I'd actually say we could use more targeted memorization for things you have to know. I'd love if my kid's school taught them much about spaced repetition. At risk of being that guy, Anki has changed my life for the better and I'm trying to foster an understanding of the utility of SRS in my kids.
I think it's kind of a good thing to learn how to not have to look literally everything up because that's a time suck. I speak 3 languages "decently." My native language, one I learned as an exchange student (it's rusty, but it's still in there and if I start speaking it regularly the words come back almost unbidden), and Spanish from several long-distance backpacking trips in Spain for months and months. I dabble in others as necessary. If I'm learning a new language for travel or something I find that memory alone is invaluable. A few months of using SRS and memorizing 1000 words and you are suddenly able to communicate with a millions of people. Sure you might speak caveman Italian or whatever, but read a little bit of grammar you're off to the races. You're no Dante, but you are able to get by - that's so useful, and I can't see why people eschew the practical advantages of learning how to memorize!
I'm taking some classes (perpetually, I don't know why I must hate myself) and I find I consistently do better learning new things if I just know some facts about a topic before I even learn all the connections between ideas. Let's say you are learning, I don't know, DC circuits? I'm taking that class for fun this semester because I'm mostly self-taught in hardware and wanted to fill in some of the gaps. If you need to know how to calculate the step response, sure you can do it from first principles if you've taken ODE. But imagine if you're taking this as your first "real" engineering class on the EE track as a 19 or 20 year old kid. At the university I went for undergrad and this university now, you wouldn't get exposed to ODE for another semester or 2. But if you can just memorize the formula now, you can absorb the material - the "why" can come later.
I mean, I can never remember some math things, so I just derive the math when I need it, sure, I assume everybody does this where they have to, but if I could remember the damn derivation I wouldn't have to. Same with some code. There are some things in this world like matplotlib - I have used it 1000s of times and somehow I've literally barely learned it beyond the basics and constantly end up looking up how do things. As soon as I get the chart I want, it falls out of my brain until I am forced to learn it again to make a chart for a slide a couple months later. But there's insane utility to just... knowing things. When I was a pilot for a living, there were certain emergency procedures and limitations that I was just... expected to know - down cold. I haven't turned a prop for money in almost 6 years now, and there's some emergency procedures and limitations that I still can recite from memory. What's a great way to learn those things? Well... memorizing them. Then there's the practical nature of things. You're not going to derive maneuvering speed from first principles when you encounter mountain wave, you just need to know what you've gotta slow down to.
That doesn't mean throw out your analytical brain, but having access to facts that you can use in furtherance of your cognition is super useful. And I don't really think that is the major "problem" with education in this day and age? I have 3 kids in school. They're great kids and all doing more or less well. From the outside looking in today, I'd say the biggest issues I'm aware of are:
1) A downright authoritarian environment in schools. No seriously, even the school my kids go to which is by the numbers a pretty good school seems a bit like incarceration.
2) The teaching to the lowest common denominator (which you mentioned and I think is a very good point).
3) The money is going to the wrong stuff and so quality is going down but costs are still rising.
4) Schools are basically viewed as babysitting places so that the parents can go and work and contribute to the economy, not hallowed halls of learning or some-such. It's viewed as "jobs training" from the bottom to the top. Even at the university level.
5) The incentives, both social and financial, that exist to become an educator suck and needing licenses and specialized university training to teach in some states means that an engineer with 20 years of experience isn't going to go to school for 2 years just be treated like garbage at some middle school or high school. We're not getting "the best of the best" in education.
6) The phones. I don't think a constant entertainment drip is really that good for young people.
7) Educational software is usually pretty bad? And the kids are forced into using a lot of these garbage tools day in and day out. This isn't really as big of a problem as the rest of the things, but it irritates me when I'm forced to interact with iReady or the absolute garbage (and insanely expensive) platforms the school uses to track grades.
Also, I mentioned this in another thread and got downvoted, but I honestly think that the reversal of the Flynn effect might have some environmental basis too? We go outside a lot less, indoor CO2 counts are higher, issues start occurring above 1000ppm - that's not uncommon, we eat terrible, are more likely to be obese, had COVID, and are filled with plastic, we spend a lot less time bored and are mostly overstimulated. I'm not a biologist, so I wouldn't say that any one of these sorts of things is the "gotcha" like lead or whatever, but yeah, I suspect that there are other environmental effects that are making us collectively make bad decisions more often. I don't know.
