remember memorizing part of MacBeth’s Out Out Damn Spot. It is funny what you can remember now from that memorization.
That’s how I got through my exams…memorization. When I was in college I’d just finished my final for Ancient Civilizations and then went home for the holidays. We happened to have the King Tut exhibit in town and when we went, I told my mom and dad SO much stuff that wasn’t on the wall plaques that their eyes were bugging. Couldn’t tell you squat about it now. LOL!
“To be or not to be, that is the question,
Whether tis better…”
“Put out the light, then put out the light”
I iz Shakespeare geek and proud of it.
I’m from Germany and to be honest I had to memorize quite some things but I forgot most of them (I’ve never been good at remembering such stuff anyway)
ther are only a few really silly things that I somehow still remember
e.g. a poem in ‘Plattdeutsch’ (Low German?)
Rode Gruedd, rode Gruedd,
Kiek mal wat luett Heini it,
Ans herum dat wer vergeeten.
rode Grüedd, dat is en Eeten
it’s about a boy called Heini who’s eating red fruit jelly and loves it so much that he forgets everything around him
My kids have had to memorize and recite poetry and other things historical. Both in private elementary school and public junior high and high school. My girls love it and get all dramatic about it.
I remember the poems I had to recite when i was in high school, and I would like to think that I wasn’t that long ago (like 7 years). It did help my memory improve and we got to choose which poem. Since I love poetry I always chose the one I liked and not the “shorter one”, but at least many of my teammates that never ever read anything, that wasn’t in a newspaper on the soccer section, got to read some beautiful lines.
I still remember mostly everything from my favorite one from Alfonsina Storni about dying at the sea.