One thing that is becoming more and more clear, is that memorization is absolutely a required part of becoming an expert.
But it's not fun, it's boring, and it takes up a lot of your time. You can't really train your memory with a nice Youtube video, and it's incompatible with the "learn while playing" concept.
So schools in the US tend to sideline it by handwaving that "they teach how to think" instead. And I think we're now seeing the result, with the ever-declining test results. The NAEP scores in the US peaked in 2014 and have been declining ever since: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ushistory/results/scores/
It's also interesting that there's no similar decline in China, where rote memorization is unavoidable because of the writing system.
But it's not fun, it's boring, and it takes up a lot of your time. You can't really train your memory with a nice Youtube video, and it's incompatible with the "learn while playing" concept.
So schools in the US tend to sideline it by handwaving that "they teach how to think" instead. And I think we're now seeing the result, with the ever-declining test results. The NAEP scores in the US peaked in 2014 and have been declining ever since: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ushistory/results/scores/
It's also interesting that there's no similar decline in China, where rote memorization is unavoidable because of the writing system.