In my last article “The Flow of Thought, Part 1: Training the Attention for Happiness’ Sake” I drew a connection between Aristotle’s view that happiness is the chief goal of education and the findings of modern positive psychology. In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he reports his findings that people report being most happy when in a state of flow.
Flow is his term for the experience of focused effort at some worthwhile pursuit at a level of challenge commensurate with one’s skills. Whether a hobby, work or a meaningful conversation, the experience of flow is immensely rewarding, but it requires full engagement of one’s consciousness and a high level of what Csikszentmihalyi calls “psychic energy.”
It’s because of this requirement that we too often engage in passive entertainment, like TV watching, and less meaningful experiences. We are too tired. And instead of resting fully, we try to avoid the disordered chaos of our untrained minds (no doubt a result of the Fall) by resorting to these attention grabbers and timewasters.
As I mentioned, our psychologist’s findings mirror Aristotle’s claim that the life of virtue, and more specifically the theoretic life, is the happy life. Human flourishing is found in a life of active striving after excellence, in whatever domain surely, but most of all in contemplative pursuits. In his chapter on the Flow of Thought our psychologist breaks down the many paths of the contemplative life, or how to achieve flow in thought, and in so doing provides more arguments for the value of a classical education per page than many of the classical education movement’s best-sellers.
In this article we’re exploring the joy of memory in order to discover how training the memory can contribute to a happy life.
Csikszentmihalyi begins by explaining why remembering something is in itself a pleasurable activity:
“Remembering is enjoyable because it entails fulfilling a goal and so brings order to consciousness. We all know the little spark of satisfaction that comes when we remember where we put the car keys, or any other object that has been temporarily misplaced.” (121)
Even the smallest acts of memory sparkle of the possibility of the flow state, since a goal is being reached. You’ll remember his claim that disorder naturally clouds our consciousness as problem-seeking creatures, and so the memory of some stable fact or idea brings a sort of order to our inner world. And if this is true of remembering where we put the car keys, how much more the important events of our life, the histories of our culture, or the important truths that give our lives meaning.
Debunking the Attack on Memory
Interestingly our psychologist takes on the educational establishment’s attack on “rote memory.” He speaks nostalgically of how his
“grandfather at seventy could still recall passages from the three thousand lines of the Iliad he had to learn by heart in Greek to graduate from high school. Whenever he did so, a look of pride settled on his features, as his unfocused eyes ranged over the horizon. With each unfolding cadence, his mind returned to the years of his youth. The words evoked experiences he had had when he first learned them; remembering poetry was for him a form of time travel.” (123)
For his grandfather remembering these lines is both a source of pride and “a form of time travel” providing a re-emergence of his youthful experiences. We can suppose that this sort of experience gave his grandfather a stability and a richness that those of us who haven’t attained such feats of memory might lack.
Our psychologist goes on to debunk the modern attack on memory with characteristic charity and grace:
“But for a person who has nothing to remember, life can become severely impoverished. This possibility was completely overlooked by educational reformers early in this century, who, armed with research results, proved that ‘rote learning’ was not an efficient way to store and acquire information. As a result of their efforts, rote learning was phased out of the schools. The reformers would have had justification, if the point of remembering was simply to solve practical problems. But if control of consciousness is judged to be at least as important as the ability to get things done, then learning complex patterns of information by heart is by no means a waste of effort. A mind with some stable content to it is much richer than one without.” (123)
His argument turns on the pragmatism of modern education, as if the ability to solve practical problems were the only point of education. One can hear John Dewey’s claims in the background, as he argued against traditional methods on the basis of his evolutionary mindset. For him solving practical human problems was the end-all be-all of life. Yet if we view life broadly enough, controlling consciousness should be a valuable enough goal for even the most ardent Deweyan, especially given how many problems are caused by the internal disorder of our minds. Enter the modern epidemics of anxiety and depression, as simple examples of this fact.
But even without this last point, modern learning science has shown just how valuable having a mind full of data is for problem solving. As the authors of Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning explain,
“Repeated retrieval [of something from memory] not only makes memories more durable but produces knowledge that can be retrieved more readily, in more varied settings, and applied to a wider variety of problems.” (43)
Of course, that doesn’t absolve us of the perennial question of what knowledge and therefore what subjects and books are most important or valuable to be learned and remembered at any particular time. But it does debunk the assault on “rote learning” as simply not useful. And the objection that memorized material must be understood by the children (to some degree) in order to be useful is not to the point. Nobody, so far as I am aware, is advocating that children memorize material that they have no understanding of, even if that accidentally still happens sometimes in practice.
Yet these reflections are far afield from our psychologist’s primary point, which is that the cultivation of memory allows a person to enter the flow of thought and thereby attain a joy that is independent of one’s circumstances. As he explains,
“A person who can remember stories, poems, lyrics of songs, baseball statistics, chemical formulas, mathematical operations, historical dates, biblical passages, and wise quotations has many advantages over one who has not cultivated such a skill. The consciousness of such a person is independent of the order that may or may not be provided by the environment…. She can always amuse herself, and find meaning in the contents of her mind. While others need external stimulation—television, reading, conversation, or drugs—to keep their minds from drifting into chaos, the person whose memory is stocked with patterns of information is autonomous and self-contained.” (123-4)
As Christians we might think of the stories of martyrs and those imprisoned for their faith, even in recent times, like Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian Christian minister imprisoned under the Soviet Union. In his book With God in Solitary Confinement Wurmbrand explains how he survived the ordeal with his sanity intact by sleeping during the day and first composing, then preaching a new sermon each night. In so doing he developed (or already had the gift of) an extraordinary memory. He claimed to be able to recall more than 350 of the sermons he composed in this way after the ordeal, some of which he later recorded in his book.
Setting himself such a task was without doubt a divinely inspired mission and we have no reason to suspect anything other than that he was uplifted by the Holy Spirit in a remarkable way. But it’s interesting to notice how his chosen activity mimics our psychologist’s secular recommendations for attaining a flow of thought independent of one’s environment. Wurmbrand found a divinely-ordained task—he was called as a preacher after all—that he could practice with focused effort utilizing the whole range of his mental abilities. Practicing this task kept him occupied in joyful flow, improving his preaching skills and developing his prodigious memory. And he did this while in the otherwise torturous state of solitary confinement, with not a sound, not a person, not a thing to amuse him or relieve the pain of boredom.
In light of such an example of the joy of memory it’s frankly pitiful that our culture considers rote memorization to constitute painful boredom for kids, who need to be relieved by frequent entertaining pop-culture references, videos or their own smart phones.
Aside: Download the Free eBook “5 Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classical Classroom”
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Memory the Mother of an Inspirational Education
As a matter of fact, the classical tradition has long recognized memory as the foundation of all the virtues of the mind. As Csikszentmihalyi recollects:
“The Greeks personified memory as lady Mnemosyne. Mother of the nine Muses, she was believed to have given birth to all the arts and sciences…. Before written notation systems were developed, all learned information had to be transmitted from the memory of one person to that of another…. All forms of mental flow depend on memory, either directly or indirectly.” (120-1)
In the opening of his Theogony Hesiod names the nine Muses and describes their gift to him of song and the knowledge of the past: they “breathed into me a divine voice to celebrate things that shall be and things there were aforetime” he says (trans. Evelyn-White, lines 31-32). By later Roman times each Muse presided over one particular art: Calliopē, epic poetry; Clīo, history; Euterpē, flute-playing (and lyric poetry to the flute); Melpomenē, tragedy; Terpsichorē, choral dancing and singing; Eratō, the lyre and lyric poetry; Polyhymnia, hymns to the gods; Urania, astronomy; and Thalia, comedy.
The common factor that many of these were recited to accompanying music gave rise to our term ‘music’ today, though all the genres of poetry, as well as history and astronomy were included as ‘musical’ subjects. The ‘museum’ too was originally a place where all these arts—and learning generally—were cultivated; the most famous museum was founded by Ptolemy I Soter in Alexandria and was distinct from the well-known library, instead housing scholars and artists who lectured and wrote and discussed the great works.
The point of the myth is that memory is the basis of all these cultural achievements, just as the joy of flow was a contributing factor in the experience of the inspired poets and artists, scientists and history writers. In actual fact the men and women who created these great works began by storing up in their memory the beautiful and inspiring compositions of others. They imitated them and forged their own path out of the raw materials of memory. In this way, memory is the basis for many of the cultural products that we most enjoy in life.
But not only does memory give birth to all the songs and art that we love, the act of recalling such things is itself enjoyable. You don’t have to teach your child to take joy in remembering their favorite songs from the radio. This comes naturally. Simply the act of remembering creates an internal feeling of control and satisfaction that, as our psychologist would say, orders our consciousness. The assumption that students will be dismayed and bothered by the work of “rote memory” may be one of the more pernicious ideas of modern education.
While memorizing itself has the flavor of work about it, the joy of recalling easily overcomes the initial pain of effort. This is especially so when students are set up to be successful. When a class memorizes a poem together, with the teacher’s guidance and patience line by line, the students build confidence the natural way: through completing a challenging task and experiencing the natural reward of the sense of mastery that knowledge entails. But more than that, they regularly come to love the poem itself. The act of recalling it again and again makes the poem theirs in a way that is hard to describe. It is as if the memory has wedded the poem to their consciousness in such a way that it has become a part of them. And of course, there is no one who does not love his own self; in a mystical fashion, memorizing unites knowledge with the soul.
But memorizing word for word is not the only use of memory that will inspire our students. In fact, any act of retrieving from memory something that has previously been learned has the possibility of enacting the flow state. Remembering is challenging work; in a way, it is the work of learning itself, because it is during what learning scientists call “retrieval practice” that the wiring of neural networks is signaled to take place. But just because it is work, if it is engaged in willingly, as a challenge commensurate with our current level of skill, it can be immensely pleasurable. This is, after all, what is often called the joy of learning or the love of learning as a lifelong skill.
Because of this Charlotte Mason recommended the practice of narration in every subject. Narration is when a student is asked to retrieve from memory as much as they can of what they have just read, heard or seen. In giving students the time and accountability to assimilate the new knowledge they have encountered by telling it back, they are given the opportunity of creating a personal connection with the material, and the joy of memory is the natural result.
Tips for Getting in the Flow of Memory
In closing out his chapter our psychologist describes some practical tips for modern adults to use for getting in the flow of memory during daily life. We can translate some of them into ways of helping our children or students enjoy learning as well.
The first tip is to make the work of memory a daily activity, carried with us wherever we go:
“Some people carry with them the texts of choice poems or quotations written on pieces of paper, to glance over whenever they feel bored or dispirited. It is amazing what a sense of control it gives to know that favorite facts or lyrics are always at hand. Once they are stored in memory, however, this feeling of ownership—or better, of connectedness with the content recalled—becomes even more intense.” (124)
Who does not have an abundance of spare minutes waiting at the checkout counter at a store, or for a meeting to start? Punctuating your day with time cultivating your memory of favorite poems or quotations, facts or figures, gives a sense of meaning to those lost minutes. Rather than getting frustrated while driving in traffic, the recitation of some valuable content can occupy the mind with something productive and overcome habits of irrational anger, worry and fear.
This is part of the reason why memorizing Bible verses or passages has helped so many to overcome temptations and vices of many kinds. While there is the power of the truths of scripture themselves to transform the soul, and although God’s Spirit undoubtedly comes to the aid of those who reach out to him in this way, there is also the simple logical benefit of mental preoccupation. It is the pain of mental boredom and frustration that often causes us to seek relief in some sinful pleasure. This is because of the link between attention and willpower. If instead we focused our consciousness on recalling some beautiful and convicting passage of scripture, our whole frame of mind would be changed, and the boredom relieved in a more productive and life-giving way.
Because of this, we shouldn’t feel guilty as teachers about assigning our students short tasks of memory as regular homework. This sort of minor retrieval practice that can be completed in minutes is often enjoyable to children and develops in them life-long habits that are beneficial both academically and morally. Our reticence in this area is the result of the overwhelming modern pressure against “rote learning” that our secular psychologist has already successfully debunked. Little memory assignments are not to burdensome for our students; we do them a disservice by avoiding them.
But the joy of memory can also be developed through life-long learning in some area of interest or hobby. The sense of autonomy in cultivating a personal passion lends a great deal of strength to the task. Csikszentmihalyi recommends deliberately setting out a plan for what in a subject you will work on committing to memory:
“With a good grasp of the subject will come the knowledge of what is worth remembering and what is not. The important thing to recognize here is that you should not feel that you have to absorb a string of facts, that there is a right list you must memorize. If you decide what you would like to have in memory, the information will be under your control, and the whole process of learning by heart will become a pleasant task, instead of a chore imposed from outside.” (124)
This psychological fact is something important to keep in mind as teachers and parents. Whenever possible, it is helpful to enlist the student’s own will and desire in the process of learning and even the selection of tasks and assignments. Of course, if you work in a school setting, a class must receive some uniform assignments, especially in early years and at the beginning of developing a new skill. But treating children as persons created in the image of God includes according them the dignity of autonomy in ways that fit their age and understanding. In Dan Pink’s Drive autonomy is described as one of the major ways to boost motivation.
This doesn’t mean that students become the arbiters of what to learn, rather than the classical tradition and their teachers’ best judgment. But there are ways to cultivate students’ full engagement with the content at hand through appealing to their autonomy in some of the details of assignments. For instance, when deciding on which passage or poem to memorize, why not let the class decide on one they most connected with. In committing to memory the important facts about an author, engage the class in the determination of what are the most crucial details to remember.
Students jump at this sort of opportunity, and, incidentally, it helps them train their judgement in discerning the relevance of different facts. But more than anything, it creates the habits of life-long autonomous learning in them that we should aim to cultivate in ourselves. After all, it’s not just a chore, it’s one of the joys of life itself. How are you cultivating the joy of memory?
Enjoying this series? Jason Barney revised and expanded it into a full-length book that you can buy through the EdRen Bookstore. Complete with footnotes and in an easy-to-share format for teacher training or to keep in your personal library, the book aims to help you apply the concept of flow in your classical classroom.
Future installments: Part 3: Narration as Flow, Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games, Part 5: The Play of Words; Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians; Part 7: Rediscovering Science as the Love of Wisdom; Part 8, Restoring the School of Philosophers, Part 9, The Lifelong Love of Learning.