Wyn Drabble: It's critical to think about rote learning

Wyn Drabble says critical thinking must be fostered if schools are to produce independent individuals who can evaluate situations, express opinions and make informed choices. Photo / NZME

OPINION:

I was simply driving home from a beach walk with our dog when it popped into my head.

As clear as day I could still see it written in chalk on the top right-hand side of the blackboard. That was a lot of decades ago and the teacher was wearing one of those tweed blazers with leather elbow patches sewn on for protection.

Festina lente. Make haste slowly. Even as a young teenager I could sense (though not fully understand) the deliciousness of the juxtaposition.

My high school Latin teacher would from time to time dish up for us a Latin proverb or phrase to learn by heart. Mea culpa. Amor vincit omnia. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Et cetera ...

Carpe diem. Robin Williams brought this one to life in Dead Poets Society and I'm sure more people started to carpe their diems in its wake.

But, for some reason, sir omitted In vino veritas. Maybe it was deemed inappropriate for teenage boys because it might encourage them to sample some syrah or poke a nose into some pinot noir. There was no need to worry because, at that age, we were more interested in blackberry nip anyway.

There was a lot of rote learning in Latin and I must say that I appreciate having done it even though it's an oft-frowned-at method of teaching.

Without it, I wouldn't be able to trot out amo, amas, amat and be a hit at parties. And without it my times tables would not be set in concrete in my brain.

As well, I would never have learned "i before e except after c" nor, a little later, learned to tack on "except when it doesn't" to the end of that.

And where would toddlers be without rote learning? It is only after countless repetitions that they learn the words to those all-important nursery rhymes. Never mind that they don't understand the meaning of "tuffet", "curds" and "whey".

The appearance of a spider makes up for all that. And rhyming "spider" with "beside her" was probably also a diversionary tactic.

Later, how could the young take part in the school production if they didn't memorise their characters' speeches? "To be or not to be" does not come easily. It requires mental drill.

Now the focus seems to be more on critical thinking and, of course, there's nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with learning how to join your own dots.

It's extremely important. It's one thing to know the date of the Treaty of Waitangi but it's another thing to understand its significance and its ramifications in our lives.

Critical thinking must be fostered if schools are to produce independent individuals who can evaluate situations, express opinions and make informed choices ("I think we can put the blackberry nip behind us now and move on to syrah").

A balance is what is required, a balance between the robotic memorisation of some things and the opening up of the potential of critical thinking. It's the balance between mechanically learning Hamlet's soliloquy and also thinking about and understanding what it reveals of the character's mental state.

This discussion has led me to question the validity of my old high school motto, "Scientia Potestas Est" (knowledge is power). This is something the Latin teacher could have tackled with us. Perhaps he could have explained that knowledge is an essential basic but that it is nothing without the critical thinking.

The motto simply did not capture that but if I changed it to "Knowledge is Power but only if you add Critical Thinking" it would lack the gravitas afforded by the use of Latin. It would also lack punch.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

• Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker