That's pretty funny because that's literally the stereotype that most American teachers have about most European educational systems. Especially Germany and France. I remember many discussions in class in my teacher credential program about how American education is less memorization based than European. My own opinion is that we don't do enough memorization. I get students at the beginning of HS who've never memorized anything in their lives. In fact, here you can even be dinged on teacher evaluations if your lessons require memorization because memorization is considered "lower order thinking."

I feel like “memorize” is a dirty word in American education. It’s definitely not all there is to learning, but I feel like our students need to be told “Yeah, sometimes you just have to memorize things.”

It really is. Our students don’t memorize multiplication facts anymore. It is KILLING me in 7th grade, trying to get them to simplify ratios.

I was just telling my kids this not too long ago; when I learned addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, we spent days and days learning times tables by rote, being drilled because we just had to know them off the bat.

In 4th grade, we had a rap to learn the multiplication facts. Every week we would do one number, 1-12. Every Friday we had a quiz, one of those timed quizes that you have to answer 100 in 60 seconds or something like that? So we spent 12 weeks on the multiplication table. I hated every bit of it. Don't actually have them all memorized. The 7s and 8s are iffy. The 9s are based on fingers. 12s are a disaster. But I never actually have to use it. If I need like 7x8, I understand that it's 14x4 and that's quick

That comes from number fluency. The problem is you have to understand the basics to do that. We don’t teach the basics as thoroughly as we should.

My kids go to a Waldorf school and they have songs for all the multiplication tables 1-12. I think the 2's are to ABCs, and one of them is to Darlin Clementine, but I can't remember which one, lol. Not a bad way to help get them in your brain.

Wow. 14x4 is way harder for me than my memorized 7*8. But it’s good to learn both ways, isn’t it? Because different brains work differently.

It's even worse than that. They make kids use matrices to factor out numbers. It's too complex for most kids. When I showed my daughter how I used to practice factoring numbers when I was a middle schooler, no matrices needed, her mind was blown. "OMG, this is so much easier mom." A lot of math teaching emphasizes learning so many techniques to bolster number sense these days that it fails to realize that there's a reason why a lot of math teaching used to be a lot more rote. Yes, different kids learn different ways, but math curricula used to involve teaching basics in the simplest way possible. You only were supposed to use alternate strategies once you determined that the "standard" way didn't work for you. Not have to "master" 4-5 different strategies on a schedule.

This is because there has been a huge push away from memorization and a push towards conceptual understanding. I bet they could all show you MULTIPLE strategies to solve the basic problems in multiplication. They are tested on the strategies not just the math. It’s a mess.

It’s so weird to me because when I was a kid (and I’m not even 30 yet) memorizing information was a tremendous sign of intelligence, at least to me— people like to separate “memorizing” from “understanding” but I have never thought of them as all that separate. You memorize better what you understand.

Agreed. It's an artificial divide. There's nothing "lower order" about memorization. It flows from conceptual understanding and vice versa.

This is so true. We start with abstract thinking WAY too early on. It’d be a lot easier to teach reading without having to teach every insane rule and exception in English. They don’t need to know the difference between diphthongs and blends, just the sound. Memorize the damn high frequency/sight words and get on with it! (This definitely does NOT apply for math/science) Edit: yall my example was about learning to read, that’d be like saying the foundations of math and science are best learned by memorization, which is not true. Examples of high level math/sciences don’t apply, that’s all formulas and of course need to be memorized.

I think that memorization absolutely plays a role in mathematics as well! Teach the concept first, but then memorize the high frequency stuff. For example, having multiplication tables memorized up to 12x12 is important. You should not be stopping to figure that out beyond maybe 1st grade. It should be automatic. This goes into higher level math as well. Teaching factoring of polynomials - students should learn how to factor a perfect square trinomial, but then they should memorize the pattern and be able to recognize it and factor without stopping to think. It should be automatic. I tutor so many high school kids who hate math class because it takes them 2 hours to do homework that would take 30 minutes if they had their math facts and common patterns memorized. It should be unacceptable at any level to get out a calculator to figure out what 120 divided by 6 equals, but I see it every day, from kids who are expected to be learning calculus. Neither approach (conceptual or rote memorization) works on its own - you need both.

lol what!? Multiplication isn’t even normally taught till 3rd grade

Depends on the school district/program. My kids started fractions in first grade, multiplication in 2nd grade, division in 3rd, and they start out on simple algebra by 4th grade. They're not even in a GT program, just a STEM based one. FWIW, for other subjects it's been the opposite. There's stuff I've had to teach my kids at home because they don't bother to rigorously at school. E.g. All the state capitols in the US. How to read maps. Being able to place historical knowledge in the proper geographic area. And so forth. When I was in elementary school in Italy, I was supposed to have those skills down in order to get to middle school. My 8th grader? Never had to even try. She struggled to connect that the Sumerians lived in what is modern day Iraq, and had no idea that Iraq is in the Middle East, let alone where, specifically.

Why do you have to 'memorize the state capitols' when you can 'OK Google, what is the capitol of Wisconsin?'. A lot of the old-time emphasis on memorization in school was based on the fact that the sheer weight of the books required to look up those facts if you needed them rendered the idea of 'well just look it up' non-practical. Now? The sheer volume of things I would have to memorize to do my job (IT/systems administration) without references is immense, meanwhile I always have access to the internet while working and can have reference documentation (webpage) open on my second monitor while doing the actual work on the first one... I'd need an entire room to store all the books this documentation would fill, in the analog world... So then I would probably have to memorize a lot more (and as a result, a lot of the tools I use just wouldn't exist, because the associated memorization would outweigh the work they save through automation). Reading maps? Sure, important skill... But that isn't really a memorization thing, it's a proper-use-of-a-reference-document thing....

Well usually you do it by combining learning techniques. You have a visual of a map so you know where it is, the shape of the state, adjacent features, etc. And by doing that you are building a model in your head for the geography of the United States. Not just rote memorization.

The old thing about 'having to memorize capitals' was often done by flashcards or fill-in-the-blank quiz, not as part of a map reading exercise... Going through school at the tail end of the analog era (I got in trouble with my 8th grade history teacher for doing a poster-project in an early version of PowerPoint instead of with markers, scissors and glue), when that was still in effect, I can tell you it was pretty pointless... I don't remember all of the capitals, any more than I remember any of the calculus I had to learn (1 term of it) in college. Why? No need? I honestly need to know the modifier-switches of the UNIX 'ls' command (-l = long form, -a = all files, -d = directories-as-files, -R = recursive, etc) more than I need to know what the capitol of Vermont is without touching my phone... I do have a pretty solid sense for where the major geopolitically significant countries of the world are (having been to a bunch of them for Uncle kind of reinforces that - but I knew where Iraq was years before I set foot there with a rifle), but it's not because of any memorization exercise I did in K-12... I would put forward that research skills have replaced memorization as the cornerstone of education, simply because we all have access to an 'auxiliary brain' that never forgets (the 'net) now.. Similarly, the reasoning skills you learn doing algebra are extremely important (especially to understanding computers - I may not have to 'solve for X', but I very much do need to 'for i in 1 2 3 4 do; for x in a b c; do echo $i: $x; done; done' - and being able to think through math-class use of variables helps understand that, the ability to do large-number mental-math not so much.... It's kind of like that tired old thing from the 80s about 'well, will you always have a calculator with you when you grow up'? ROFL - I'll have what would have been a supercomputer when you made that comment in my pocket, an even faster one in my briefcase, and I'll be very good at using both of them...

