What Should You Be Forgetting Today?

I have a new tradition!  I’ve begun to start every class with this question:

"What should you be forgetting today?"

Last spring, a lot of my students bombed their final exams.  I don’t think it was Zoom.  I don’t think it was fatigue.  I’m certain it wasn’t apathy.  And I have plenty of evidence that it wasn’t a lack of understanding.

I think they just... forgot.

Lucky me, I had just come across a terrific piece on forgetting by Doug Lemov - one of my absolute favorite teaching bloggers.  It includes this very cool graphic on forgetting:
​

Who knew that smart people knew so much about forgetting?

So this year, my classes are starting every day with the question,

“what should you be forgetting today?”

It’s quick and it’s simple - I just ask a few questions that, according to the graph, the kids should have about a 50% chance of having forgotten.  Mostly, it’s vocabulary words, lists, or simple procedures.  It isn’t problem solving or anything deep.  It doesn’t take very long.  It’s merely a chance to recall what your brain should have probably forgotten by now.

That’s how I frame it, too.

Your brain (not you) should have forgotten this by now.
​

 I’m already seeing some great benefits from it after just eight days, too:

• Each time the same word, list, or process comes up, more and more kids remember it without a reminder.
• The kids seem proud of what they do remember rather than ashamed of what they don’t.
• Less anxiety from the typically-anxious when I ask questions.

• Nobody asked me what a vocabulary word meant on their first assessment, which means nobody missed a question they knew because of a word they didn’t.
• Some kids are starting to realize that understanding and remembering are not the same thing.  When they forget something, they're starting to say "I forgot" rather than "I can't do it," or "I'm dumb" or something like that.

Additionally, more and more kids have become interested in (and receptive to) things I tell them will  boost memory, like,

• Thinking, then writing, then verbalizing something when you learn it
• Making a prediction before learning something
• Misunderstanding something first, then sorting it out
• Learning more than one strategy for doing the same thing
• Having some sort of emotional response (laughing, surprise, interest, etc) while learning
• ​Practicing
  
  

In addition to helping remember recent learning, I also used this time as an opportunity sneak in some r̶e̶m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ accelerated learning, too.  Prior, starting our first lesson on 7th grade statistics, I framed a review of needed 6th grade statistics topics this way, too.

"You probably should have forgotten this by now," 

rather than,

"a lot of you muted me and played video games when I taught you this last year." 

I certainly saw some wide-eyed, oh-crap-I-remember-ignoring-this looks on some faces during that test run, but at least this offered a soft landing to those students realizing for the first time that gaps from last year will actually matter.  I think I'll continue to frame accelerating this way moving forward.  After all, plenty of the kids who didn't mute me will have forgotten, too.

A whole lot of things have been a whole lot harder than usual to start this school year.  So far, however, it looks like one big one worry I brought into it may not be so tough after all.  I owe this year's biggest early success to one simple question -

"What should you be forgetting today?"

​

*I am extraordinary thankful for Doug Lemov and the Teach Like A Champion team.  Their blog  brought not only this important piece of learning to my attention, but also just about everything I learned about teaching digitally last year, too.  I highly recommend following it.


​
If you enjoyed this post, please share it!

Want to make sure you never miss a new post?  Subscribe below for email notifications of new content.  ​​

Click to set custom HTML

Want to read more right now?  You're in luck - you can browse past posts by category:

• ​Building A Thinking Classroom
• Leaning Into The Science and Engineering Practices
• Classroom Practices
• Classroom Stories
• Ideas and Opinions
• Pandemic-Related Issues