As I mentioned in
previous posts in February, I applied for Greek
citizenship which requires me to demonstrate my knowledge of Greek geography,
history culture, political system, etc. by oral
interview before a 3- or 4-member panel. So here I thought I would outline
the processes I went through trying to commit to memory the contents of the
88-page e-book we would be examined on. The disadvantage of having a mature
brain - which often forgets why one finds oneself in a particular part of the
house – was offset by having enough time to tackle the project – 9 to 10 months
in all as it worked out.
A typical page
follows – this bust depicts Homer,
the greatest epic poet who wrote the Iliad and Ulysses, focusing on the Sack of
Troy in 1184 B.C. along with my hand-written notes.
First step was to
read the entire book to get a general
overview – quite daunting to see the amount of information to be covered
and in some detail as well. This gave me the feel of the content which I then broke into chunks beyond the obvious
chapter organization. So, sub-topics were grouped or even re-grouped – as in
the case of the geographic departments which were learned along with the
political districts in that they differ in about 3 issues only, so learning that contrast reduced possible
confusion.
Each
section was read and a hand-written
summary written with the highlighted
or salient input selected. Simultaneously a record of difficult lexes or useful phrases was kept, again
organized in sections.
Years ago as I was
studying Camus’ La Peste, I remember
my vocabulary list being pretty gruesome: suppurate,
pus, boils, etc. Here the list tended towards the cultural: linear B script,
clay tablets, sculpture; the political:
voting procedure, constitutional
contents, organizations under the aegis of NATO; the polemic: declare war,
occupation, prolonged
siege, population
decimation -
history does not sit easy on Greece!
The sculptures which remain exude great majesty,
but this artist/archaeologist impression of the gigantic statue of Athina that dominated
her temple on the Acropolis is awesome in the fullest sense!
On the second round of familiarization, I began
to embellish areas which needed
clarification: What’s the difference between the roles of the President of
the Democracy and the President of the Government? - as well as those areas of interest: What did the two Nobel Prize winners in
Literature (Seferis and Elitis) write, where were they from,
etc.? In this way things and people come
more alive, gaining that third dimension makes them more memorable. I guess a
degree of personalistion was
happening there too.
There were times when I felt my mind would
explode with all the information being crammed into it. To try and avoid
overload, I alternated topics, so I
would review the names of mountain ranges, mountains, rivers and lakes, then
move on to my paired History grouping of Ancient Times and the Byzantine
Era.
Plato, on considering what knowledge
meant, tried to explain how we can
forget or confuse already learned items. One explanation he provided was
that the brain was like a huge aviary and learned items were birds within it.
So, remembering was catching the right bird, confusion was catching the wrong
bird, while forgetting was not finding the bird being searched for. It took a
lot of review and rehearsal to get to the level of reasonably efficient
retrieval, and I did get strange looks on the local bus as I muttered to myself
the names of the cabinet ministers and their relevant ministries!
In this process of learning, my mental archive
was like a series of windows representing each large topic area. To begin with
these were pretty cloudy - echoing the sad state of the actual house windows
which were severely neglected during my study phase! However, with continual rereading and rehearsal, these began to
gradually become more clear and
memorable to the point where I could visualize my written page and the ‘hook words ‘which operated as links
from sub-topic to sub-topic or from section to section. So from the fall of
Constantinople, we moved on to the Greek Uprising against Turkish Occupation.
I wanted
to reach the stage where I could quickly pick and choose different items of
information from different topics without any hesitation – or wrong birds! And,
of course, as a ‘polluted learner’ I could not go through the process without
simultaneously analyzing it!
What I learned is that despite educators
regularly denouncing the process of ‘learning by heart’ as non-creative, I
found it to be otherwise. The term
learning ‘parrot fashion’ suggests learning to produce without there being any
understanding. However, my experience tells me that learning is a much more
complex process than that – in fact, being able to retrieve efficiently demands
clarity and understanding of input. The bird has to be put into our mind’s hard
disc, classified, contrasted with the already known birds, and made familiar to be readily distinguished and
identified as the bird relevant to the
question, the given stimulus, the need to be remembered, etc.
Our history section ended with WW2 and I was
intrigued to find this quote from Winston Churchill who confers a great
compliment: From now on we will not say
that the Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks!
One final quote from Churchill came to my
attention, comparing the contributions made to mankind by the Ancient Greeks
and the Scots. Another great compliment paid to both nations – a status that
our up-coming political incumbent seems reluctant to accept that Scotland
possesses!
However, despite all that and since it is the
season to be jolly, let me end my post with both of us sending you our very
best wishes for the Christmas festivities – enjoy the season with health and
happiness.
I have just put up the tree - and as for presents
underneath, there is the reclining Prunella – our Christmas cat! Ho ho ho!
