Flash Cards to Remember More of What We Studied Long Term

[dfrecore]

Decades ago, when the price of hand-held calculators first became reasonable, a kid I was babysitting for got a came (?Mr. Professor?) that included a hand-held calculator. She instantly started to use it to do her homework. I remember her talking to some friend on the telephone about homework. While I can't remember the math problem,  she told her friend the answer to a math problem, and the answer was WAY off. The obviously didn't have the foundation down to use the tool.

As I've gotten older, I feel as though IQ points are just falling out of my ears, so I can see where someone would want to reinforce what seems to be lost or forgotten. The fellow who won the most money on Jeopardy, Ken Jennings,  is quoted on this site https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/paper-road-map/. It's about his position on paper maps versus GPS. Looking some esoteric fact up on the Internet is one thing, I think that the description of learning and understanding when using a paper map versus GPS probably holds true for learning and understanding in general. You have to have a solid basis of knowledge and understanding before going and the Internet. It can too easily become a crutch, and with some of the stuff on the Internet, it's a weak crutch.

I did not say to never learn the information.  I certainly didn't let my kids use a calculator when they were learning how to add in elementary school.  But now that they know how to do that (they're high school), I certainly wouldn't expect them to never use a calculator to add up the groceries they're buying if they can't do it in their heads.  That would be silly.

Trying to remember everything you've ever learned is just not possible.  But learning what something is now, and then in 20 years if you're asked about it, if you do a quick look up, and it's "oh yeah, now I remember," that's fine.  There's nothing wrong with that.  As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure your brain can only handle so much information, and then if you're counting on remembering every single thing, you just can't.