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Comment by brtkdotse | Hacker News Reader

> I refused to learn geography because we had map applications

Which is ironic, because geography isn’t about memorizing maps

Funny you should say that. In Sweden, to get good grades in English you have to learn lots of facts about UK, like population, name of kings and so on. What does that have to do with english? It's spoken in many other countries too. And those facts change, the answers weren't even up to date now...

That’s odd. Outside of reading comprehension assignments I never had any fact memorization as part of any language course.

Perhaps they changed the curriculum since the 90s

Yes, I was very confused when daughter came home with some bad scores on a test and couldn't understand what she meant. I had to call the teacher to get an explanation that it wasn't history lesson, it was english lesson... Really weird is just not covering it.

Swedish schools gets a makeover every time we change government. It's one of those things they just have to "fix" when they get to power.

Some parts of it were though.

Almost all parts require it, but none are about it. That's how background knowledge works. If you can't get over the drudgery of learning scales and chords, you'll never learn music. The fact that many learners never understand this end goal is sad but doesn't invalidate the methodology needed to achieve the progression.

> That's how background knowledge works. If you can't get over the drudgery of learning scales and chords, you'll never learn music.

Tell that to drummers

As a drummer, you need to learn your scales and chords. It still matters, and the way you interact with the music should be consistent with how the chords change, and where the melody is within the scale.

Your drumming will be "melodic" if you do so

Not mention tuned drums

It would be interesting to test adults with the same tests that students were given. Plus some more esoteric knowledge. What they learned at school could then be compared to see new information that they learned after school... as well as information, skills that they didn't use after school. It may help focus learning on useful skills knowledge that people have learned... as well as information that they didn't learn in school that would be useful for them!

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