Over the years, many schools and teachers have changed the way they teach to improve the way their students are learning in the best way possible, yet students are still expected to memorize everything they've learned. Many schools say that they want to ensure their students get taught fairly but why are we supposed to memorize all the material that we learned?

Many students find memorization very frustrating because it's really difficult especially when you have 5–6 other classes to consider. When we try to have serious discussions about how we feel about memorization or anything we see unfair in the education system, we get dismissed and not taken seriously. We are often just seen as some teenagers whining and complaining when that's not the case.

Memorization stops the student from thinking critically about the topic, and that is not actual learning. Is this how you want your student to feel? Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say "Stop making all your test based on memorization" because there are times when memorization tests make sense. For example, if you've been learning about equations in math class and your teacher assigns a short quiz to see if you remember and know the material they've been teaching, that makes sense. But when a teacher assigns a 100+ question test about everything you learned from the first day of school to mid-school year, and you have to memorize all that information, that's when it becomes illogical. School has started to become more about remembering rather than learning, and that needs to change.

I don't even understand why schools still depend on this to determine their students' intelligence because it's antiquated. Memorizing everything you've learned in school needs to change because it's such an outdated thing. It makes many students mad, including me because I have finals coming up including a test with over 100 questions and all sophomores are expected to memorize everything that's going to be on this final test which is a huge percentage of our grade. That's just crazy and makes no sense.

In an article called "I want to learn, not just memorize" written by Alondra Gonzalez, she writes, "I have spent countless nights memorizing material, but at the end of the day, I don't know it. They give me flashcards, tests, and textbooks. Then, I work to memorize all those cards, memorize every word in those textbooks, yet, at the end of the day, I don't know what I'm talking about. Not a clue. I may pass the test and get a good grade, but I couldn't explain any of it."

This is something that many students can relate to because it happens a lot. There have been times when I was in class not knowing what I'm doing, but I still pass because I make myself memorize it. The practice of remembering over actual learning must change because schools are created to make students thinkers. Schools are supposed to prepare us for what's coming in the future, and if students are still being taught like this, it makes them feel like they're school experience has been useless for the past few years.

We come to school every day to learn, not just memorize, and teachers need to realize that.