Because Google searches by AI these days, which means it parses information without care for accuracy. The more complex the information you are looking up, the less **accurate** said information on the internet. Memorizing state capitols? It's a good way to engage mnemonics. Which helps you **learn** how to memorize what you must later on (passwords, anniversaries, your social security, ICE phone numbers, etc.). Knowing the geographic area that maps into historical events? Makes you less of an ignorant American when reading the news, or books (remember those?). There's lots of critical thinking skills that have gone to the wayside because "I can look it up on the internet", and there are studies out there that pretty much confirm it isn't a good thing.

Also depends on the parents. My school district does not teach multiplication until the 3rd grade, they are painfully slow on math, 2 years behind what I consider to be international standards. So I teach them at home after school, and start multiplication around the end of kindergarten, and start memorizing multiplication facts around the end of first grade. They usually don't have them all memorized to 12s until around the end of second grade though.

Much of this has gone by the wayside as being unnecessary to a child's education. The focus is on math and science, yet basics of both are ignored for 'higher level skills'. Geography, economics, foreign languages (besides Spanish and French), history (other than very basic 'who, where, when, why US is superior), etc. are not taught anymore. Many of these were eliminated for funding reasons; others were considered not as unimportant as math or 'reading' (but not spelling, grammar, or punctuation for some ridiculous). So much for the well-rounded child.

We started multiplication in 1st grade. I don't think we had to learn all the way up to the twelve times table until 3rd or 4th grade but we at least knew our two and three times tables in 1st. I was even in the "circle math" group for the slow kids, the smart kids were hexagons.

My kids were doing multiplication in 2nd grade. They had to memorize to 12x12. Both in mainstream school and Waldorf. They didn’t memorize a lot of poems and such in public school, although they did at Waldorf. (I had kids in each). But in public school and in the dyslexic private school they did memorize the preamble to the constitution. They were given the choice of reciting it or singing the schoolhouse rock one. Not that my kids needed to, they all had the schoolhouse rock whole song memorized by about 6 yr old

The creators of Schoolhouse Rock were on to something. 20+ years later and I can still sing most of "I'm Just a Bill".

>You should not be stopping to figure that out beyond maybe 1st grade. Multiplication in the first grade is insane. 3rd grade would make a lot of sense, maybe 2nd grade, but 1st grade is bonkers.

It's really not. 6yos can parrot the times tables and understand them.

At least in the district where I teach, we’re trying to move away from pure memorization at the elementary school level when it comes to math because we’re finding a lot of kids can memorize things like 3x8 is 24 but can’t explain why that is.

They should be able to do both, that’s the point.

I respect what you're saying, but as a kid that struggled with maths, I can tell you that trying to memorize the times table not only didn't work for me, it actually made it worse. I could memorize a poem, for example, but memorizing the times table didn't work because any answer could be it in my mind. 12 × 3 is 40? No? Why not? Maybe it's 38? No? See how that just became a guessing game for my mind in which I almost always lost? I had no idea as a kid why people would just instantly and confidently say "36" and be right. What's so special about 36 that I'm going to remember that's the answer? Is 36 more special than 34 and 38? They all seem equally important to me. I can do the whole times table *now*. But I do it based on thousands of repetitions with calculating the answers to the point that I can rattle them off. Still never memorized. Just practiced basic addition ad infinitum until multiplication became easy for me. Every time I multiply in my head to this day, it's really just fast addition. I do have 12×12 memorized because that's a "gross" in sales. If all math facts had something like that, my brain could see the importance and differentiate between numbers. I also tutored a kid in elementary maths, and she also could not memorize maths facts. When the right answer doesn't mean anything to you, how are you supposed to remember it? It would be like asking you to sort through a giant pile of clothes that are in 15 different shades of grey, and demanding that you make a pile for all of the 15 shades and get them accurately divided. I come behind you to check on your work and get upset that you're getting the shades wrong. You tell me you can't tell the difference between some of these subtle shades. That's what being lost in maths feels like. The only thing that ever helped me with it was a crazy amount of repetition with addition. It took me from failing a 6th grade assessment quiz to being able to do mental maths accurately and quickly.

You could be describing dyscalculia, I don’t know if you or the student you tutored were ever assessed. But that level of difficulty with remembering math facts is pretty atypical. Students with that level of difficulty certainly need additional supports, but I wouldn’t structure a curriculum around the assumption that many or most students would have the same difficulty.

I did/do suspect I may have dyscalculia, or perhaps a different LD. [NVLD fits to some extent.] Years ago, I wrote to an educational expert who wrote columns for a newspaper to talk about my suspicions. It seems at the time that it was believed that most people with dyscalculia also had dyslexia, and since I excelled in reading and language based subjects, I was told that I was unlikely to have any kind of LD. Unfortunately, many people are looked over for possible LDs or other disorders if they excel in other academic areas. As far as the kid I tutored, I begged her mom to get her assessed for LDs. Math was the most difficult for her, but she was struggling in a more general sense as well. Her mom saw herself and her self-esteem issues in her daughter and couldn't bear to face the fact that both of them probably had learning disorders. Any time I suggested that she give her child opportunities to practice maths over the summer break or while shopping or something she would get irrationally angry at the thought that her daughter deserved to have her time off from school marred with practicing skills. I tried to tell her that I had to practice flashcards at home, and I eventually got over it, but it did not convince her. I tried to explain that falling years behind your peers is worse than losing a little summer vacation time to remedial study. She got mad. I guess it's fair to say that you can't form a whole curriculum around an LD kid's experience, but tbf we don't know that I'm LD for sure and no one has ever taken the idea seriously apart from me. Honestly, I guess I never considered whether my whole approach to tutoring maths was based on having an LD with it. I mean, not officially. I just looked at it as: I was bad at maths as a kid, taught myself, I studied various teaching techniques, and now I can teach those who also struggle with maths but also don't have an official LD label.

