Methods of Minimizing Forgetfulness

Psychologist Munn has presented opinion for minimizing forgetfulness. Here they have been presenting in short:

1. There should be a desire of remembering for learning anything.
2. It is necessary to pay attention for remembering.
3. Memory—talent should be used for remembering.
4. Association should be established between the experienced and learnt things with other things. Besides the above things, forgetting can be resolved by the memory- training.

Educational Importance of Memory and Forgetting

The Importance of Memory—In the process of education, for learning along with memory process forgetting also has an important place. The different methods of remembering have already been described. The utility and importance of these methods is that easier methods are known to students for remembering and time and work are saved in remembering any subject. Teacher should pay attention on the following things for memory—training, as, providing inspiration, thought association and pay attention to the learning rule, using the methods of remembering etc.

The Importance of Forgetting—Psychologists have done many experiments on the process of forgetting. Collins and Drever have expressed their opinions on the importance of forgetting—“It is true that forgetting is the opposite of remembering, but from a practical point of view forgetting is almost as useful as remembering.”

Following concepts are presented related to importance and utility of forgetting in education.

• Students see, hear and learn many things in the school, but many things are not important, so it proper to forget them. The memory-field of student is limited, so it is necessary to forget old and useless things for learning new things. It is the statement from Woodworth—“Learning new things interferes in the remembering of old thing and the memory of old thing interferes in the learning of new things’. Hence the work of learning is completed properly with the ability of maintaining balance between memory and forgetfulness.

• New experiences are collected in place of old experiences by forgetting. If the memory traces of all things are imprinted in the memory of child, his opinion and received experiences are scattered. So it is necessary to forget some things for providing organized aspect to thoughts. The concept of Stuart and Oakden in this relation is-“If we want arrangement and force in our opinion, forgetting is compulsive for us.’’ 

• Child sometime gets tragic after bad experience in the society and school, so forgetting is compulsory for the bad experiences, because child’s education and development can be affected by it.

• Forgetting is useful for improvement.

It is explained from the above things that along with the memory , forgetting is also important and useful in the education of child. 

Summary

• Memory specially depends on the process of learning and retention. Forgetting means failure in recalling and retaining of the learnt things.

• It is also necessary to study forgetfulness, because forgetting is because of memory. Forgetting makes mind free from the unnecessary and useless things and helps in acquiring new, necessary and worthy things.

• The concept of Psychologist Munn—“Forgetting, like memory, is a necessary aspect of learning process, forget incorrect responses while we acquire correct ones.”

• In order to get success in the learning process, it is necessary to resolve the causes of forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is such a mental process, by which we are unable in bringing learnt things, experience and thought on our conscious level, means retained experiences cannot be recalled. In forgetfulness, past acquired experiences, which are marked as the memory traces on the mental screen, man finds himself unable in recalling or recognizing them.

• The causes of forgetfulness can be classified between two classes—(a) Theoretical (b) General.

• In fact Psychologists have presented the theories of forgetfulness for presenting the extended basis of the causes of forgetfulness. So the theory of forgetfulness was delivered, that it may be protected from the bad effect of forgetfulness and for making learning effective.

• The theories of forgetfulness are following— (1) Theory of Trace Decay (2) Theory of Interference (3) Theory of Retrieval failure (4) Motivational Theory (5) Theory of Consolidation

• In the process of education, for learning along with memory process forgetting also has an important place. 

• Teacher should pay attention on the following things for memory—training, as, providing inspiration, thought association and pay attention to the learning rule, using the methods of remembering etc.

• Collins and Drever have expressed their opinions on the importance of forgetting-“It is true that forgetting is the opposite of remembering, but from a practical point of view forgetting is almost as useful as remembering.”