I think it's kind of a good thing to learn how to not have to look literally everything up because that's a time suck. I speak 3 languages "decently." My native language, one I learned as an exchange student (it's rusty, but it's still in there and if I start speaking it regularly the words come back almost unbidden), and Spanish from several long-distance backpacking trips in Spain for months and months. I dabble in others as necessary. If I'm learning a new language for travel or something I find that memory alone is invaluable. A few months of using SRS and memorizing 1000 words and you are suddenly able to communicate with a millions of people. Sure you might speak caveman Italian or whatever, but read a little bit of grammar you're off to the races. You're no Dante, but you are able to get by - that's so useful, and I can't see why people eschew the practical advantages of learning how to memorize!
I'm taking some classes (perpetually, I don't know why I must hate myself) and I find I consistently do better learning new things if I just know some facts about a topic before I even learn all the connections between ideas. Let's say you are learning, I don't know, DC circuits? I'm taking that class for fun this semester because I'm mostly self-taught in hardware and wanted to fill in some of the gaps. If you need to know how to calculate the step response, sure you can do it from first principles if you've taken ODE. But imagine if you're taking this as your first "real" engineering class on the EE track as a 19 or 20 year old kid. At the university I went for undergrad and this university now, you wouldn't get exposed to ODE for another semester or 2. But if you can just memorize the formula now, you can absorb the material - the "why" can come later.
I mean, I can never remember some math things, so I just derive the math when I need it, sure, I assume everybody does this where they have to, but if I could remember the damn derivation I wouldn't have to. Same with some code. There are some things in this world like matplotlib - I have used it 1000s of times and somehow I've literally barely learned it beyond the basics and constantly end up looking up how do things. As soon as I get the chart I want, it falls out of my brain until I am forced to learn it again to make a chart for a slide a couple months later. But there's insane utility to just... knowing things. When I was a pilot for a living, there were certain emergency procedures and limitations that I was just... expected to know - down cold. I haven't turned a prop for money in almost 6 years now, and there's some emergency procedures and limitations that I still can recite from memory. What's a great way to learn those things? Well... memorizing them. Then there's the practical nature of things. You're not going to derive maneuvering speed from first principles when you encounter mountain wave, you just need to know what you've gotta slow down to.
That doesn't mean throw out your analytical brain, but having access to facts that you can use in furtherance of your cognition is super useful. And I don't really think that is the major "problem" with education in this day and age? I have 3 kids in school. They're great kids and all doing more or less well. From the outside looking in today, I'd say the biggest issues I'm aware of are:
1) A downright authoritarian environment in schools. No seriously, even the school my kids go to which is by the numbers a pretty good school seems a bit like incarceration.
2) The teaching to the lowest common denominator (which you mentioned and I think is a very good point).
3) The money is going to the wrong stuff and so quality is going down but costs are still rising.
4) Schools are basically viewed as babysitting places so that the parents can go and work and contribute to the economy, not hallowed halls of learning or some-such. It's viewed as "jobs training" from the bottom to the top. Even at the university level.
5) The incentives, both social and financial, that exist to become an educator suck and needing licenses and specialized university training to teach in some states means that an engineer with 20 years of experience isn't going to go to school for 2 years just be treated like garbage at some middle school or high school. We're not getting "the best of the best" in education.
6) The phones. I don't think a constant entertainment drip is really that good for young people.
7) Educational software is usually pretty bad? And the kids are forced into using a lot of these garbage tools day in and day out. This isn't really as big of a problem as the rest of the things, but it irritates me when I'm forced to interact with iReady or the absolute garbage (and insanely expensive) platforms the school uses to track grades.
Also, I mentioned this in another thread and got downvoted, but I honestly think that the reversal of the Flynn effect might have some environmental basis too? We go outside a lot less, indoor CO2 counts are higher, issues start occurring above 1000ppm - that's not uncommon, we eat terrible, are more likely to be obese, had COVID, and are filled with plastic, we spend a lot less time bored and are mostly overstimulated. I'm not a biologist, so I wouldn't say that any one of these sorts of things is the "gotcha" like lead or whatever, but yeah, I suspect that there are other environmental effects that are making us collectively make bad decisions more often. I don't know.