What’s left in memory

Mehak Siddiqui

While both animals and plants seem to track the passing of time, humans are the only species capable of communicating and expressing their memories and experiences. It’s not clear when exactly we began documenting our lives or keeping records but historians and anthropologists have established that it was likely from very early times. However, before the spread of writing, there were oral traditions that did not survive through the ages. The first written records appear relatively late in human history, dating back to a little more than 5,000 years ago in Egypt and ancient Sumer (modern day Iraq). The earliest Sumerian records were made using reeds cut at an angle to make wedge-shaped (cuneiform) marks on clay, which was then hardened by baking. Many of these clay tablets survive today, and scholars can still read them. The earliest records look like accounts: lists of property, cattle, sheep, and wheat, but even these comprise a history of sorts as they provide insight into what was most important for people during that time.

As the human brain evolved to become bigger than that of other creatures, we developed social awareness which led to a need to communicate. This in turn enabled us to cooperate and organize ourselves. Our capacity for language and complex forms of communication have played an important role in helping us rise to the top of the food chain.

Technological innovation has enabled us to establish new ways of communicating and keeping records over the years. From inscriptions on stone to ‘stories’ on Instagram and Snapchat, communicating with each other keeps us connected and adds meaning to our lives.

Record-keeping and documenting our lives can be a highly engaging topic of exploration for learners of all ages and within almost any subject area. It is easy to introduce in the class because learners and/or their families are probably already immersed in documenting their lives through photography and/or social media. The internet has encouraged us to record even the minute and mundane details of our lives, and this would be a good starting point to get students to analyze and better understand this process.

Here are some ideas for activities that will enable children to both engage in more conscious forms of record-keeping while exercising vital skills such as critical and creative thinking, listening and empathy, and collaboration with others.

English language and literature
Learning about documenting our lives in the context of language and literature can help students work on reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. The class could be introduced to the genres of memoir, autobiography and biography, and the teacher could lead a discussion about the differences between these types of accounts. Students could then read and discuss a selected memoir or autobiography over the course of a few weeks. Depending on the age of the learners, interesting books could be The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank or Dr Abdul Kalam’s Wings of Fire.

Alongside this engagement, students could work on their own mini autobiographies, compiling stories and pictures from their childhood to the present day. This project could be organized into chapters with students tackling one chapter each week until their autobiography is complete. Depending on the time and resources available, a final exhibition could be held wherein parents are invited to see the autobiographies and each student presents a small excerpt from their work.

A shorter activity could involve getting everyone in class to keep a daily journal for a week. Each day, a few students at random could be selected to read from their journal whatever they feel comfortable sharing. This engagement could be used as a springboard to explore the concept of privacy and involve students in a discussion about the right to privacy and respecting others’ personal lives.

Another interesting topic of discussion could be about the impact that writing has had on our culture. Questions to ask include how has writing been a positive innovation? Does it have any negative impact? With the advent of technology, what is the future of writing and books?

This would encourage students to think critically and evaluate their present reality in the context of the past and the future.

Science and technology
The recent picture of a black hole could be used to teach the importance of records in science and technology. Students can be taught about analog and digital record keeping and discuss the benefits and risks of both.

For an analog activity, the class can be taken on a nature walk around the campus or to a nearby park, where they can observe different kinds of plants. Learners can create a scrapbook in which they could stick the actual leaves and flowers collected from the ground or draw pictures and depending on their age level, label the different parts of the plant. Back in the classroom, the teacher can lead a discussion about how scientists continue to identify new species of plants and animals and the importance of keeping accurate records in this regard. You could also introduce to them projects such as Season Watch (www.seasonwatch.in), which encourage people to record the small changes in their immediate environment, such as the way leaves change colour, bud and flower at different points in the year or in their life cycle.

As a homework assignment, students can be told to take pictures and create a digital scrapbook or collage of the ecosystem around the areas where they live. This assignment can then be used to initiate a classroom discussion about urban development and related issues such as the loss of habitat for plants and animals, increased pollution, etc.

