The point was to write a small essay in 20 mins agreeing/disagreeing to a given statement. It went something like "it's better for students to learn concepts and ideas over just facts":

RESPONSE

I completely agree with the statement, it is indeed more valuable to understand the concepts behind a certain topic that it is to know specific facts about it. Having a deep knowledge about the ideas and concepts behind something grants a better foundation to expand one's knowledge about the topic.

One of the most relevant arguments against the memorization of specific facts is that most of them can be obtained or infered using general concepts. Let's use physics and mathematics as an example: once a person learns about advanced mathematical procedures like differentiation most of the physics "formulas" memorized in high school become redundant. Why? The answer relies on the fact that most of the memorized formulas can be easily and quickly obtain by differentiating, rendering all that time spent learning them useless.

Another argument against learning facts over concepts is that information is very accessible nowadays, there is almost no point in memorizing facts. If a person is missing a fact they can just search it on the internet and find the answer in a matter of seconds. On the contrary, if a person doesn't understand the concept behind a specific idea, it's going to take them a while to research about it and fully grasp the reasoning behind it, as concepts aren't as easily searched as facts are.

A final argument lies in the "real world". Many employers nowadays look for particular skills on employees. It is way more valuable to them having someone capable of adapting and learning new things than having someone that has a lot of "book knowledge".

The world is in constant change, and while there might have been a time were learning facts was the better way to learn. nowadays understanding ideas and concepts is way more valuable for society

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Sorry for the long post, it's my first time on this subreddit so please tell if i should post it somewhere else