[williamcotton]

Take the study of history. The sequence of events and causal relationships are what is important, not the exact dates and times.

Research (in prepublication right now) done by my wife has shown that students are more engaged with the study of history the less it has to do with Jeopardy questions and the more it has to do with situating their life experiences, goals and passions into the flow of humanity through time, often letting them choose to focus on aspects of history that are traditionally ignored, like fashion, household labor, just to name a few.

There is extensive literature on how rote memorization is counter to many of the goals of education, which I can point you to if you have access to an academic digital library (and after consulting with my wife and her peers as this is not my area of expertise).

Higher education recognizes the unimportance of memorization in that the frequency of open-note and open-book exams increase through undergrad to graduate education.