[Cushman]

Sorry, are you implying that there are kids out there who are drilling a list of dinosaur names every night without any interest in what those dinosaurs looked like, or sounded like, or ate?

Every kid who's ever wanted to tell me about all the X she knows hasn't been able to wait to tell me all kinds of facts and details about each X, and was eager to hear if I knew something interesting about X.

That's not rote recitation; that's knowledge.