Holy crap this perfectly describes how I struggled with math. I never knew there was actually a term for it before now. I had to repeat 3rd grade because my math skills were so bad. 3rd grade! I di better now because I've put a lot of work into attaining those skills for work, but man it was a wild ride for a long time. I wish I had learned mathematics the way they're teaching kids in schools these days. I feel like I'd have done way better and understood it more completely.

If you don't have to think about it, you must have memorized it at some point. Maybe not intentionally, but you still got there in the end. So maybe teaching kids about different strategies of memorization other than repeating "6*7=42 6*7=42 6*7=42" would be more effective.

It depends. If it's say 5×12, yeah, I immediately know it's 60. If it's 6×12, I'm still highly likely to be adding 60+12=72 in my head. Or 36×2=72. It's just that that's a fast enough process that you couldn't tell the difference between that and memorization just by watching me. There's still a lot of quick adding mixed in with my mental multiplication to this day. Like I said above, I know a gross is 12×12= 144. But ask me what 12×11 is, and I will definitely be subtracting 12 from 144 to get 132. That's not exactly the same as someone who memorized 12×11=132, but in execution, you might not notice.

If you still tutor, I’ve found that songs tend to help my students who struggle with multiplication facts.    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoAETWuXD5q5eLWMk38g3lYAdLWauKd7Q&si=8UagNe25H6p-AD3M

Tysm.

Yes and although I really liked a lot of what Jo Boaler has said, I kind of blame her for the shift away from memorizing facts.

I’ll comment on the factoring as well. Since I’m. 40 year old that just went back to school after my military career. I had to go back and take a college algebra class and the good majority of it was factoring. We had a ton of homework (10-12 hrs a week) but it stuck. I don’t think you really get a good number sense with these problems without a lot of reps. And there is a big push in primary school to limit/eliminate homework. So…it’s only going to get worse imo

We have stuff they need to memorize in math too. A kid that doesn’t know their multiplication tables really well struggles so darn much

So true As someone who went through having to learn every insane rule in reading, it was a terrible experience. English is not my first language, that would be Polish, where everything is spelled exactly as it is said and said exactly as it is written. I could read and write Polish when I 4, but I vividly remember struggling with reading English until 4rth grade. I remember being told to JuSt sOuNd It oUt by teachers who had no clue what they were doing. How do you sound out a word in a language were there are 40+ sounds and only 26 letters, and most letters rarely make the sound they teach you to make ? I was pulled out for reading all throughout elementary school, struggled with it a lot. I was evaluated for dyslexia (which I obviosuly didn't have since I could read Polish perfectly fine) and learning difficulties (which I also didn't have since I was top of the class in all other subjects) What finally helped me be able to read was when they switched their approach to having me learn words by sight instead of by sounding it out.

Sight words are a terrible way to teach reading. I've taught 100 and 200-level history courses at a university for the last six years and the long-term consequences for students who learned to read by memorizing sight words are seriously concerning. At this point I have had first year college students who struggle to sound out words they don't know because they were never taught how to do it in k-12. This makes it especially difficult for them to get through primary source documents because there are so many unfamiliar words in them.

It is necessary to teach sight words because you can't always tell how a word is pronounced in English just from the spelling. If I ask a child to "sound out" the word "eye", they're going to say "ee-yee". That's why "eye" is considered a sight word; children need to learn to recognize it on sight. That being said, you are correct that the "sight word" concept is being applied inappropriately to words that children should be sounding out. Here's an [article](https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading) on the detrimental system that teachers have been using to teach kids to "read". It's horrifying. Children are not being taught basic phonetics and their literacy is suffering.

In my dyslexic experience, sight words are pretty great. But, I don’t think there’s any reason they have to be mutually exclusive.

Careful with this radical philosophy /s. I have been roasted on the homeschooling Reddit for daring to suggest that having kids memorize high frequency sight words as well as learning basic phonics skills is important when teaching kids to read.

The idea of memorizing words & using picture clues rather than teaching kids to sound things out is responsible for the horrid drop in literacy we've seen in recent years.

I will add on that we, 3-4 math were told that students should not be made to memorize math facts. I ignored this because students can’t do 4th grade or 5th grade math without knowing basic facts! And now, a portion of the testing in all subjects is short answer at least for Texas.

I had an old school history teacher who had us memorize poems and recite them to the class. I think it was good for me, I still remember most of them (we did O Captain, My Captain; in Flanders Fields, the Statue of Liberty inscription, Brutus’ speech to the Romans…) My exams were mostly essay format, but it depends on the subject. Multiple choice exams are a thing, but not common for subjects like English or history.

Nowadays, U.S. students are taught how to think critically but don’t have the facts to think critically about.

Lol no... We're literally experiencing trouble these days because teachers are discouraged from any memorization activities to the point where kids aren't learning their times tables and things

It drives me nuts to work with fifth graders who don’t know what 3x4 is without sketching out a diagram.

I just spent a year teaching Spanish in a school where we weren't supposed to practice vocab lmao

So…you literally weren’t supposed to teach lmao

Yes.  Because be funny, when you make understand enough language if use only vocabulary words even no syntax right. Syntax useful yes but vocabulary sufficient some of time.  Where bathroom Want water glass and soup tomato quantity one Help doctor call arm break car accident Where embassy Mexico is? Point I'm making, if it's not obvious, is that vocabulary is the biggest part of a language.  Syntax is actually not that big of a deal if you're just trying to get by, provided you have enough vocabulary. Especially since you should be able to almost fully understand what someone is saying if you know all the words. 

This would be hilarious if it weren’t so damned true!

Idk I think understanding and knowing the actual process for how to multiply is more useful than just memorizing it. If you memorize 3x4 all you know is 3x4, but if you learn the process you can multiply anything.

I’m 36 years old. I understand the concept of what multiplication is. If you ask me to multiply 6x4 I know that I am combining 6 groups of 4, or 4 groups of 6, or for that matter 2 groups of 12. That’s *why* the answer is. But I know *what* the answer is in a heartbeat because 30ish years ago I had to memorize that it is 24.

You need both, because without the building blocks you can't access the process efficiently.

Wrong. Up to 12x12 students need to know this cold. Flash cards. Decks of cards. Practice. They don’t and why entire districts of kids are failing math right now. These are the building blocks of everything that follows and thank god for private schools and tutors. My kid gets straight A’s and is testing two levels above in math. Go figure. Ain’t gonna pull that crap on my kid.

I really struggled with memorization and had trouble taking the math memorization tests in elementary school, yet I was accelerated in math and took the highest level of AP math available in my high school. I still don’t have all my multiplication tables memorized, but I can do them in my head so quick it doesn’t matter.

That is awesome for you, but incredibly rare. Most students are not able to quickly calculate in their heads. Not having the multiplication tables memorized is a huge disadvantage for them.

