English Department Chair, K-7, Lakehill Preparatory School
Published in The Dallas Morning News: 05 September 2014
While I have been successful in retaining many moments I vowed to hold in memory, the brain with which I am equipped has sometimes cheated me. Poems and song lyrics once memorized now seem full of holes, and sometimes the name of a former student brings no face to mind.
I have learned to spare myself the anguish of searching for my car keys by clipping them to my purse strap with a carabiner the minute I exit the car. During this past summer, I completed the same project twice, once in early June and again in late July because by then I had completely forgotten I had done it. Last week I found myself opening a box from a recent purchase to experience the déjà vu of looking at a book I had already received a few months earlier.
I ask a great deal out of my memory, and I take it for granted that it will do everything I ask, even though I have several times come home from the grocery store without an item for which I had invented a little mnemonic jingle. So what gives?
Sidestepping any discussion about age, I wonder whether I am asking the equipment to do something it is not designed for. Yes, a brain is wired for memory and lots of it, but back when I was memorizing poems and song lyrics, usually for pleasure, I could not access a bazillion of them.
Today, on my way to find an oldie on YouTube, I find myself as distracted as can be by the menu of other options my search has turned up. If I do not leave a proverbial trail of breadcrumbs, I can arrive at a completely different song, not really knowing how I got there and having forgotten why I was searching in the first place.
We are all awash in information, options and access. There is too much to remember, and much of it is unimportant. But somehow, perversely, I can remember many useless bits of trivia and forget that I need to pick up paper towels or a can of chili at the grocery store.
Though I pretend no expertise on the subject, I enjoy reading and listening to pop-neuroscience, and the consensus seems to be that we need to clean out our memories to make room for new information. We also need to stop asking our memories to do Herculean tasks.
I recently heard Daniel J. Levitin, author of a book about thinking, advocate making a list when one needs to purchase more than four items or accomplish four tasks. He explained that when we attempt to hold more in mind, we are actually detracting from other work our brains might need to handle, such as paying attention while driving a car. Four? What a relief! I can stop imagining that not using a list is some kind of mental heroism.
Even more important, I can understand that my students are neither uncooperative nor deficient when they do not remember all my words of wisdom (or even the page number that I just asked them to turn to). They have grown up with the kinds of computers that can listen to their questions and repeat answers with infinite patience. They have explored thousands of ever-branching paths without a thought for breadcrumbs, and they have been awash in information, options, and access from infancy. So, lest I forget what is most important in all the hoopla and distraction, here’s my ongoing to-do list of four for the school year: Love them. Listen to them. Lead them. Learn from them.
Julie Riggs of Dallas teaches English and theater at Lakehill Preparatory and is a Teacher Voices volunteer columnist. Her email address is jriggs@lakehillprep.org.