The Importance of Repetition

Sometimes I debate with people about school reform. I will propose that some particular topic should be removed from the standard curriculum, and that we should add something else instead. Or perhaps that a certain set of facts should be removed, so that we can teach some other skill instead.

These debates never go well for me, because when discussing school most people have this very peculiar idea. Based on the arguments they make, they seem to believe that if you are a 10 year old child, and a teacher tells you some fact in a classroom, that you will remember it perfectly for the rest of your life. You will also fully understand all the implications of the fact. You will be 60 years old and still remember this thing you were told once, 50 years ago.

It makes debate difficult because every idea I propose we could remove to make room for something else is treated as denying the only opportunity in life for the children to learn this particular thing. The other people become so appalled at the idea that I might be willing to steal the precious information about the major exports of countries on other continents from our students that they can't think about anything else.

The children who are actually in schools are well aware this is complete nonsense. I remember after tests my fellow students asking the teacher if the particular topic we were quizzed on was going to be on future tests. They ask this, because of course they are well aware that not only are they not going to retain this information for the next 50 years, they aren't planning on retaining it for the next 50 hours.

Somehow those children lose that understanding on the way to adulthood.

We generally can't learn anything from just one exposure. We must be exposed repeatedly to retain it. We must practice skills on an ongoing basis to retain them.

This includes the information of Christianity and the skill of being a Christian. In this manner it is no different than any other set of facts or skill.

Sometimes I hear mature Christians who attend a sermon about some basic matter of Christianity complain that they didn't "get anything" out of the sermon, because it is things they have heard before.

Now, there is the obvious point that it is quite self-centered to assume that all sermons must always be targeted directly at you, without regard to what other people may need. But put that aside for now.

Even when my pastor preaches something I think I know very well, I listen attentively. Even if the sermon doesn't have a single new thing, I listen.

Because it is like exercise... you never outgrow the basics. No athlete ever advances far enough into professional sports to outgrow pushups or stretching.

There is an entire world out there trying to crush every bit of Christianity out of us. Only a fool believes themselves so immune to it that they can afford to ignore the basics.

Even someone decades into their study of Christianity has not outgrown the need to listen to the most basic presentation on the fundamentals of Christianity.