The ongoing debate on whether memorization is a good learning strategy misses one crucial point: everybody’s learning style is different. I can’t memorize worth a damn. It takes me years to remember my own address and phone number. I need to understand how things work in order to process them. Other people, however, are brilliant at memorizing and find it very useful. For some, memorization is an effective tool that unlocks their creativity.
This is why I always give my students two options when we study grammar. If they find it easier, they can memorize all of the cases where the subjunctive (to give one example) is used. If, however, they are like me and are incapable of retaining a list of rules in their heads, I explain to them the basic principles that govern the use of the subjunctive and they never have to remember a single rule. There is usually an equal number of people who choose each method.
The temptation to look for a single teaching method that will work for every student and transform the education system is huge. But we have got to realize that we are wasting our time looking for a single solution or a single recipe. The complexity of teaching is due precisely to the uniqueness of individual learning strategies and individual teaching methods. The only recipe here is to let each student and each teacher explore what will work for them.
Teaching is like love. There is no algorithm governing it.