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Comment by gampleman | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious what education system you are talking about. One of the trends of modern (read post 1900) education was a move to emphasise higher-order skills (such as analysis or critical thinking) over lower-order skills (like memorisation). In some systems this has gotten to the point where kids seem unusually happy about going to school but don't actually learn almost anything while there...

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It may not be like everywhere but in the US most of my education (k-12) was memorization. All we did was memorize names, places, dates, formulas, or a series of steps (depending on the class) over the course of ~2 weeks then we'd be tested to see what we could remember. After the test, we'd move on to the next thing and could forget all about what we just memorized.

The only classes I can recall that required higher-order skills were some woodworking, CAD, and CNC/machining classes I took while at an off-site vocational school alongside my required high school classes.

This was my experience as well.

Down to the metal fabrication / woodworking being the most critical thinking I did in K-12 other than programming and reading on my own time

I went to a high school (in the US) that was full of extremely passionate and engaging teachers. After I graduated, I had a conversation with one of them about the curriculum, and she told me that their number one job was effectively to teach whatever will be on the standardized tests used for college admissions.

I've had some amazing teachers whose passion shone through and cultivated students' genuine interest in the subject matter. Unfortunately, there is only so much that can be done when, at the end of the day, your curriculum is designed for the purpose of getting a good standardized test score.

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