The Retention Problem

Today has been a fun day so far. I've done two projects with the kids this week and today was a project day. We've been studying perimeter and area - today we did an application project where they designed their own house and found the perimeter and area of different parts of their floor plan. The kids get creative and have a lot of fun with it, and of course, it's a nice day for me - I just get to facilitate, observe, and enjoy.

But there's still something that's been bothering me. Retention is still such a problem. I teach high school math and I'm still having to teach kids how to find perimeter and area of simple objects like squares and rectangles. Why does this happen? It's not just the fault of previous teachers either. I just taught them this stuff yesterday and they still don't know how to do it today.

Where does this problem really come from? I've been musing on my lunch break about the real origins of the Retention Problem.

Finding perimeter and area of squares and rectangles are ideas that kids are taught in early grade school. It's a very basic concept. How big around is your backyard? How much sand is in the sand box? I know that these things are taught. So why do kids forget things year after year after year? Is it teachers? Is it the long summer break? What is it?

I don't have the answer, but I did start to think about reasons why I retained information...but that didn't help either. I know that there must be a reason why I remembered how to do these things and so many of my high school students don't. I started to try to think of why.

Was it because of my parents? They are educated people who placed a value on my learning. They could help me with my homework and encouraged me to do well. Is that the reason?

Was it because of my teachers? I had good teachers and I had some not so good teachers. Did the good teachers make that much of a difference? There are some specific lessons that I remember clearly to this day. For example, 8th grade earth science with my most favorite teacher - we learned about how the earth rotates around the sun and the moon rotates around the earth. I remember very clearly that Mr. B. let me stand on a table in the middle of the room and be the sun while other students were the moon and the earth rotating around each other and the sun too. That was an amazing lesson and one that I will always remember. Was it because of teachers like that that I did so well?

I don't think that's the only reason either. There are a lot of things that I know how to do and I don't remember the specific time when I learned them. I know how to add and subtract, how to graph a function, and how to calculate an integral within a certain domain, but I don't remember exactly how I learned those things.

Also, I'm sure that Mr. B. and many of my other teachers had lots of fun and engaging lessons that I don't necessarily remember in detail. That's not to say that those weren't lessons, but not all great lessons stick in our minds as we age either.

Is it repetition? Yes, we learn by repetition. I add and subtract every day, so is that why I remember how to do it? No, because I don't necessarily calculate integrals everyday anymore now that I am no longer an undergraduate math student, but I still remember how to do it. Does repetition help? Yes, but I don't think that's the only way to retention either.

Is it my attitude about education and learning? I have a passion for it. I work really hard at learning. Is that what makes the difference? I don't think that's it either, because until the 8th grade I was not as motivated a student as I am now.

But somehow I retained things better than my students do now. I know I did, because I did not need to constantly be reminded of how to find perimeter and area when I was a junior in high school.

Yesterday we had a lesson with dot paper and finding shapes of certain perimeters and areas. We did tons of examples. We practiced over and over. But today I still had kids come up to me and say, "How do I find the perimeter of this bedroom I drew in my house?" or "Can I just count the boxes inside the room instead of multiplying? I don't remember how to do it," or "I don't remember what perimeter is."

So what makes the difference? Is it a combination of all those things? And what can we really do to fix it? I don't know that all the engaging and meaningful lessons in the world will always make a difference. I try to teach with fun activities every day and kids still forget how to do things from day to day.

And I don't know that reading all the "in" literature on how kids retain knowledge have the solution either.

Here's my theory, for what it's worth: In the end, it's up to the kids. I can make great lessons that engage kids and that might motivate them, but, in the end, no matter what the parents do, no matter what the teachers do, no matter what their peers do, if kids don't decide to internalize knowledge, nothing else will really help them remember what they learn.