Took the words right out of my mouth.
It is taught but not retained. I mean look. Only 25% of the public votes in the midterms. That is pathetic, but that's what's important to the American public. Teachers can "make" students retain information long enough to regurgitate it on a test to pass in school. They cannot "make" students remember it 10, 20, 30 plus years later.
Just like my algebra teachers could not "make" me retain all that math years later. I didn't use it, didn't need it. It's gone. It's not important to me.
I would venture to say that most people remember the words and melodies to most if not all pop songs from their school days. Why? Repetition.
I remember every Shakespeare monologue and soliloquy I memorized in the course of my high school acting career. Why? Repetition.
Facts are the same way. You study, you memorize, you remember.
I also ... ahem ... remember every party I went to, and who was there, where it was, what I was drinking that night, and for the most part when it was.
Do you know brain research? I do. I'm a teacher.
In the first instance, melody attached to words sears to a different part of the brain than simple words alone. We know this. It's why people with alzheimers and dementia can recall song lyrics from long ago. Secondly, you are proving that Project Based Education works with your second example and Shakespeare. The words were attached to a play that would be performed, not just rote memorization and "facts". But conservatives generally hate that "liberal namby-pamby stuff"--but liberals are right in this. If the learning is unimportant and has no place in real life, or no end point, no one retains it.
Conservatives generally suck at understanding education. I say this as a conservative, btw.
In your third example, anything, again, that touched on your social emotional, REAL life will be long imprinted on your memory. If you make teenagers memorize long lists of facts that have no meaning to their real life, not only will they hate it, they won't remember it.
So, you just rather shot your whole case to smithereens with your examples.
