[danielschonfeld]

This has always been the problem with folks in all levels of education.

They view the world with glasses looking backward applying them to the present and future. (A form of if all you have is a hammer)

If yesteryear the rote learning curriculum was about knowing Who was X and what did Y do then they’ll expect that everybody coming in today should know that verbatim and convince you it’s in your future’s best interest to commit your memory to it too.

Rarely does life work that way. More so in real (western) life, it’s all a game and you score high if you can find how to cheat the game or carve a niche for yourself.

A society that punishes heavily for failure can’t expect that people would emerge well rounded. It can absolutely expect that people would be professional gamers.

[rini17]

Author wants them to be able of an informed argument about things. And if it's cultural things these all came from history. Even in STEM fields history is equally as important as first principles.

[ragestorm]

I agree, however, time is zero sum. In school, it's all a numbers game to A) pass and B) pass ahead of your peers. This is the similar to the work environment A) not get fired and B) appear better than your coworkers.

So while in an ideal situation, students would be learning the context of a historical event, dive deeper in a topic, to create a better, more informed knowledge, what's the point? Does knowing more about Plato help with Java 101 by a statistically significant margin?

[rini17]

That is what colleges are supposed to? To churn Java coders?