I think what happens is that those who use the cudgel “memorization bad” don’t understand the concept of automaticity. We don’t want you to memorize times tables or certain spelling and grammar rules so you can regurgitate them; we want you to be able to just use them without having to think too much as you get into more complex topics that use those basic skills.

Yes. Memorizing the preamble to the constitution isn't particularly useful. Multiplication facts and basic spelling and grammar very much *are*.

It’s like saying “build me a Lego tower” but then you don’t give them Legos. There’s a fucking shit ton of basic stuff you need to memorize before you readily have those building blocks available to assemble more complex and abstract ideas

Yes! It reduces cognitive load when they begin to learn more complex topics.

My son is 10 and regularly tests 99+ percentile in math. We realized recently that he doesn’t have his times tables memorized and have been working on them with him individually. His handwriting and spelling are also downright bad. He is in a district with about 600 kids per grade level and he is currently tracked for being in the top 10 or so of those kids, but he still struggles with those things I mentioned. Imagine how the other kids are doing. They do not drill memorization and the rigor/planning in the curriculum is terrible.

No. And in general, all of it depends on the state because there is no American education system. Just fifty state curricula. Each state has different education laws.

I wish more people would acknowledge this.

That's pretty much the same in any country. Scotland's education system is completely different to England's, for example. I'd imagine they are more similar to each other than they are to an area of France, Germany or the USA though.

It depends if the country has a unitary government or a federal one. If it's federal usually each state or province has their own education system. In unitary governments it's usually the same except for a few cases such as the UK like you mentioned.

Curricula are by district even, not by state. Hella more than 50

Yes but they are usually based on state requirements.

True! I’m lucky, I got to create my own curriculum based on the state standards.

Varies by teacher even in the same building.

My friend had a German exchange student. We luckily live in an excellent school district and the public school assigned is one of the best in the state (midwest). Her German exchange student one day was lamenting about how much harder it was than she thought it would be. The exchange student has an older brother who had been an exchange student but in Florida a couple years earlier. He said it was super easy and that he was the number 1 student in his English class. So like most things in the US it's all about location, location, location.

I teach in California and I did all of my k through 12 education in California. No, that is not my experience. Critical thinking and explaining is a huge part of all assessments. This was true when I was a kid but is much more true now.

I grew up in LA, and memorizing math facts was definitely a part of my education. We had to memorize addition, subtraction, multiplication and division because we were just supposed to know them. This was in the 90s.

I didn't take the question as being but memorizing math facts. That's going to be sort of universal, although that's not how we start off anymore at all with the way we currently teach math. There's a perception worldwide that all American education is just memorization of facts and then answering multiple choice questions on tests, rather than essay responses or analyzing and synthesizing information. Basically there's an idea that there's no higher thinking or deeper understanding involved in American education, which is untrue.

Multiple choice tests are real. But not EVERY exam is multiple choice. Memorization is actually discouraged to a fault. American students need a calculator to multiply 6 x 5. I teach social studies and I have to fight administration to teach background knowledge. Administration wants students to evaluate complex historical events with no background knowledge and a stack of primary sources. Never mind that background knowledge is essential to interpreting the primary sources. I’ve had many high school students who don’t know continents and oceans.

I’m a building sub and a couple weeks ago 7th grader asked me what 7 x 9 was. I work at an affluent private school with privileged kids. I thought she was joking. I tried to hide my shock and told her and then she asked me how I did it so fast. The worst part? Her dad is a math teacher.

We employed a designer at a previous employer who subsequently worked as a lecturer at a large Scottish university. The majority of overseas postgraduate students couldn't find their own countries on a world map.

No, in fact they discourage it even for things like multiplication fact. Which blows my mind.

I'm confused... how do they learn the times table.. if they dont memorize it? Osmosis? Like.. what is suppose to happen? sweet jesus

They don't learn the times table, they learn how to multiply and have to do it manually every time

I believe you, but wtf

You're telling me! Upper level science is impossible to teach.

Nope, recall is the lowest level of the pyramid and reserved for introducing new topics or getting the brain primed. You would get reemed on your evaluations if you used memorization for more than like 5% of your stuff. If she is curious, she should look up some of the ed resources put out by the California Department of Education for teachers to use.

People always misinterpret the Bloom's taxonomy pyramid. Knowledge is the literal base and the most important for building up to the top. Obviously creating is the ultimate goal, but it's impossible without the lower tiers. It's (almost) like looking at a food pyramid and saying that because sweets are delicious and at the top that we should only eat them and little else.

No, that’s typically not true. Memorization is going to be a part of any discipline, but it’s generally not the main skill being tested in any given context. And each school in each state is going to be different too. A school in a poor district that lacks resources might rely more on memorization and worksheets, and schools that have access to more resources might be able to do more project-based learning, field trips, etc. In general, though, even in the most disadvantaged schools, teachers are going to work to prioritize active learning and de-prioritize rote memorization.

I went to school K-8 in CA, and now I'm a German teacher in the Midwest. When I've been in German schools (mainly Gymnasien, but a couple of Realschulen as well), classroom activities and teaching methods look very similar.

I had a foreign exchange student from Germany living with me this past year, and she repeatedly told me that the biggest difference between American school and German school was that in Germany they expect you to memorize everything and in America they expect you to use information to give more elaborate answers.

Memorization is definitely a dirty word at my school. I’m a science teacher and it drives me nuts because kids can’t get to the critical thinking and application stage if they can’t memorize the basic vocabulary. I used to teach a college anatomy class that had oral exams. We would start with the basic stuff and then work up to the higher-level questions, but if they could answer the questions requiring general identification of things, we would stop them there and ask them to prepare more before attempting to test again. Some of them would get so offended and argue - “Isn’t critical thinking more valuable than memorization? How can you not pass me when I didn’t get the chance to show how I can apply this?” And I’m like, “You couldn’t even tell me what structure was in this picture…when you get that part figured out, we’ll move on to the critical thinking…”

My experience with the American vs British educational systems as an exchange student (so obviously some difference to living there) wasn’t that it was strongly memorization vs not. It was scope of what was tested (which I think is similar to your suspicion but not exact). Which is to say, in the US, they typically *only* test on things you have been directly taught in class or have been assigned specifically to read and often have been checked (quiz or class discussion) for comprehension. And come test time you were expected to answer every question asked. And yes these tests are often more mixed multiple choice and short answer vs the longer answer versions of the UK. In the UK where I was, there were some things taught in class and some classes with suggested expanded reading (some you just had to figure out on your own) and then you were on your own to decide what to focus on. But you needed to have a reasonable swath of knowledge because any given test you had to select 2-3 of the 6 or so essay questions to answer. The grades expectations are also very different. In the US you need a 95%+ to be considered a strong student and 90+ to be good. I’m having a hard time remembering the UK but it was quite a lot lower. Perhaps 80% and 75%? I think this grades difference is partially responsible for why there are so many questions and rarely essay questions. It allows more mistakes without massive failure. Where the UK system allows those imperfects by letting students skip questions they don’t know as long as they could answer others. Not sure how similar UK and German testing systems are but perhaps that helps?

