In one corner of a Sydney community centre, ear-muffed teenagers memorise shuffled cards in under 30 seconds. In another, children solve Rubik’s cubes so fast that their hands blur, while five-year-olds complete complex mental addition.
Hundreds of Mongolian Australian children gather to train each week at Arncliffe Youth Centre. They are learning mnemonic techniques and problem-solving skills to become mind champions.
Enkhjin Batzorig, Enerel Batkhuyag, Nomin Tsendsugar and Maral Oyunbat compete in memory contests. Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
For 14-year-old Alexandria Park Community School student Maral Oyunbat, who recently competed in Germany for the World Championships, the sport is a chance to travel. She is excellent at memorising numbers, and once memorised 1500 random numbers in an hour.
To do so, she uses memory techniques, linking each number to an image. She then uses these images to create a story, placing the numbers in her “memory palace”.
Her skill comes in handy. Maral’s friends say she needs only to glance at a textbook before the information is committed to her memory.
It’s easy to think of these kids as geniuses, but everyone can learn the techniques, said memory academy principal Chingerel Chinzorig, who began the program four years ago, bringing it from her home country, Mongolia.
A multiple-exposure photograph of Alexandria Park Community High School year 9 student Maral Oyunbat, a world memory champion.Credit: Sam Mooy
“Our purpose is to develop kids and unlock their brains,” Chinzorig said. Though many students go on to compete in international competitions, she said parents typically enrol their children to improve their academic outcome.
The program runs for 10 months, costs about $4000 and is available only to the Mongolian community, though Chinzorig hopes to expand it to all next year. Some children start as young as five, learning the Rubik’s Cube, speed cup stacking, and speed maths using 10 fingers to count at a rapid pace.
“Every person can learn, and it helps students to learn smart, learn fast and remember more,” Chinzorig said.
“Even if a student is not interested in memory athletics, they use the techniques for academics.”
Niche academic programs marketed towards gifted children thrive in Sydney, said Australian Tutoring Association chief executive Mohan Dhall. These often-international franchises target different unique skills, “often with a scientific justification, a neurological one”.
There are academies for art, speed reading, speed maths, spelling, chess or memory. Almost all offer the chance to compete internationally, which helps children build an “impressive résumé“, Dhall said.
However, there can be a dark side to rote memorisation. Dhall said children can become so focused on remembering stories that they forget the content.
“Kids who use a lot of mnemonics can get distracted by the story and forget the substance and the subtlety of what they are learning,” he said. “I have had to coach mnemonic training out of kids so they can learn to think again.”
The sport is booming in Asia but is “pathetically small” in Australia, said La Trobe University academic and memory researcher Dr Lynne Kelly, though she hopes it will grow.
Speed cards champion Unurbold Byambadorj, 15, has a personal record of remembering the order of a randomly shuffled deck of cards in 30 seconds. Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
“Mongolia is leading the world in this,” she said. “They have it right through their schools, why Australia doesn’t, I can’t imagine.
“It’s a cognitive sport that really suits the kids that don’t suit other categories.
“It teaches you to focus, it teaches imagination because you have got to give each [item you are remembering] a character and a story. These visuals are placed in the ‘memory palace’ [a place inside the mind where memories are held].”
University of Sydney educational researcher Associate Professor Paul Ginns said that while mind programs are great at improving confidence, he was sceptical of their ability to transfer into academics.
“When you train working memory, you improve in the kind of tests that are used to assess working memory,” he said, before adding that there is “almost no good evidence” to suggest these skills transfer to academic outcomes.
For 12-year-old Marsden High School student Nomin Tsendsugar, memory skills feel like a “secret superpower”.
“My friends always ask me to memorise things for them, and then they forget to ask me to tell them what I memorised,” she said.
“Sometimes for fun, when class is boring, they give me random numbers, I glance at them, then write them down. We create a story, and when you recall the story, you see the numbers,” Nomin said. “It increases your attention span and your mind’s capacity, so it is easier for you to learn things and pick up new skills.”
Almost all the children have a special skill. For Tempe High School student Unurbold Byambadorj, 15, his power lies in the cards. He can memorise an entire deck of cards in under 30 seconds. The skill has its perks – last year he recalled a 1000-word essay, “without forgetting anything”.
“My peers get shocked. I show them how much I can memorise – words, numbers, names, anything – they are amazed.”
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