The Opinion Pages Products of Rote Learning Leon Botstein, music director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, is the president of Bard College.

I will take issue with the interchangeable use of “rote memorization” and “learning by heart,” though. Consider the experience of, say, learning to play a Chopin étude.

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The conventional one-size-fits-all approach of classroom education, while foundational, often misses the mark in catering to the individual needs and learning styles of each student.