Have you ever wonder how to memorize the presidents of the USA? Memory training expert Ron White shares his story of teaching the cutest 6 year old girl how to memorize:
I have been teaching people to memorize the presidents of the USA since there was only 42 Presidents! That doesn’t sound like a long time ago since today there is 44 Presidents. However, that was almost 20 years ago!
Kailey was a six year old girl who had watched me teach her 10 year old brother how to memorize the presidents and she quietly watched and followed us around the house as we used a memory training system to memorize the presidents. Kailey just quietly watched and took mental notes. She really didn’t know exactly what we were doing but she knew that she too wanted to master this system. She wanted the praise Jacob received when he recited all the presidents from memory.
So one day, she begged me, ‘Ronnie teach me to memorize the Presidents! Teach me to memorize the Presidents!’ At first I said ‘not now’ because I was tired. Then a switch flipped in my mind and I thought, ‘Wow I have a 6 year old begging me to teach her something educational and I am saying no because I am tired.’ As soon as I realized this I shot up and began teaching her the system.
First of all, I did NOT teach her to memorize the presidents with some silly song, rhyme or linking story. Why? Because in order to repeat a list of items using this method you have to start at the very begining of the story and if you leave out one part of the story the entire story is thrown off. Plus I wanted her to be able to answer questions like :
Who was the 17th President?
Who was the 30th President?
If you learn the presidents by memorizing a song, story or rhyme you do not have the ability to do this. Instead, the method I taught her is a 2500 year old memory method developed by Simonedes who is known as the ‘Father of Memory Training’. He devised a system where you recall information by remembering seeing them around your home on pieces of furniture.
In order to memorize anything including the presidents using this memory training system, the first item of business was for Kailey to number pieces of furniture in her home. After we did this we then turned each President’s name into an image and attached it to the furniture. She walked around the house and saw 44 pictures interacting with 44 pieces of furniture and then this six year old then repeated all the Presidents!
Make no mistake, this was all done in one evening…in just a few hours. After she repeated all the Presidents from memory I then asked her if I could record her doing it again and she said, ‘You can record it for a dollar…’ I was happy to pay and here is the cutest six year old of all time reciting the Presidents of the USA from memory