It is debatable that it is students should be taught to learn facts rather than understand ideas and concepts of the subjects. Some people assert that it is more essential for the students to memorize the truth because they think that the application of knowledge can be accomplished on the basis of certain facts. However, I strongly believe that understanding ideas and concepts of the subjects is the most essential process than any other process in that truths can be misleading by themselves and true education does not come from memorizing facts.
Most of all, people can be susceptible to the misleading facts. Most of people are mistaken to believe that their source of information is reliable and they are only received undoubted information. However, then contents of the information are rather subjective because they must be chosen and processed by a person with his or her own opinion and situation. Thus, we need to admit that facts can be manipulated for certain purposes. Unemployment rate is a good example to support this claim. According to a research by Ministry of Economy and Strategy in Korea, the unemployment rate in May was 3.4% which was the lowest level in the past 5 years. However, National Statistical Office calculated this rate, including part time job workers who were subsidized by government. The Korean government spent a great of money to boost the economy temporary with stable employment. Without the number of workers hired by government, the unemployment rate mounted up to 9.1%, which is the second highest level since 2002. In short, government deliberately announced a lower unemployment rate to show the gradual recovery of economy to people.
Also, true education does not come from just memorizing facts, but from comprehending basic concepts and ideas. Many scientist and scholars have contributed to bringing progress in human society by applying basic concepts of mathematics to scientific research. In contrast, although we learned a variety of mathematical formulas at school, we often have difficulty applying these formulas in our daily life because we were enforced to receive mathematical facts to perform well in the exam. To be specific, when I was a high school student, most of the teachers and students just focused on solving the problems automatically in a short time and winning higher grades in their exam to enter a privileged university. As a result, after they entered a university, they had a hard time keeping up with advanced lectures in university which need the thorough understanding of the basic concepts on the subjects.
In conclusion, it is beneficial for students to comprehend the basic concepts and ideas rather than memorize facts because some of the facts by themselves are misleading and true education should focus on the students’ complete apprehension of the basic concepts and ideas rather than receiving a wide range of facts |