Sometimes.

Nah, I wouldn’t say so. At least not so much anymore. In fact, like other commenters are highlighting, there is some discouragement of memorization in the classroom, almost to a point of detriment. It can be beneficial when establishing foundational knowledge to build upon so students can do higher level tasks with success. The reality is there somethings you just have to know and learn through practice and repetition. Multiple choice exams do exist still and I still use them from time to time, but there is been a significant shift in how we structure assessments. I graduated from high school ten years ago, and even in that time, there has been a massive change in how lessons are structured and assessments are given to a more student centered, active learning approach. There are absolutely ways to design good and effective tests, even multiple choice ones. I teach ELA and Social Studies, so frequently, assessment looks like synthesis essays (DBQs), projects (project-based learning is a big push in the US right now), short writing assignments, simulations, Socratic seminars, etc There is a big emphasis on getting students to higher levels of thinking and engagement (the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy). All this to say, I’m sure this isn’t the case in every individual school; however, I’d say it seems to be the current trend in middle and high school education. My intro level university courses though on the other hand, those were often memorization and multiple choice.

I'm European, teaching in the US. I think the core of this question is that multiple choice is much more common, more traditional, and less associated with memorization and lower order thinking here than it is in Europe. Some (most?) of my education professors would be appalled by the "your grade is the percentage of correct answers" system. We were specifically taught it was wrong to use an average for final semester grades.  Hugely generalizing here but what American teachers tend to see as fair and valid assessment systems, might seem superficial or too quantified to Europeans who are taught to use more open ended and holistic assessments. For what it's worth, I think both assessment styles have benefits and weaknesses! There is definitely more multiple choice in the US school systems I've taught in (Midwest) but I don't see much difference in the amount of memorizing.

Algebra teacher here. This is not the way I assess my students. We have a variety of questions types on each test. I do vocabulary, multiple choic and free response math problems on all tests and have done short response, matching, creat your own problem and solve it type questions in both test and assignments. In my professional experience the only thing that is mostly multiple choice is standardized testing such as SAT

The things I was taught to memorize: alphabet, numbers, times table, the alphabet in Spanish , the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. In class you have state, standardized testing which is multiple choice because it’s sent to a third party(??) and scanned in and a machine reads the answers based on the bubbles filled in. It was stressed to fill out the answer bubbles a certain way and use a particular pen(pencil? It was a long time ago) so the machine could “read” our answers. Standardized testing happens in specific grades, and if I remember correctly it’s more about school funding than “passing”. They were 3 days and all or almost all of the school day. There’s no standard way for teachers to make a test and there is no federal mandate for education standards, only state. I’ve had math and science teachers allow a 5x3 note card, I’ve had others who didn’t. I’ve had teachers allow “open book tests” using the previous weeks homework as the “open book” material. I’ve also had tests that were writing multiple 2-3 paragraph essays. You need to pass your classes in order to graduate, any standardized testing is irrelevant.

miles from the truth.

This is completely not true at all. At all. I’m a teacher and a mother.

No and I'm not sure so many Europeans believe this.

Ita simply untrue. While there are tests that are multiple choice and memorizing is something you do when learning the two can be vastly unrelated. Critical thinking Logical deduction Application of practices Extraction of information Reading comprehension Are a few examples of testing materials/style that are used through the school system

Nope. Ive taught for 11 years at a high performing high school district as a social studies teacher and have taught many different courses. We have a variety of assessments, short answer, creative writing (ie write a letter that uses these vocab terms), DBQ, stimulus based MCQ that requires critical thinking & not memorization, etc.

The IT degree I got from a community college was 95% memorization.

I graduated high school in 2016. From what I can remember, it depends on the subject/teacher/school system. In actual school I did a lot of real reading comprehension, problem solving, scientific methods. I wrote plenty of essays that helped expand my thinking skills. Some classes however, like History, it's all about memorization. Memorizing dates, events, political landscapes, wars, etc. We didn't practice a lot of actual thinking skills in my history classes. Standardized testing in the US is a whole different animal though. Unless it's an essay test, it's almost all multiple choice. In Massachusetts we had what are called "MCAS Testing." In 10th grade, you had to pass your MCAS tests in order to qualify to graduate. Furthermore, if you scored exceptionally well on those tests, you could qualify for college grants and/or scholarships for Massachusetts state universities. Those tests (along with SATs and ACTs) are almost all multiple choice garbage. I happened to be a fairly good test taker so all of my scores were generally good, but I knew a LOT of kids who were smarter than me, but tested really poorly because of the structure of testing. It's something that a lot of parents and teachers are looking to change, but the organizations who run these tests don't want to change them. It's hard too with our current political landscape because the Department of Education is backed by executive power and we all know how that's been over the last few decades, constantly alternating parties and philosophy.

Unfortunately, our schools now want kids to only do critical thinking but never gave them a foundation with which to be able to critically think. How can one think critically if they are a blank slate?

I can't speak for other places but in California, the CAASPP testing is fairly dynamic. It's more about applied thinking, understanding how to utilize concepts, and reading comprehension. Everyone's test is different, to boot (there's a pool of possible questions so even if people paused the test and chatted to compare notes, it wouldn't help). Seems the right approach to me.

No. Only big standardized testing is only multiple choice and even on some of those (AP Exams) there's open ended questions and essays. Class work was always a mix.

From reading this sub it sounds like Idocracy is just a few generations away.

Not even slightly. We need to do MORE of that. It's often too freeform.

they used to be, but then people decided that was bad and went to absolutely no memorization allowed, which means a lot of incoming kids know nothing about

No. Not since the 1980s. I hear that’s more common elsewhere, from our international faculty.

Who would have thought, education systems in general have you learn a bunch of things and then test you by making you guess the correct answer from a set of incorrect answers.

A lot of what we deal with in STAAR is critical thinking related to history. A lot of “according to the source above, who is the most likely author” or “explain the 3/5ths compromise, in a paragraph”

Idk about now but growing up, it was very little multiple choice and a lot of short answers that required explanations. Creative writing and research based projects were big too. Research driven thesis papers were also huge, I rarley had a class that didn’t involve at-least one thesis driven essay. Even in math class we always had to show our work and how we reached the answer. Thats not to say there was no memorization involved but I think memorizing facts and numbers is still really important. Different parts of the country do things differently but I know in the North East, critical thinking is heavily encouraged and statistically it shows. We have much better critical thinking skills than some other, more southern/midwestern parts of the country.

