The Education Of Girls In The United States (1894)

There is value, to be sure, in teaching children the history of their own country and — especially in light of increasing globalization — the world, but a memorized list of states casts no real light on history and leaves a student with no genuine skills for understanding (say) current events. The result, in the words of one researcher, is that many students are unable to give evidence of more than a superficial understanding of the concepts and relationships that are fundamental to the subjects they have studied, or of an ability to apply the content knowledge they have acquired to real-world problems .. . it is possible to finish 12 or 13 years of public education in the United States without developing much competence as a thinker. In the information age, children have no trouble finding information, but they have trouble interpreting it. The fact (discussed earlier) that we tend to believe first and ask questions later is truly dangerous in the era of the Internet — wherein anyone, even people with no credentials, can publish anything ...»