Medical records could be another way of teaching the importance of documentation in the context of science. An interesting engagement could involve students keeping a food diary of everything they eat for a week along with notes about their physical activity and moods. This could lead into a discussion about maintaining a balanced diet and healthy eating habits.

With regard to technology, students could discuss the different social media they use and the pros and cons of documenting our lives online. As a practical activity, the class could create an internal collaborative blog or vlog which they update every day for a week or two. At the end of the period, they could talk about what they enjoyed or did not enjoy about the project. This engagement can be used to equip students with knowledge about how to stay safe online and how to seek help when they need it.

Social sciences
From hieroglyphics to the advent of print and the internet, there are rich histories to be studied in the context of record keeping and documenting our lives. Some interesting activities could include getting students to document their family history through photographs or creating a mock newspaper or news show highlighting current events in the school or the city. Further, emojis could make for an engaging classroom discussion with students weighing in on how these, along with texting abbreviations, are changing the ways in which we communicate. You could also play a game in which teams have to communicate with each other using only emojis and no written or spoken words. This can fuel an exploration of the benefits of language.

Geographical records could also make for an interesting exploration. Students could be introduced to cartography and how maps evolve over time due to geological or political events. They can be assigned to groups to research how the geographies of different areas of the world have changed over the years and the reasons behind these changes. This could even be restricted to a study of India itself and the historical events that have transformed its geography.

For older learners, an important aspect to consider is with regard to how class, caste, gender, and racial differences impact access to literacy and technology, which in turn influences the ability to document and share personal experiences. It is important to teach students how history is always told from a certain point of view that inadvertently excludes, suppresses, or obliterates the narratives of those with lesser power and privilege. Students could be taken on a visit to a home for underprivileged children or an orphanage and write an account of how the lives of the children they meet are different from their own. Such an engagement could help learners cultivate empathy and compassion for others.

Art and craft
There is no end to how students could explore documenting their lives through art and craft. They could create scrapbooks or mood boards or collages depicting the essence of their lives and their personal likes and preferences. They could also engage in the popular ‘draw my life’ activity and discuss how visual representations help us better express our experiences and feelings.

If time and resources permit, students can be introduced to the processes of making paper and ink, which could be accompanied by a discussion about how these materials transformed the way we keep records.

In conclusion, record-keeping and documenting our lives is quite an interdisciplinary topic that can be covered in varied creative ways within and outside the classroom. The internet makes it easy for learners to understand the inherent human need to communicate and share information, and this can be used as a talking point to fuel a variety of interesting discussions that promote critical thinking and analysis among all age groups.

Today we often hear arguments about how an over dependence on technology is making us lose our memory and other cognitive abilities such as making simple calculations mentally. But a similar discussion took place over two millennia ago, when writing was first invented. Almost 2,500 years ago, in the Phaedrus, Plato describes the loss of the vivid, personal sense of engagement with the past that existed in oral cultures where history was always told as a story. In this dialogue, Socrates tells how the Egyptian god Thoth, who claimed to have invented writing, bragged that his invention would improve people’s memories. King Thamus (also an Egyptian god) replied that this was nonsense: “For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practise their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are not part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant… since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” (Plato in Twelve Volumes, sections 275a-275b)

Perhaps both arguments have merit because speech and memory surely have distinct, perhaps irreplaceable, advantages over writing, but writing has both broadened and sharpened our collective memory. In the same way, today, the physical act of writing and documenting our lives in non-digital ways has unique advantages to digital record-keeping, but the latter has also streamlined and made easier previously complex record-keeping processes like photography and publishing.

In this regard, interesting further questions for class discussion could be:
What would happen if we somehow lost the reams of records we’ve collected about human life and the world over thousands of years?

How do you think record keeping will further evolve in the years to come?

The author is passionate about education, technology, and travel. Learn more about her at www.mehaksiddiqui.com or reach her at mehak016@gmail.com.