Do I need to memorize dates, names, spelling and other rules at school? Opinions of 5 experts

Recently, there have been many complaints from students that they are forced to memorize a lot of unnecessary information that they will never need in life. I need to memorize dates, names, spelling and other rules at school.

Dates of historical events, names and years of life of historical characters, number of troops, population, rules of spelling and syntax, geographical names, economic indicators of territories, size of mining, values ‹‹of physical constants and other information that can be found in directories.

It should be recognized that the entire control system of the modern school is aimed at testing this knowledge. Well, just because they are easier to measure.

As a result, more subtle skills and competencies - such as the ability to navigate information resources, critical thinking, the ability to find the best solution to problems with a lack of information, the ability to distinguish facts from interpretations, and so on - are ignored.

Thus, the school system does not encourage the formation of an actively and responsibly thinking person who can determine what knowledge and skills he needs and acquire them independently.

The question arises, what is more important in education at the present stage - the acquisition of knowledge and skills or the formation of a thinking person?

We invited experts from various fields of education to talk:

In particular, they answered the following questions:

• What, what subjects and disciplines and how much should a child know after high school?

There should be knowledge of the basic level of mathematics, for example, to sections with sines-cosines and work with graphs, because they are really very common.

Must Read: How to keep a child self-organizing during learning 7 tips from a math teacher

If a person wants to enter a university with the necessary mathematics, the level must be higher.

You need to leave school with a good knowledge of your language, because it is the main subject for communication with the environment. It is extremely important to present school subjects in an interesting way and show where this knowledge can be used in children's lives, otherwise the "grayness" of the lessons will discourage any curiosity and desire to learn.

• What qualities and competencies should a child have after high school?

 I believe that after graduation a person should be able to see where the truth is in the info space, and where the fake, you need to be able to find any necessary information in various sources.

It's just incredibly important to be able to use computers and gadgets perfectly, because more and more lessons, information and communication in general are going online. There are more and more tasks that require a computer or Internet access.

• It is necessary to be able to resolve conflict situations and train in a safe school environment

How does one relate to the other?

 School subjects should be as much as possible related to human needs in 2021. Almost no one today needs to use the programs of the past decades, on which the school program is built.

Now you need to be able to use a browser, a video conferencing program, and a set of programs for creating presentations, text documents, and other media content, and you really need to be taught that.

• What is primary? Doesn't one flow from the other automatically?

 The primary interest should be in the things that are happening around. You need to find useful and interesting things in the school curriculum and the set of opportunities after graduation will depend on it (if the school does not discourage interest).