Memorization and trying like mad to avoid it

When I was in school, I was a slightly above average A-B student.  School was relatively easy, and I only learned just enough to get the slightly above average grade.  When something had to be memorized, I had a tendency to just sort of float through without actually memorizing something.  I think my reaction was always something like, "What? I'm supposed to memorize this? Are you crazy?  I'm not doing that!"  Funny thing, though, is that I apply that same thought process in teaching my children.  Recently, we hit an area of difficulty in the Horizons Math books.  Why?  Because they're supposed to be doing Roman Numerals.  I actually dropped Horizons Math for a few weeks to avoid it.  I thought about switching programs.  I thought about just crossing off all things Roman Numerals in the books.  I just wanted to avoid it!  Granted, I'm not entirely sure why Horizons Math has such a strong focus in Roman Numerals.  I only use Roman Numerals I, V, and X when reading a Roman Numeral clock.  It isn't often that I'm reading Roman Numeral clocks (or non digital clocks for that matter).  Or, occasionally I'll read a book with the larger Roman Numeral chapters.  I'll watch a movie and wonder "hey, what year was that movie made?" and the answer will be displayed in Roman Numerals on my TV screen.  But other than that, I just don't use Roman Numerals.  Why bother?

But then I realized this was contrary to my mission as a homeschool mom, overall.  Why teach my children to let things slide and to avoid hard work?  So I made some flashcards and gave them the goal to have those Roman Numerals memorized by the end of the week.

They memorized them in one day.  After that, we reviewed the cards.  When we picked up Horizons Math again, the 8yo started in on the Roman Numerals.  I said, "hey, wait - now I need to show you how numbers are subtracted on the left and added on the right!"  But she already knew this.  She had been struggling before and taking a long time to look up each Roman Numeral before writing her answer down. Now, she knew them cold.  She was able to calculate numbers under 100 quickly and easily, because she had the symbols memorized.

There are many things that do not need to be memorized.  (Remember the cram-test-and forget method of learning in schools?)  However, I think there are some guidelines for what should be memorized:

• will it foster a greater conceptual understanding?
• will it make the work easier?
• will it be valuable to know and something to be used in everyday life?

Things like measurement conversions are good to know:  pints, quarts, and gallons will help in the grocery store, especially if you want to find the best price.  When oldest memorized her multiplication tables, her conceptual understanding improved for multiplication, division, and fractions.  It also made the work a whole lot easier.