> Following post was shared by Debasish Mukherjee.
This article is written in response to the comment at A Mediocre Guy : I Work 17 Hours per Day To Reach My Goals
Holla Friends! Dev here again. “Practice Makes a Man(Women too) Perfect!!”
We do know this famous saying don’t we!
And its obvious: To practice you have to invest time!
Now what is ROTE learning?
Can we define it as : “A PRACTICE IN WHICH AN INDIVIDUAL SIMPLY FOLLOWS STEPS TO ACCOMPLISH A TASK, WHICH ARE PRE-DEFINED AND ALMOST NEVER QUESTIONS THEIR VALIDITY OR NEVER TRIES TO LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVES!”
Practice Makes you perfect – Photo Credit
But hey! if we talk of practicing WHAT actually we do?
For example - you have an exercise on say Differential calculus at the end of your “Engineering Mathematics” Textbook (THE most feared paper I think) what do you do to solve it?
Don’t you use the procedures described in the text to find a solution?
Well, then we are FOLLOWING the definition of rote learning, aren’t we?
Seldom does a student question these procedures and (even) seldom do they look to solve them alternatively! Do we?
I NEVER did!
SO ARE THESE TWO THE SAME IN INDIAN LEARNING CONCEPT (I dont know of American students at BS level so would like to exclude them)?
But anyone would say no they are different.
Then what is the difference?
Now to explain this let me give you an example of a Pizza boy!
You call up and order a pizza and just give your address to the representative on the phone and sometimes you give a landmark!
But do you bother about how the poor pizza boy would find your address but you get the order by half an hour if I am not wrong
SO HOW DOES HE FIND YOUR ADDRESS?
Very nice Dev…… you have written right things…… But just think, how many people try to walk on hard path when there is a easy way in front of them????
Naturally understanding needs more time and effort than just rote, isn’t it ????
If I talk of my memorizing skills, I AM A BIG LOOSER and I really feel sorry! So in my undergrad the things that my faculties cudnt xplain and on which I didnt find any books or such things are still VAGUE to me!! Well its NEVER late when you realize!! right??
Loved your post. I can fully empathize with what has been written.
I totally concede in your idea, esp being a student from the Communication undergrad background I could totally relate to your example of FT and FS. A lot of the time students dont learn but just rote it down to clear the exam and dont care about the learning’s future implications.
I have always been a patron of the understand and learn approach and really find that helpful at this stage of this my studies when I am pursuing my MS in US.
In which uni are you?? and Major?? Could you please hep me get grasp of FS & FT in detail! You I had hate these but still I am curious!!! Now I am not asking of a lecture on HSB but some books or websites where the topic is NOT taught but is MADE TO UNDERSTAND!!
oops I missed a “know” in the 2nd line
Wonderful post!!!!
Unfortunately education system in India encourages rote learning.
But raghu in the long run the way the Indian mind is trained because of our schooling system it thrives and adapts in any enviroment where the systems are in place(aka developed countries)…..all indians need is self confidence…even in american universities indians excel because the way our mind is trained through our schooling is that we can pick up any skill in 2-3 weeks…mind is like a muscle and we go through a lot of stress testing intially….
I would encourage indians not to give up on our system because thats the one thing we have….highly trained minds…we just need the right systems in place(which is the responsibility of the corrupt fuckin politicians) ….but if we change our high school education system without first changing our university and college system…then its game over…we will lose the one skill that makes us stand out in this world…physically we re not the best looking bunch of people or the tallest or the strongest….but our minds are sharp and trained…we need to continue to leverage that…..the other thing is its rubbish that we are not entrepreneurial or creative…look at silicon valley…look at wall street look at canada , london….indians are starting companies everywhere ….even in the beareucratic mess in india indians are starting companies….so its a system thats missing……rote learning has its advantages..its bootcamp for the human brain….serves well in the long run…i rote learned merchant of venice and julius caesar and tempest and poems and history and geography for my 10th standard ICSE…guess what…8 years later i remember it word to word…and the knowledge helps me connect with people who are literature majors or theatre majors over here in america
thanx
what is your score anu…first attempt …secound attempt score…
keep looking for external validation …….you have some serious issues….you sound like a frustrated chump….oh and a piece of advice…applications are a holistic processs…your gre is but a tick mark on the admission committee members file….
Frustrated????? ME???? NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOHH!!! What made you infer that?? What i wanted to tell you that taking up time to study does not imply Iam Rote learning!!! JUST THAT!!!
Now you called me a CHUMP right??? So naturally i should get angry and blast you right??? But what happened is I learned a new word. Yeah i didnt know that word!! Thanks! See its about the thinking process only!!! BTW you still cant get my POINT!!! Its not about GRE!!!! Its about the WHOLE Learning thing and GRE is just a part of this BIG THING!!! Whatever, I have tried my best!! GOD BLESS YOU!
Very true! Actually working to understand something is a much better method than rote memorization. In fact, though it may take you more time in the beginning, later on in life it will actually save you more time!
And my friend TA says I am frustrated!!! LOL
practice makes man perfect. For me it applies in taking GRE second time.