If our ability to recollect a thing be so largely a matter of its associations with other things which thus becomes its cues, an important pedagogic consequence follows. There can be no improvement of the general or elementary faculty of memory: there can only be improvement of our memory for special systems of associated things; and this latter improvement is due to the way in which the things in question are woven into association with each other in the mind. Intricately or profoundly woven, they are held: disconnected, they tend to drop out just in proportion as the native brain retentiveness is poor. (p. 61)
James discussion on memory and its relationship to association is not so far fetch. Teachers utilize scaffolding consistently to teach new content. It is a practice that is and should be a natural process for teachers. Students associate the life cycle of a frog for instance with that of the butterfly if they learned this concept. I agree that using these fundamental principle should be the foundation for creating more concrete memories of of complicated concepts. James believe that there is can be no improvement on general elementary faculty of memory, is this true, are there ever flaws is what we remember that can be corrected?
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