VetOfTheSeasDown with gym class!
voidsignalsigh… how can one be so dumb?
SludgeyyThey do have a point. School should be about learning and developing critical thinking skills rather than memorizing who the 30th president was.
I know my schooling had a ton of memorization. Funny to think about now that I know I have Aphantasia because I always excelled in math and science because they are less about memorization and more about learning a concept to apply.
They need to teach kids how to use AI. It’s like people that won’t let you use a calculator in math. “You aren’t always going to have a calculator in your pocket”
I’ve always been a big supporter of open book/note tests
There is no reason I should be able to recite as much of the Canterbury Tales as I can.
IteriaFacts are how you build up everything else. It pretty hard to reason about complex math if you don’t understand how to count to 100. It’s pretty hard to reason about how societies move in waves and cycles if you don’t memorize something about history.
I think people don’t understand that you don’t just start doing abstract work. You build it a bunch of facts that you memorize and then you can start building higher level things like patterns and abstractions.
I know this from trying to teach my child basic concepts like what money is. What exactly is a day. How magnet work. The entire concept of estimation. These are trivial to adults, but these are hard won concepts that were build from concrete ideas for my child.
We know this is necessary because of cultures that are missing whole concepts like particular colors. The idea of right and left. So on.
AzzuCounting to 100 is like learning to read. Yes both are basic tools needed to learn English or math.
Do I need to know that the Ming Dynasty ruled from 1368 to 1644? Is anything about the Ming Dynasty relevant to my life? I cannot remember the other handful of dynasties so I guess the Ming Dynasty could be the only one needed to function.
Yes history is important and definitely worth telling people. But having them memorize stuff that you can look up in a textbook is dumb.
I could walk into any high school level history class and pass the test if it was open book and if I had enough time I’d probably find all the answers.
Anyone couldn’t walk into a Calculus class and pass the test with it being open book if they didn’t know how to do Calculus. Yes they could read the whole chapter and learn to do it then pass the test. But there’s no looking up the answers in the book. It’s not memorizing.
We know this is necessary because of cultures that are missing whole concepts like particular colors. The idea of right and left. So on.
Cultures are not missing whole concepts like particular colors or left and right. They just express it differently.
Light red is pink. But a light blue is still light blue, maybe baby blue or sky blue.
Russia has the word голубой for light blue. It’s equivalent to our pink. Are we missing the whole concept of light голубой? No.
The cultures understand them being a different color and even more so they understand how it’s a mix or part of a color group. Being able to point and say “orange” when equal red and yellow are mixed isn’t a necessary skill. Like what would you say if something was a mixture of equal parts green and yellow? You could say chartreuse. If you didn’t know that word are you really missing out on everything chartreuse?
The right and left thing I think you’re referring to the tribe that uses cardinal directions? Thinking in terms of cardinal directions instead of left or right is a bit bizarre and I don’t know exactly how deep it goes. Like if i wanted to tell you to hang the picture to the right of the fireplace, I would have to know the cardinal directions of your house? Cardinal directions are extremely useful to use in English. East side wall of your house tells you exactly what wall it is. Left or right doesn’t mean anything unless I say something like “facing your house”. If I knew your fireplace was on your north wall I could easily say “Hang the picture east of your fireplace” meaning hang it to the right.