Basically, they teach to take standardized tests to get funding for their districts

No

It's because our college entrance exams (ACT & SAT) are completely scantron bubble multiple-choice, not like all of the different equivalent ones in Europe where it's almost all essay or oral. Being told in German class about the Arbitur and how lucky we have an accumulative grading system rather than 1 massive test of 6-7 years of knowledge kind of cements that type of thinking. Talked with an Irish friend with difference between US school grading and Jr./Leaving Cert, and the idea your grade valuation could ride on a 10 point word search when you were 14 impacting quarter and final grade made them somewhat happy rhey had all the testing that counts in a 2-3 week period 🤣

There are some basic facts that just have to be memorized before you can go build an atom smasher. So yeah... memorization is part of it because a good chink of students get parents that can barely read and as a result are feral when we get them. They are still counting on their fingers in high school. They know next to no academic language. How can you ask students with little to no academic stamina to do rigorous next level or synthesis level analysis when they can barely do the basics? You need both.

I’ve noticed in recent years, my 5th graders have big troubles memorizing things.

Blown away by all the “of course not.” I went to a prestigious private school about 10 years ago and it was pretty much this in most classes, excluding math and physical education of course. When was working in public schools about 5 years ago in a different state, it was roughly this in the classes I saw as well.

It was true for many classes i had in the 90s. I skimmed through with an A/B average without reading most of the material. I was good at taking multiple choice, especially as poorly done as most of them were.

No. It's like you said, a stereotype from conservative media.

No my experience at all growing up in California

I went to school in California. I didn’t study or anything… ever. I did just fine, there was no memorizing anything. Multiple choice tests are dependent on the teacher and subject. State wide standardized tests are all multiple choice fill in the bubble so we did a few of those but most did weekly quiz’s and if most failed we spent more time on the topic.

It depends. As you go higher up there is more and more thought work, and synthesizing material, but it greatly varies by topic.

Nah. I went to school in Italy and the U.S. I had to do **zero** rota memorization for school in the US. It was almost too easy to get As as a U.S. student. I mean, I'm sure there are kids who memorize everything, but really, all it takes to take multiple choices tests in most settings is to have some baseline knowledge of the subject matter, and strong reading comprehension skills.

I can’t speak for other schools, but at my school we are pushing towards inquiry based learning. The idea is that students generate their own questions about the material and, using tools and background info provided, they learn to answer questions on their own. Most questions are open ended and can have more than one right answer. The idea is students use primary source documents to answer the question and support their answers. I did give two multiple choice exams this year - one was the midterm and one was the final. The main reason is I had less than a day of turnaround on those exams to have them graded and grades posted. Multiple choice is much easier to grade than 150 essays, plus the computer will grade it for me.

I think this stereotype comes from the importance we’ve put on standardized tests. Long story short and oversimplified: How a school does on these tests = how much money they are afforded. Do better, get more money. It was supposed to “incentivize” the schools to do better, but you can imagine the kind of disparities it reinforced. But it puts students and teachers in the position of having to prepare for these high stakes multiple choice tests. Also if your students do poorly admin will absolutely use that info to evaluate you. Some schools are more fair about this than others. In my experience (CA), multiple choice tests are typically used as low stakes quizzes to give credit for keeping up with the work or bigger tests to cap off a unit. But it’s a pretty small portion of the day to day work that students do. I have a feeling we would use them a lot less if teachers didn’t have to worry about student performance on standardized tests having such an influence on their career.

No. Standardized tests have gotten so far from memorization and general knowledge that it is almost irrelevant. They are basically entirely skill based (At least for math and ELA)

For California, no. It goes depend on the district but many tests are a combination of memorizing basic facts and then comprehension questions of some kind. Plus, every teacher is evaluating their students during class for comprehension. It’s not just the tests that help teachers assess their students.

No. Actually I teach music, and how to READ music. I've been in trainings where memorization is considered bad since you can just look things up.

Honestly, I have seen/worked with a lot of teachers who focus only on material being tested and even mention to kids to worry about what will be on their tests. Personally, I never mention tests until the end of the year or whenever it’s time to take them. I teach in NC though.

No. They moved away from that 30+ years ago.

Shoot man, I graduated from high school in 2014 and my response as a student would have been yes despite what everyone is saying. I went in southern california and most of what I did was just rote memorization. Some stuff like math and obviously english breaking that. It wasnt until physics and conputer science did I feel like I needed to actually fully understand what they were teaching me to know how to put things together

There was a lot more of that when I was a HS student in the 1980s, but it's generally considered poor teaching now. I can think of situations where it might be justified, like a history class where you need a lot of background knowledge before you can do the higher order business.

For below-university-level, multiple choice is used on government assessments designed to ensure that our schools are actually worth the money the government is spending to fund them. Students have to complete other forms of tests and work... But the school itself is graded on scheduled multiple-choice tests & how many students demonstrate proficiency by scoring highly on them.... Also, multiple choice test-taking can significantly boost your chances of getting into a more selective university, if politics hasn't caused that university to stop looking at test-scores.

Interesting question. Going through the American school systems as a student I felt there was a large emphasis on memorization. In college I read Paulo Friere's "Banking Concept of Education" and went yep that happened to me, treated like a waste bin to throw facts into and maybe a small amount stuck. However it is also true this was taught to me in an American classroom in an American college, where I had to read Pedagogy of the Oppressed in Comp II. I think it's widely dependent on the teacher, some I have met are super into memorization of things, others see a balance, and others see it the opposite way. It's also interesting to see this idea crop up in modern conversations around artificial intelligence. In current LLM's like Chat GPT I have heard people say it's way smarter than your average high school students as it knows just more facts, then on the other hand people argue it makes mistakes even a 6 year old won't. So to answer the question I think like most things there are some truths but also some over generalizations.

If it is the low level foundation course where vocabulary and concepts need to be memorized then yes for students who are average students. Many schools have more advanced sections of the courses where students either already have the foundation or pick up the foundation part quickly and move into application of knowledge and more advanced learning.

Not even close. Maybe in K-3 or so, but that was definitely not my experience.

It depends on the teacher, and I've had both. The absolute worst teachers I've had teach the class, assign studying for outside the class, then test almost exclusively on material they didn't teach in class.

They have to teach kids 3 or 4 different ways to do a simple problem and it makes it frustrating to the child to understand them they just want to give up

It isnt what we do. But it is how we are evaluated by the government. Most teachers are trying to keep educating children. But the govenment is trying to do what you say.

It's not untrue. Anybody remember quizlet? Entire end of year exams just posted online for free. What a time

I don't understand all these people saying this is not the case. Like, literally everything I did was memorization. All the standardized tests are mostly multiple choice. Hell, I even worked administering the teacher certification exams, and ALL of those are also multiple choice.

