"Through memorization, students begin to mimic the best that is in authors, employing their patterns of thought, lines of argumentation, and knowledge in their own thinking and academic work. Such engagement awakens their minds, sharpens their reason, and forms their character."
April 01, 2026
Bring memorization back to schools
The Hill • Daniel Buck
What happens when schools stop asking children to hold anything in mind for themselves? This piece makes a calm, timely case that memorization is not a dead educational relic but a way of strengthening attention, deepening thought, and handing on a cultural inheritance worth loving.
The Hill
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Coby Dollof was a ninth-grade student trying to avoid the reading when a classical school teacher assigned him Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. There was no shortcut, no SparkNotes page, no easy way around the book. So he opened it and something opened in him. What began with Chesterton became a doorway into wonder, beauty, humility, and the great questions of life. Years later, standing before Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica, Coby found himself moved by something larger than he could explain. He was being drawn into a story bigger than his own. Now a writer and teacher at Pepperdine University, Coby helps students ask the questions that once found him: What is wisdom? What is virtue? Why do truth, goodness, and beauty matter? What is vocation? And what kind of life is worth living? This is a story about classical education as awakening. The kind of awakening that forms a person and helps them become fully alive.
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Dr. Andrew Selby reflects on the kind of “deep people” who bring wisdom, stability, and calm during times of crisis, arguing that true depth comes from the combination of knowledge, understanding, and practiced wisdom. He explains how classical Christian education, through great teachers, the study of Scripture and Great Books, and thoughtful discussion, helps cultivate students into thoughtful leaders who can guide others in an unstable world.