Sir, – It was with great interest that I learned of Dr Denise Burns’s study (Home News and Editorial, August 15th).
Although I would agree that “rote” learning continues to dominate over critical thinking, I question the idea that memorisation has to be done by rote.
There are creative memorisation techniques that do not involve rote learning and in fact have been proven to increase imagination and creative thinking.
Huge volumes of data can be recalled, without stress using these techniques.
Remember, you need to have all the facts in mind, in order to come up with creative solutions! In the words of Socrates, “All learning is remembering.”
We should teach students how to effectively memorise, creatively and without stress, then they can become the problem-solvers of the future. – Yours, etc,
PAUL DEERY,
Naas,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – This year’s Leaving Cert results by grade and subject reveal that 63.7 per cent of students who sat Russian at higher level scored a H1 and only 2.8 per cent of students who sat English at higher level scored a H1 (Results 2018 supplement, August 15th).
Presuming the majority of the students who achieved such results are native speakers in the respective languages, do such statistics suggest that the said exams are disproportionately easy or disproportionately difficult, and either way grossly unfair to the Leaving Cert student body? – Yours, etc,
J FARRELL,
Glounthaune,
Co Cork.