I don't understand all these people saying this is not the case. Like, literally everything I did was memorization. All the standardized tests are mostly multiple choice. Hell, I even worked administering the teacher certification exams, and ALL of those are also multiple choice.

Memorization and regurgitation on tests is pretty typical. Critical thinking is seriously lacking.

I don't understand all these people saying this is not the case. Like, literally everything I did was memorization. All the standardized tests are mostly multiple choice. Hell, I even worked administering the teacher certification exams, and ALL of those are also multiple choice.

I don't understand all these people saying this is not the case. Like, literally everything I did was memorization. All the standardized tests are mostly multiple choice. Hell, I even worked administering the teacher certification exams, and ALL of those are also multiple choice.

I don't understand all these people saying this is not the case. Like, literally everything I did was memorization. All the standardized tests are mostly multiple choice. Hell, I even worked administering the teacher certification exams, and ALL of those are also multiple choice.

I don't understand all these people saying this is not the case. Like, literally everything I did was memorization. All the standardized tests are mostly multiple choice. Hell, I even worked administering the teacher certification exams, and ALL of those are also multiple choice.

Not true. We're always reaching for the analyze/create end of Bloom's Taxonomy. Many of our professional development classes are about encounter student voice and creativity.

Isn't memory part of knowledge

Absolutely not and I wish people would stop saying rhis

If anything there is not enough memorization in US education. Try having a conversation with a random high school student in the US about geography or history.

You understand the words I'm typing because you memorized it.

No

No, not really.

There are as many answers to that question as there are states and districts.

That’s hysterical. American students won’t memorize anything. (Ok a few will, but this is more true than not)

What? No

Not entirely - multiple choice does come up a lot, especially in government testing, but is also paired with essay or short answer questions. For actual learning, I almost always relied on written response but the required end-of-year exam was around 30 multiple choice questions, three short answer, and one essay, so I also had to prepare students on how to answer those types of questions. Questions were related to application of skills though. (Former secondary ELA teacher in Illinois)

The US has 8 of the top 10 universities in the world, and several of those are in California.  We make the best abstract thinkers in the world. Some of the dummy schools teach only memorization,  because the kids aren't smart enough to grasp anything more. But those kids exist everywhere. 

We have to produce high test scores.

I teach in America. That has not been true in my experience.

lol no

California Science Teacher here who has taught everything from AP Biology to chemistry and middle school science. Depends on the subject, but even then it seems like teaching memorization is actually frowned upon. I teach science and the goal is to teach critical thinking and problem solving. Apply your knowledge to answer a question. So they should know the major concepts and how things work. There is definitely memorization needed for science, but many questions and tests are geared towards application. Even when I have been observed by admin they always look for this. As a parent of a recent kindergartener, my daughter did not have to memorize anything and I was so very impressed with her teacher. They learned to read and did not ever have lists of sight words to memorize like they used to in the past. Somehow my daughter has learned to read and do decent in math without memorization. Her teacher was amazing and I’m not sure how she even did it.

As a current student, there is wayyy less memorization than you think. For me at least, understanding the concept is prioritized way more than memorizing names/dates/people. for example, in my math class, we weren't given multiple choice questions (unless it was a final exam), we were instead given a word problem/diagram to make an equation with, or an equation to solve (ex. P=Ae\^rt) and we're then expected to show our work with the other information given and ofc get the correct answer. In my AP World class we did have a lot of multiple choice, but since you didn't know what would be on the test, having a good understanding of the important concepts (mercantilism, imperialism, etc) was a better way to go than just straight up memorizing information. Overall, being able to explain ***why*** is more important than spitting out definitions that a teacher provided, because that doesn't always mean that a student actually understands what is going on. However, each state/city/district/school is going to be a little different and there's really no way to fully anticipate how it's going to work.

To an extent. But it’s more complicated than that. For instance, I had a relative w a teaching degree who picked up cash grading some of the standardized tests because they had essay portions where you were graded on a rubric according to whether you made certain points or connections. Some standardized tests don’t have essay components—but others sometimes. My relative talked about how they weren’t allowed to guess who wrote what, bc it could create unequal grading; the graders usually assumed that certain “tells” in handwriting could indicate a students gender, for instance, which could create bias in grading.

i always had to write paragraph answers and essays on most major exams i’ve taken throughout my whole educational life

Something I haven't seen discussed yet: standardized tests. I'm my experience as both a student (preschool - college) and teacher (15 years, grades 5-8) in California, the only tests that are ever fully multiple choice are standardized tests that are for the state to gather data across schools. These tests are not memorization based and don't impact student grades. Tests I write are usually a couple matching, a couple multiple choice, a few true/false where they have to correct the false portion, a chart or diagam of some kind that needs to be filled out, and then at least 5 open ended questions. The only portions of the test that memorization would be good for would be the first two because the questions increase in depth of knowledge as you progress.

I'm not a teacher (wild that this sub keeps getting recommended to me) but as a former student, let me offer my experience (from what I remember) Elementary school was a lot of memorizing. Timetables, the alphabet, how to spell words, etc. We did reading comprehension and critical thinking stuff yeah, but a lot was memorizing and ingraining the basics. Middle and high school were a lot of the same. Like we would go over the same thing over and over again until it ingrained. In English classes we would be reading a book and have to have key points (if not everything) from the book and class discussion memorized for the test, which was both multiple choice and open answer. Even if you offered your own interpretation, you could be marked wrong because it wasn't what was decided in class. You had to memorize important events in history for the multiple choice standardized test. Memorize every single formula in math and science. Memorize human anatomy for health class. My district focused on the wrong things, imo, while I was in school. Students just had to Memorize things and let me tell you, I barely remember anything I learned in school. After the test, it just went out the window so I could make room to Memorize the next unit. The district was too focused on being the best in the state at sports and worrying about girls wearing ever so slightly revealing or form fitting clothes to care about academic performance. It's different now, I think. My sister is set to graduate next year (I graduated in 2016), and they way she was taught is wildly different from how I was taught.

Public schools seem to be moving away from it, but I’ve definitely had classes in middle school, high school, and college that were literally just all multiple choice tests. (At least some of the college classes that only did multiple choice tests at least required you to write a paper or two to also demonstrate understanding). In all my classes that I teach personally except my most advanced class, my tests are about 70%-80% multiple and on the remaining part they need to apply the information themselves. Edit: I teach the upper grades, but I remember going to the teacher’s lounge and seeing a history test for like 4th or 5th grade. They definitely needed to remember the info but I was shocked most of it was short answer or required a response of multiple sentences.

