That is as excatly as I feel.

You learn rote and memorization, not only because certain subject matters have to be learned that way (i.e., spelling, multiplication tables), but because it trains your brain and indicates your ability (sorry, but if you simply “can’t” rote memorize something, it probably indicates a lesser intelligence.) Also, the memorization of such things as poems, exposes you to correct grammar.

Children simply cannot abstractly reason before a certain age. Their brains are much better engaged before that in rote memorization, with the understanding that in the preschool years (and off-academics) they are given opportunity to explore, investigate, and play with a variety of materials and within a variety of situations.

It’s called expanding the mind.

A traditional liberal education starts with the trivium, which itself starts with grammar. During this phase, a child is supposed to soak up facts, not reason with them. Reasoning with the facts comes in the later stages, dialectic and rhetoric. These stages are true of anyone trying to learn anything new. First you learn facts, then you learn to put them together and build expressions, then you learn to express yourself completely and reach new conclusions.

This stuff was worked out through trial and error over thousands of years. How is it forgotten in a few decades?

little trivia – Benedict Arnold lost part of his leg at the battle, Saratoga had a statue to that part of the leg he lost.

Engineer-Poet –
I think the problem with simply relying on Comedy Central for moral guidance is that it only teaches skepticism. Watchers learn that it is bad to be a hypocrite. but also that it is ok to do bad things as long as you’re open and honest about it.

Most religion strives to teach individuals to do the right things no matter what, which is what today’s society needs a lot more of. Yes, there are hypocrites hidden among the churches, synagogues, etc. and religious organizations should be criticized for their part in promoting hypocrites, but these religious organizations still make up one of the primary tools to produce moral and charitable citizens.
The issues of marriage and religion are intertwined. Religion, and the stigma it puts upon divorce, adultery, and out-of-wedlock children, has been a major foundation for marriage and stable families. I’m preparing to be married in the Catholic Church and I have to say the steps one must take to be married in the Church definitely make you look before you leap.

By far the most powerful and useful and intelligent answers I know come from religion.

But obviously not any old religion.  Those answers are not the property of religion at all, from the looks of them; I don’t see anything in that girl’s plaint that is answered by “God will sort it out for you”, so whatever solutions there may be can be used by anyone.

Then again, if she wants a devoted husband, you might want to tell her about the marriage strike and how the law and female behavior are making her desires all that much harder to achieve.

You give a great illustration of what I mean. But you have no idea what I was talking about and no interest. It’s South Park for you. Enjoy.

But I sure wish some of the kids I teach had much, much more. The largest concern that I see consistently is a concern about the brokenness of their lives and a worry about the transience of relationships.

This comment from a sixteen-year-old girl’s essay on her American dream is typical: “I also hope that I don’t follow in my mom’s footsteps and marry someone who cares about himself and not his family. Instead, I hope that the guy I marry is someone whose family is the most important thing in the world, a guy who is content staying at home playing a game with his children instead of hunting. I hope I marry someone that I don’t have to divorce, someone with whom I could work out any problems we might have. The type of guy that family is the most important to him. The ultimate gift in life is the gift of love, and that is exactly what I hope to find in the future.”

The trouble is, she doesn’t know how to find such a guy and she doesn’t know very much, either, about how it is that you can live with someone for decades and “work out any problems” that arise.

By far the most powerful and useful and intelligent answers I know come from religion.

growing up unchurched in a sea of immoral teachings.

So much better to give them religion in one of the “prosperity gospel” churches, I suppose.

South Park deflates hypocrites, especially moralizing hypocrites.  I cannot think of a better function of entertainment.  If there is anything that is going to make kids amoral or immoral, it’s hypocrisy from those claiming to teach morality.  They deserve to be lampooned, so that the cream can rise to the top.