Do you think that too many teachers instruct by rote methods?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes - I think many teachers and much of the materials they use teach to the bottom of Bloom's Taxonomy. (remembering, understanding and some applying) There seems to be little evaluating and analysis.

I find the opposite to be true and I work in a school. The push is for students using higher order thinking skills which is fine if 1) you actually have some more basic skills first and 2) you are mentally capable of it. I am old school about my son's memorizing multiplication facts and thankfully he knows them all. It's sad to see 5th graders skip counting b/c they don't know them.

[Anonymous]

No. I think they need to do more of it. Sometimes you just need to memorize the answer.

[Anonymous]

This type of education fad is also why a large prcentage of the Pennsylvania college students don't know basic facts about the Holocaust. A jounalist did a whole study on that. By shunning everything rote, we also created all those students who cannot find a foreign country on the map. Knowledge, lots of it can and should be rote, is fine. Without factual knowledge, there cannotbe real higher level understanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This type of education fad is also why a large prcentage of the Pennsylvania college students don't know basic facts about the Holocaust. A jounalist did a whole study on that. By shunning everything rote, we also created all those students who cannot find a foreign country on the map. Knowledge, lots of it can and should be rote, is fine. Without factual knowledge, there cannotbe real higher level understanding.

I'd love to see a reference to that study by a journalist that found that a large percentage of Pennsylvania college students don't know basic facts about the Holocaust because schools are emphasizing higher-level thinking.