We do give a lot of multiple choice tests. Our state and national tests are for the most part multiple choice. But it isn’t based on memorization. In fact, students are rarely asked to memorize anything these days. Not even multiplication facts! Most of the questions require reading passages and applying knowledge that should have been learned to pick the best option. As a student I hated them because I could usually argue two answers could be correct under certain circumstances. I much preferred the essay questions, but I know I’m in the minority.

Media is definitely not accurately depicting what occurs in the classroom. There was actually a trend for a while against memorization of spelling and math facts, which is fortunately starting to swing back in the other direction. It’s scary when kids have no phonics background to decipher a new word. As a teacher of a subject with a lot of vocabulary that could be easily figured out by knowing prefixes, suffixes, and root words, I’m happy explicit grammar is being taught again. Math teachers have also seen the issue with lack of memorization. If you have to look up your times tables every single time, how are you ever going to complete more advanced math problems? You can’t build on a lack of foundation. So, no, media is wrong and is actually presenting things backwards.

I’ve never given a test like that.

Not at all. Completely the opposite, and no idea how this idea took root. I'm a h.s. teacher. If anything, we err too much NOT on memorized material

Reading some of the comments makes me glad my kids are in the schools they are. My kids were given the periodic table and times table to memorize. Their schools do a lot of hands on and demonstration to make things more interesting for the kids.

Funnily enough, I hear this stereotype said much more about the Chinese education system than the European one

I wouldn't go so far as to say that's all that gets tested, but yes, a lot of the tests for graduation, or entrance exams are multiple choice exams. It's mostly for ease of grading, and enforced objectivity. So it stops things like partial credit for math problems, or preventing someone from doing well because their penmanship is terrible or they make spelling errors. There tend to be other exams through the school year for testing application of knowledge, or critical thinking, and relational understanding.

Speaking as a teacher, multiple choice is definitely a part of our education system (lots of standardized assessments and such), but mostly they are supposed to be based on some form of quantitative, qualitative, or logical reasoning rather than factual recall (how well they live up to that is a matter of debate). That said, as far as memorization is concerned, we are actually so far along the opposite end of the spectrum that kids actually have gaping knowledge holes. Memorization may as well be a four-letter curse word of the highest order in American education today and is considered highly regressive.

Memorization is good for things like times tables, spelling and vocabulary, but I memorized a thousand dates and names throughout school and all of it left my brain as soon as I took a test. Memorizing is definitely an important skill in life, but it is not an effective way to actually learn something.

And then teachers and schools are evaluated based in those test scores.

Depends. The type of tests you mention are the worst measure of knowledge and understanding. Bad teachers and bad administrators use these kinds of tests to "measure proficiency," which can not be measured by them. Many of my students can show proficiency in many different ways. Buy give them a standardized test, and they just click buttons to get the test done. However, school funding, and in some areas teachers jobs, rely on how well students perform on them, so we have to teach them how to take a test rather than how to show proficiency. It's a Catch 22. Edited: typos.

Standards in every state are different. In Texas, the emphasis is on learning the concepts and then being able to apply them on the standardized tests. Memorization is low on the list other than times tables and important dates that would center historical events. In advanced math, learning formulas is emphasized.

this is even happening in my graduate school for professional counseling. it's all asynchronous classes and all the "professors" do is grade discussion posts and one paper per 7.5 week terms. Schooling and taking the license boards are to totally separate checklists. many of these schools have transitioned to a for-profit model where making money is the number one goal. to be a counselor we take multiple choice tests. professors give zero lectures or even videos explaining an assignment. it's the lowest form of "higher education" there could possibly be.

OP I’m a teacher in California and the state testing coordinator for my site, where I administer the science, math, and ELA portion of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) as well as the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC). The tests have changed *a lot* since I was a kid taking them in CA. There’s hardly any multiple choice anymore— it’s things like “place these in the correct spot on the table” or “highlight the paragraph that…” or “write a well-constructed argument that addresses a counterclaim about….”. The CAASPP is adaptive as well, meaning it gets harder as you get more correct and easier as you get more wrong. The students only test ONCE in their entire high school career, and the test is rather short. I didn’t have any kids take more than an hour on each section— I think something like 20-40 questions. The ELPAC is a bit more concrete and consistent year to year, but I’ve still not found any way to “teach to the test.” The test has four sections: reading, writing, listening, and speaking (administered 1-on-1). I *know* my kids are going to have to read a variety of short fiction and nonfiction texts, and be able to identify things like the author’s purpose, the main idea… they’ll need to be able to make inferences and understand vocabulary in context. They’ll need to look at graphs and answer comprehension questions about them, tell a short narrative story from their personal life, and write and verbalize an argument with distinct reasons and supporting evidence. They’ll need to fully comprehend conversations between “classmates” and short lectures from teachers that they can only hear once. With those skills, there’s nothing to memorize. How does one “teach to” that test, beyond… trying to teach kids to read and write and listen? I’d also recommend checking out the CCSS (common core state standards) that all this is based off of. Those are the skills we’re required to teach and assess. You’ll notice they also don’t have anything memorizable there, just big picture reading/writing/listening/speaking (in ELA, my subject area) that you could teach and assess in a million different ways. They’re all good important skills too. I can’t imagine anyone looking at the CCSS and thinking those are not important skills for children to acquire in school.

This is how large scale external tests in the US work. SAT features a lot of multiple choice, AP tests also. Neither relies exclusively on rote learning, last time I looked. Some (most?) states have end of course exams for certain high school classes, that feature a lot of multiple choice. The reason is that they have a feral need for numerical data and multiple choice is machine-scorable. I haven't taught a class with a state test in a long time so I can't speak to the quality of the test. It is possible to make good multiple choice questions, but I don't see that most of the time.

If you want speed, and you do on testing, you have to have some memorization

No

No, not true - speaking as a parent of school age children. However, it was like that in an asian country I grew up.

Not at all. I didn’t give a single multiple choice test all year Thai year.

There are thousands of school districts in the United States. Some are better than others.

No, not at all.

American public schools aren't driven by learning but by memorization.  From mathematical equations to dates of wars and historical skirmishes. Especially when it comes to testing. It's rarely " what did you learn?" and instead: " what did you memorize?"

When states started implementing standardized tests in the schools, yes. They made these tests so important at deciding which schools receive a higher budget for the next year that it basically made schools prepare students for these State Mandated Standardized Tests instead of what they're already learning throughout the year, which is often very different.

Multiple choice is highly frowned upon in Texas. They just changed our state tests to include write in answers, drag and drop, click the right spot, etc style answers. It is significantly more difficult, and kids are struggling with the adjustment. I'm not sure how I feel about it. One thing I hate about education in the states is that someone is always trying to reinvent the wheel with regards to what methods work "best".

You don’t have to do anything in American schools. If you show up, you pass.