Stop enhancing memory. Start growing minds.

Remembering is most valuable when it is an outcome of mental development. In education, it should not be treated as an end in itself.

One of the liveliest and most fascinating areas in the learning sciences is the study of memory. The recent addition of modern neuroscience and AI research has made it even more engaging.

Unfortunately, many memory scientists have been far too eager to assume that remembering is the essence of learning rather than an outcome of mental development. This assumption feeds into a simplistic approach to education that valorizes memorization—the accumulation of content knowledge—above learning activities that support the development of a robust connectome.

The connectome is the entire system of neural pathways and connections in your brain. Connectome research has shown that the number and strength of connections across different functions in the brain predict a wide variety of competencies. In other words, connectome research provides evidence that learning in a way that recruits multiple mental functions (embodied learning) develops a more effective and agile mind.

An educational focus on memory is unfortunate because educational practices focused on memorization inevitably interfere with the development of the connectome—including the development of memory. I say inevitable because, at best, each moment spent memorizing is a missed opportunity for embodied learning. This is true for everyone.

It’s ironic that many efforts to enhance memory actually interfere with the development of memory.

I’m not proposing that we abandon the study of memory. It is a critical component in understanding the development of the mind. Instead, I’m suggesting that we abandon the notion that the essence of learning is remembering.

As I have argued elsewhere, optimal mental development is primarily accomplished through embodied reflective practice in real-world contexts. The kind of remembering that matters most is the outcome of diverse opportunities to put knowledge to work. When we learn in this way, we build usable knowledge, mental agility, and increasingly sophisticated ways of knowing and understanding.

Educational programs that valorize embodied reflective practice are more effective than those that focus on remembering because they provide every student with the opportunity to learn optimally. This is because all participants in embodied reflective practices, regardless of their current level of mental development, can practice in their own way—in their own Goldilocks Zone. There is no need for learners to practice at “grade level” in order to benefit.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve already heard about the Goldilocks Zone. It’s the range in which a learning goal is just challenging enough to support optimal learning by stimulating interest and triggering the dopamine-opioid cycle — the brain’s natural motivational cycle. This cycle functions best when we are building skills — putting knowledge to work — as opposed to memorizing.

Let’s keep studying memory. It’s an important field of inquiry. But we should abandon the notion that remembering is the essence of learning. Putting remembering in its rightful place as one important outcome of optimal mental development is the first step toward building educational systems designed to grow 21st-century minds.

For the last 30 years my colleagues and I have focused on studying, measuring, and supporting mental development. Our assessments have been developed exclusively to measure mental development (not attitudes, beliefs, memory, or IQ). If you want to know how effectively your curriculum is supporting the development of 21st century minds, we’d love to help!