Religion
Many religions contain vast amount of scriptures, commentaries, and even commentaries on classical commentaries. Rote learning is prevalent in many religious schools throughout the world. This is partly because most major religions appeared before the emergence of print.
Most Dharmic religions such as Hinduism or Buddhism initially transmitted their scriptural knowledge through oral transmission without resort to text. This was done by converting verse into chant and repeating it to commit to memory. In Abrahamic religions, Jewish yeshivot or chederim (plural of cheder) use rote learning when teaching children Torah, Muslim madrasas utilize it in memorizing Qur'an. A person who has memorized the entire Quran is known as Hafiz. In pre-Enlightenment Europe, memorization techniques were known as Method of loci, mainly practiced in monasteries and universities, where divinity was taught. These skills were highly praised and they were known to be extensive allies of memorization technique such as the memory palace.
After the emergence of the printing press, the memorization of the entire scriptures was no longer an essential requirement of being a religious teacher. Rote learning is still used in various degrees, especially by young children, the main purpose being to memorize and retain as much textual material as possible, to prepare a student for a more analytical learning in the future.
Read more about this topic: Rote Learning
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this—that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made—not to understand—but to feel—as crime.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.”
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
“If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism—at least in the sense of this work—is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.”
—Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872)