What I Learned from What I Don’t Remember

How does what I DON'T remember shape how I live and learn with my children? 
What I don't remember  helped me  to focus on what is important and to avoid the things that will be lost to time.

I have many memories of elementary school, junior high, high school, and college but it’s what I don’t remember that really alarms me.  I don’t remember much about what I was supposed to have learned in my 13+4 years of schooling.  I have memories, but much of what I learned is lost forever because it was not used, except for the basics: reading, writing, and math; we utilize those skills everyday to communicate or to be consumers.  Sure, I passed tests, but where are those facts now?  Knowing that details and facts retained in the short term memory are quickly lost after taking the test shapes how I live and learn with my children.  I am curious about how information makes it’s way into our long term memory.  I want to know how our learning will NOT be a waste of our time and energy.  From what I remember I can learn what types of events make their way to the long term memory so that our learning will actually be a part of and shape our lives.

What do I remember from college and how do the events I remember change the way I live and interact with my own children?  I will never forget Texas History with Dr. Hardin, not just because I see him on the History Channel, but because while speaking on the concealed weapons law, he took a Bowie knife out of his boot and stuck it in the desk before him.  It was no surprise that years later while watching “The Alamo” I saw the Bowie knife; Dr. Hardin was the historical advisor for the film.  Maybe he pulled his Bowie knife out of his boot to impress those Hollywood producers?  He was animated, charismatic, and passionate about what he was teaching and he changed the way I felt about history.  I don’t remember all of the details, but I don’t panic and sweat when I think of the word, “History.”  I had always dreaded and hated it up to that point.  He presented the history of Texas like a soap opera whose stars were real life people like me and you complete with passions, character flaws, and oozing wounds that wouldn’t heal.  I was able to relate to historical characters for the first time in my life because of him.  If my children can relate to the subject at hand, it will become a part of their lives and maybe have a better chance of finding a way to their long term memory. 

From Dr. Hardin I learned that historical figures were people just like me and that I was a part of history too.  I may not be one of the stars but I am living history right now.  History became not a word to be feared but the preface to MY story.  (When my family and I stayed at the Emily Morgan hotel across from the Alamo, I thought of how Dr. Hardin would appreciate the joke that ran through my mind as I thought about Santa Anna, Emily Morgan, and me.) 

I had an American History professor, though I can’t remember his name, who would play the music typically enjoyed during the time period from which we were studying.  At the beginning of the semester he lectured accompanied by classical music and by the end of the semester, we were listening to Pink Floyd.  Something about listening to the music heard by the people in each particular period made me feel like I was experiencing a genuine slice of that era with them, like I was there!  I can’t remember many of the dates and details that I learned well enough to pass the course, all essay tests mind you, but I can remember the music!  What I remember taught me that historical events are boring and meaningless, watered down, and become less realistic if they are taken out of context: out of the context of music, art, and literature.  I learned that music and history can be combined.  When my children and I explore history we focus on what art was being produced in that cross section of time.  We look at who was writing poetry and what was influencing them.  If my children don’t remember the details, they will at least remember how a particular era felt, sounded, looked, and tasted.  Why do we bore our children with just part of our story?  Why leave out the context of history: the political and social climate, the music, the dress, the foods… I don’t remember the details, but I remember the music.  Maybe all my children will remember from the colonial times is how we churned butter or how the houses were so small.  They might not remember the facts, but they will remember that I was right there with them.

This same American History professor had a member of the Black Panthers come and speak with us and answer questions.   That experience I will never forget because I met and interacted with a historical figure.  Though I don’t remember the questions that were asked of him or the answers that he gave I visited with someone who played a role in the civil rights movement.  Our children need to interact with their grandparents and great-grandparents.  They were alive during important historical events.  They probably have a story about where they were when JFK was shot, fought in WWII or know someone who did.  We were here on September 11, 2001.  Maybe one day I will tell my grandchildren about how I woke up with their dad, who was 6 days old, and from the images on the television thought that some other country was being bombed again.  I might tell them how even after I read the captions, I thought that it was a joke.  I was there!  Many others have been “there.”  We have a family friend who was a POW during WWII.  He shares his experiences with anyone who will listen.  Something that he said will never escape my mind:  He told us that when he was a child he talked with elderly veterans of the Civil War! I talked with someone who talked with someone from the Civil War! 

One of my physics professors, while trying to explain the crests and troughs of sound and light waves, used a bungee cord stretched from one end of the lecture hall to the other.  I will never forget the commotion of students trying to duck or hit the floor to avoid one of the massive waves produced by picking up and releasing the cord.  I thought of him each time I tuned my guitar.  This same professor explained black holes in terms of “what would happen to you if you entered one.”  Apparently, you would appear to turn red as the light waves were consumed by the massive gravity of the black hole; you would implode and explode at the same time.  That’s some yucky stuff so I remember that.  I do remember learning about angstroms, the unit of measurement used to measure the distance between the crests or the troughs of light waves or of sound waves.  I remember the doppler shift and examples of it with both sound and light.  There came a point in this course where I stopped taking notes because I was so enthralled with what the professor was saying; it’s the details from those moments that I remember to this day.  Though I can’t remember most of the details and facts, or even the name of this wacky professor, I learned that science was all around us and that it could be entertaining, fascinating, and scary.  If I at least impart that to my children it will be enough.  I don’t want them to think of Science with trepidation or see it as elusive.

I don’t remember the details and the facts that  I was supposed to have learned, but I do remember the experiences that I had that were out of the ordinary.  I have memories of events I experienced and emotions that I felt, but not of the little details that were stored in my short term memory so that I could pass an exam.  I remember the actions professors took to help us learn or to demonstrate a concept, but I can’t remember the details of the concepts they were trying to exemplify.  For me, this means that my children will remember the activities that we do together; these activities will be memories that we will create and that will stay with them long after the facts have faded.

My children, of course, will remember how to read, write, and do basic Math because these are things that we experience and utilize every day in our home and in our lives, but many of the little facts will be lost in space:  to that fourth dimension Einstein called, “time.”  From what I don’t remember I learned that I will not spend 13 years of my family's time together teaching facts that they will forget soon after they take the test.  The things that we do with our children and the memories that we create together will survive beyond the historical dates and the linear equations.  We can always look the latter up in any reference book, but not the former...