Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit

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Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Overcast, Spotify, YouTube and many other platforms! Learning languages by heart in Sweden and China Rowena saw Poetry By Heart as a focus for changing this. After their first year, she described the impact on literacy: “Introducing more poetry into our school day has, without a doubt, helped to develop early literacy skills.

Not necessarily. My opinion on the role of learning by heart has changed over the years. When I started learning Chinese at university, I thought that committing large chunks of language to memory was something boring, old-fashioned and ineffective. Why try to remember something exactly as it was said or written? It seemed like a meaningless waste of effort for little gains. My dad just returned from Nauvoo, where he served as temple president. He is almost 80 now and sadly admits that he probably won’t stand on top of any of his favorite mountain peaks again. But he has those vistas that he loves so much stored in his memory bank, reminiscent of William Wordsworth’s poem about seeing a host of golden daffodils that Dad so often quoted to me: Dr Julie Blake, FEA, FRSL(Hon), co-directs Poetry By Heart, the national poetry speaking competition for schools. She researches and writes about the history of poetry for children, creates digital and print anthologies of poems for children and young people, teaches poetry pedagogy and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of poetry in the school English curriculum. Children should have the opportunity to explore a range of poems for themselves and find those that are special to them; special enough for them to learn, special enough to have a place in their future memory.

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Is it wrong to conflate the two? I think that would largely depend on who you were talking to. Personally I have never understood why 'memorisation' excluded the possibility of 'understanding'. After all actors and actresses learn their parts 'by heart', or is it 'by rote'? Any selection of poems to memorise should feature this classic example of nonsense verse. The full poem first appeared in Carroll’s 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, his superb follow-up book to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and as well as giving us several new words now in common use (see the link above to discover more, and to read the full poem), it is also a glorious short narrative poem about a hero slaying a monster. What’s not to like? From the beginning, the poets we listened to told us a different story. Most of them said that to have a poem in the memory, learned by heart, was a treasure to draw on throughout life. Denervaud, S.; Christensen, A.P.; Kenett, Y.N.; Beaty, R.E. Education shapes the structure of semantic memory and impacts creative thinking. NPJ Sci. Learn. 2021, 6, 35. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef]

No one can learn a poem by heart for you. You have to create your own relationship with the poem, discover what memory tactics work best for you, and keep going when it seems too difficult. More managed curriculum activities don’t always have this scope and teachers are often delighted by the gains in learning independence. Language When I was at primary school in the early 1950s we were encouraged to learn things 'by heart'. For example we learned all our times tables from 2 to 12 'by heart'. We learned poems by 'heart'. At that time the practice had not come under the sustained criticism of educationalists that it has today. And the expression 'learning by heart' had a nice gentle ring about it. Takahashi, E.; Ohki, K.; Miyashita, Y. The role of the parahippocampal gyrus in source memory for external and internal events. Neuroreport 2002, 13, 1951–1956. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef] Turesky, T.K.; Shama, T.; Kakon, S.H.; Haque, R.; Islam, N.; Someshwar, A.; Gagoski, B.; Petri, W.A.; Nelson, C.A.; Gaab, N. Brain morphometry and diminished physical growth in Bangladeshi children growing up in extreme poverty: A longitudinal study. Dev. Cogn. Neurosci. 2021, 52, 101029. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef] Denervaud, S.; Knebel, J.F.; Hagmann, P.; Gentaz, E. Beyond executive functions, creativity skills benefit academic outcomes: Insights from Montessori education. PloS ONE 2019, 14, e0225319. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef]Ansari, A.; Winsler, A. The long-term benefits of Montessori pre-K for Latinx children from low-income families. Appl. Dev. Sci. 2022, 26, 252–266. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef] Well-developed faith, intellect, and character prepare students for a lifetime of . . . service. . . . BYU students strengthen not only themselves—they “also bring strength to others in the tasks of home and family life, social relationships, civic duty, and service to mankind” (Mission Statement). [ Aims, 12]

Aminoff, E.M.; Kveraga, K.; Bar, M. The role of the parahippocampal cortex in cognition. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2013, 17, 379–390. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef] My own suspicion is that whilst they mean the same thing, learning 'by heart' sounded too wholesome and positive a learning experience for those people who wanted to get rid of the practice. So an altogether less enticing term was introduced. I may be completely wrong about this, but that is my impression.Learning by Heartrevels in rich storytelling to reveal why classrooms—or conversations—demand deep listening for anyone ready to learn the compelling lessons of the heart. His life quest and this book delivers.”— Hal Gregersen, Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center Adults are regularly surprised by the facility children seem to have for learning by heart, with varied reasons proposed such as less fear, the pliability of young brains, and more time to devote to it. There’s a general consensus that once you’ve learned one thing it’s easier to learn more things, a poem being a very good place to begin. Oracy I think on some mystical level that Jan Stewart and Corita Kent were joined at the tip in the creation of Learning by Heart. The mystery of life is apparent in the creative expression of their work together”—Bob Bates, Co-founder, Inner-City Arts

A scripture that aids in counseling a sorrowing friend; a hymn whose words and music express our most profound religious feelings when we are struggling with a matter of faith; . . . a technical point that helps us defend a position that is important for us, our family, or our community. [Todd A. Britsch, “Memorization: ‘Regurgitation’ or ‘Learning by Heart’?” Focus on Faculty 5, no. 3 (summer 1997): 2] You can test this for yourself by thinking about some of the nursery rhymes, songs and poems you learned when young, and the way these keep you company still. Lillard, A.S. Shunned and admired: Montessori, self-determination, and a case for radical school reform. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 2019, 31, 939–965. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef] Fan, Y.T.; Wu, C.Y.; Liu, H.L.; Lin, K.C.; Wai, Y.Y.; Chen, Y.L. Neuroplastic changes in resting-state functional connectivity after stroke rehabilitation. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2015, 9, 546. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef]

Author Contributions

Brigham Young stated: “We might ask, when shall we cease to learn? I will give you my opinion about it; never, never” ( JD 3:203). He also taught: “Our education should be such as to improve our minds and fit us for increased usefulness; to make us of greater service to the human family” ( JD 14:83). Liu, T.; Gao, F.; Zheng, W.; You, Y.; Zhao, Z.; Lv, Y.; Chen, W.; Zhang, H.; Ji, C.; Wu, D. Diffusion MRI of the infant brain reveals unique asymmetry patterns during the first-half-year of development. NeuroImage 2021, 242, 118465. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef]