By Hu Wo (Cuckoo’s Song)

MOST students would like to memorize by heart the studies that they have conducted at any time. That is to say, the majority of students have little desire to revise or recall school lessons which they have taken. This may be just because they themselves are bored with their lessons, or they got exhausted while they were studying, or they do not want to give time to their studies any more at all. Whatever reason it is, we are certain that memory and forgetting usually go hand in hand through a learning process in education as a contradiction in terms of study. Here, some can think that having learnt studies by rote will depend on a student’s memory or natural intelligence. It is an undeniable fact, simply because a person’s born voice, intelligence and genes must never be changed even by himself. Hence, a student of high intelligence, generally speaking, can store as many studies in their brain as possible in the long term, whereas a student of low intelligence will be able to do so to some extent in the short term. But forgetting does not occur due to a student’s memory alone. A forgetting process can come about due to types of memory and learning inhibition, as well as learning styles.

Technically, there are three types of memory which a person has: episodic memory, semantic memory, and procedural memory. An episodic memory means that a person likes to remember an event from beginning to end or only in parts. For example, a student can tell his first day of school, describing what he did on that day, such as crying out loud or sitting still for fear of seeing the headmaster. Semantic memory refers to the fact that a person can see or get general terms or detailed information about something or someone around them. Owing to this semantic memory, students can talk about the literal meanings or connotations of words on some subject matter with their eyes shut. At last, a procedural memory implies that a person is given to doing something in the same serial order. For instance, a student rides a bicycle, plays football or plays the guitar well with the help of his procedural memory. Also, depending on the time a memory takes, memories are psychologically divided into two types. They are nothing but a short-term memory and a longterm memory. Simply and clearly, a short-term memory is a type of memory with which a person forgets something soon after he sees or knows it. In my personal opinion, this memory may be closely connected to a student’s intelligence. As always, less intelligent students have a short memory; apart from that, they have a good memory for what they want to. On the other hand, highly intelligent students have a long memory for the simple reason that whilst studying, they often use mnemonics, especially created by themselves if necessary, first-hand experience or down-to-earth thoughts connected with school lessons whenever possible. Really and truly, it cannot be said that any intelligent student ever forgets all things. To be said as a proverb, to forget is human nature only. Not only students but also teachers sometimes lose their memory for a while throughout the teaching-learning process of education.

n top of that, memory loss can happen on account of learning inhibition – the interference in a teaching-learning process by restricting or preventing the subject matter of study. There are found two types of learning inhibition have been found, namely proactive inhibition and retroactive inhibition. Proactive inhibition is defined as the process in which the first learned thing interferes with the second one for a student. For example, a student learns history and then English. If he does not absorb English quite well, he is certain to get interfered with proactive inhibition. Conversely, retroactive inhibition is the process in which the first learnt thing interferes with the second one. For instance, a student studies geography and then science. After science, he tries to think back to geography, but is unable to do so, just because of retroactive inhibition. Forgetting the subject matter that to has studied before will be on the same lines. As far as I can see, many students encounter retroactive inhibition in their studies. On no account should students try to recall the first known thing immediately after the second one, therefore.

So, what should students do in order not to forget school lessons over a relatively long period? They must have a deep understanding of school studies, perform insight learning, do practice and repetition of these studies as often as possible. Needless to say, practice makes perfect, which means that the more practice students do as regards their school studies, the fewer careless mistakes or flaws resulting from a forgetting process they are inclined to commit. And unless a student wants to forget something new to learn or make a mistake on study, revision or repetition should be done by students as many times as they can.