Reply #43: Well, a lot of teachers don't believe we should teach facts. [View All]

[woo me with science]

They are way too busy teaching "higher level thinking."

Okay, that was sarcastic. But you see it on every damned education thread around here...teachers defending not requiring students to learn basic information that should be part of every curriculum.

Research in cognitive psychology (cf. Robbie Case, among many others...) has illustrated very clearly that kids begin to think on a higher level only once they have a good enough grasp of basic information to see patterns and make connections with all the information they have mastered.

This is part of the dumbing down of America, that so many people believe that high-level thinking is possible without the basics. Try participating in a science thread around here with all the screaming experts who have never taken a basic science course, and you will see the result. People can support Bush only because they HAVE NO IDEA what the Constitution says or how our government works, because they have never been required to learn it.