Judy and I read books together. More often than not, this involves keeping a book in the car from which she reads snippets as long as the time it takes us to get places. Living on an island, that can be short but living in west Oahu, with Honolulu traffic, it can be long enough for a chapter or two, depending on the book. Occasionally, the book is so big that we keep it at home and find times, usually around meals, to share a section. Such is the case with the book, A History of the World in 100 Objects, written by the curator of the British Museum. Not surprisingly, all one hundred are in that museum.

In a recent chapter, the author made a connection with the book we have in our car, The Day the Universe Changed, by James Burke. Burke’s book was the basis for a television series several decades ago, and it features game-changing events in human history, like the invention of the printing press with moveable type. The connection was this: in early human history, knowledge was passed from person to person and generation to generation orally, for the most part, and there was great stock placed in having a great memory. Some humans were so talented at remembering things that they could hear a story and repeat it verbatim after only one hearing. There are still some people who can probably do that, but we would view such a person these days as an exception.

With the advent of the printing press, the need for such memory diminished. After all, once the type was set and secured in a press, and with sufficient paper, any message could be repeated countless times. Think, too, about the image of the “town crier,” that individual who walked around reciting important notices and news items for the benefit of the general populace. Who needs a crier when you have a Star-Advertiser? Some might argue that television news is an updated version of the crier, delivering snippets of stories designed to keep one at least minimally informed, but the point about memory still stands. Who needs someone with a great memory when you have such sources?

In education, we are evaluating the impact of yet another assault on the need for memory. If you have an iPhone, as do I, or any other smart phone with internet access, you can find out information about anything you can think of within a few seconds. That is, perhaps, a little longer than it might take a person with a good memory to remember facts, but not by much. So, as we prepare young people for their lives in the adult world in the next fifty years, what should they know from memory? As you might expect, I have a lengthy list as do others, I know. Mine includes such things as knowledge of one’s family, faith, political system, numeracy, scientific, language and historical literacy, how to live a healthy life, etc. My list, though, is subject to erosion because of what people can learn with a flick of a thumb. This helps to explain why I place importance on values, skills and qualities; in my mind, these are unassailable.

Memory, though, has a relative in remembrance. When memory is collective and becomes overt in the form of ceremony or tradition, it becomes something that cannot succumb to the hand-held information device. I had the privilege of sitting at a ceremony last week that was suffused with that sort of collective memory. An IPA trustee and parent, Lance Wilhelm, was the focal point for Poni Ho’omaika’i, the ceremonial investiture of a trustee for Kamehameha Schools. We sat in the sanctuary of Kawaiaha’o Church, decorated in its own history, and connected the will of a Hawaiian princess with the modern-day trust invested in those responsible for seeing that the intent of her Last Will and Testament is upheld. With the oli, pule, hula and spoken word, we shared in remembrance of a visionary woman, an ideal and a hope, a dream that cannot be reduced to facts or even feelings.

Memory fades. Like countless others, we have in our family the experience of memory eroded by disease. As do others my age, I forget things and chalk up the lapses to “senior moments,” a joke that masks the very real proclivity of human beings to lose capacity for memory as they age. Of course, it is also true that the more one uses one’s memory, keeping the mind active, the less likely will be precipitous decline. In this respect, my iPhone can be either a blessing—shoring up my memory—or a curse—making me less likely to try to remember because I can find the information I need so easily.

Remembrance need not fade, if we have the collective will to insure that it does not. There are plenty of things that fall into the category of remembrance; one comes up on Monday, January 16, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, when we remember an icon of American history and also the cause of dignity for all humanity for which he stood. Other national holidays like Labor Day, Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day are rooted in remembrance as are those holidays with religious origins. Families, clans, and similar groups have their own special remembrances that connect the present with the future and the past while encouraging us to pause and reflect about things larger than ourselves.

In families and schools, at work and in daily life, we can become so encumbered in quotidian details that reflection seems a luxury. I hope IPA alumni will be known not just for what they know and do but for what they sustain and value. I hope that we are creating at IPA a place where our students, in addition to building their memories as well as their skills, accept their responsibility for remembrance.