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(3) Memory
[26]
the physical processes necessary to perform movement; and
a psychic-spiritual dimension, e.g. an 'ear for music' or 'feeling'
for spatio-temporal relationships when performing delicate
manual work, etc.
As highlighted before, the basic assumption of psychopedagogics is that experiencing
is an act. In the case of memory, the question of whether we deal with an act of a
person or something within a person, becomes more problematic. Sonnekus (1977 :
U6-129) uses the term memorising which he classifies as a cognitive mode of learning.
Memory thus refers to one aspect of cognitive functioning. According to Piaget &
Inhelder (1969 : 124) memory is a form of actualisation involving the conservation of
the entire past or at least of everything in a subject's past that serves to inform his
present action or understanding. The psychic life of a child is a unity ofwhich memory
is thus only an essential characteristic or, more descriptive, it is the mode of actualising
the psychic life. Nel & Urbani (1990 : 76) support this view and state that memory is
closely interwoven, not only with the cognitive modes of experiencing, but also with
the precognitive ones and with the affectivity. Memory is often equated with learning.
Even the learning of skills is regarded as a form of memorising. Memorising or
remembering is, however, not learning but it does fulfil an all important supporting
role in learning. Memory has been described as a mode of actualising the psychic life.
This implies that memory is not only reproductive but also productive in nature.
Explore and emancipate do not disappear when a person remembers. A person more
often than not, remembers because he wants to understand his present situation to be
able to act, to solve problems, in other words to reconstitute his situation. A child
wants to understand the meaning ofa specific situation for his emancipation and while
remembering, constitute his inner life-world.