1. If we learn only facts, we learn very little.
2. Postponing the memorization of facts until after one learns ideas and concepts holds certain advantages.
3. Conceding that students must learn ideas and concepts, as well as facts relating to them, in order to learning anything meaningful, I nevertheless disagree that the former should always precede the latter.
4. The speaker misunderstands the process by which we learn ideas and concepts, and by which we develop new ones.
5. Strict adherence to the speaker's advice would surely lead to ill-conceived ideas, concepts and theories.
局部和整体之触类旁通
观点：教育的首要目的并不是向学生灌输一些他们并不理解的知识，而是帮助学生们形成自己的性格并为未来的竞争社会做准备。从这个意义上说通过让学生们了解事实的背景、趋势以及概念从而让学生们欣赏知识，远比让他们单纯的记忆知识要重要的多。
1. 多数的事实背后都隐藏有比事实本身更有价值的原理。尽管各种事件每天都会发生，但是引起这些事件的原理却是有限的，教会学生事件背后的原理不光能够让他们具备深入分析事实的能力，还可以帮助他们在未来碰到他们从未遇到的问题时，能够使用学到的基本原理进行解决。比如，当需要学生了解一个他们从未接触过的文化时，让他们了解这个文化的起源、历史以及背景，比起让他们背诵包含在这个文化里的各种复杂的名词重要的多，因为前者不光能够让学生们更深入的理解这个文化中的各种概念，更重要的是，学生们在以后碰到其他的文化时，也能够运用所学到的原理进行分析和理解。此外，许多事实相对乏味，而这些事实背后的故事和轶事则更能激发学生的学习积极性。
2. 在教育中强调理解，并不意味着学生不需要记忆任何名词和概念，而是通过让学生们了解概念的背景帮助他们记忆。对于需要在未来的世界里运用他们所学的知识来谋生的大部分学生来说，只有记住许多事实和概念，他们才能够更熟练的运用和操纵他们学到的知识。比如说，如果学生们记不住乘法表（multiplication table），即便是他们理解了乘法的基本原理，他们仍旧无法熟练的进行乘法计算（multiplicative calculation）。此外，许多的传统和道德观念是需要在早期教育中需要学生不断记忆的，因为那时的学生还很小，他们不可能理解过深的道理，但是道德观念却需要在很小的时候就灌输给学生，这时候就需要让学生记忆这些准则，以便于克服人类本质上的不良方面。
3. 先理解在记忆的方式是目前最佳的教育方法之一。一方面，过度强调理解会导致学生忽视概念和事实的重要性，并可能最终导致当他们未来无法熟练的运用他们所学的知识；另一方面，过分注重记忆，又会让学生对学习失去兴趣，并失去解决未知问题的能力。所以，通过理解让学生进行记忆，之后通过记忆来加深学生的理解，是最佳的教育方法之一。
The speaker makes a threshold claim that students who learn only facts learn very little, then condudes that students should always learn about concepts, ideas, and trends before they memorize facts. While I wholeheartedly agree with the threshold claim, the condusion unfairly generalizes about the learning process. In fact, following the speaker's advice would actually impede the learning of concepts and ideas, as well as impeding the development of insightful and useful new ones.
Turning first to the speaker's threshold daim, I strongly agree that ifwe learn only facts we learn very little. Consider the task of memorizing the periodic table of dements, which any student can memorize without any knowledge of chemistry, or that the table relates to chemistry. Rote memorization of the table amounts to a bit of mental exercise-an opportunity to practice memorization techniques and perhaps learn some new ones. Otherwise, the student has learned very little about chemical dements, or about anything for that matter.
As for the speaker's ultimate claim, I concede that postponing the memorization of facts until after one leams ideas and concepts holds certain advantages. With a conceptual framework already in place a student is better able to understand the meaning of a fact, and to appreciate its significance. As a result, the student is more likely to memorize the fact to begin with, and less likely to forget it as time passes. Moreover, in my observation students whose first goal is to memorize facts tend to stop there--for whatever reason. It seems that by focusing on facts first students risk equating the learning process with the assimilation of trivia; in turn, students risk learning nothing of much use in solving real world problems.
Conceding that students must learn ideas and concepts, as well as facts relating to them, in order to learning anything meaningful, I nevertheless disagree that the former should always precede the latter--for three reasons. In the first place, I see know reason why memorizing a fact cannot precede learning about its meaning and significance--as long as the student does not stop at rote memorization. Consider once again our hypothetical chemistry student. The speaker might advise this student to first learn about the historical trends leading to the discovery of the elements, or to learn about the concepts of altering chemical compounds to achieve certain reactions--before studying the periodic table. Having no familiarity with the basic vocabulary of chemistry, which includes the informarion in the periodic table, this student would come away from the first two lessons bewildered and confused in other words, having learned little.
In the second place, the speaker misunderstands the process by which we learn ideas and concepts, and by which we develop new ones. Consider, for example, how economics students learn about the relationship between supply and demand, and the resulting concept of market equilibrium, and of surplus and shortage. Learning about the dynamics of supply and demand involves (1) entertaining a theory, and perhaps even formulating a new one, (2) testing hypothetical scenarios against the theory, and (3) examining real-world facts for the purpose of confirming, refuting, modifying, or qualifying the theory. But which step should come first? The speaker would have us follow steps 1 through 3 in that order. Yet, theories, concepts, and ideas rarely materialize out of thin air; they generally emerge from empirical observations--i.e., facts. Thus the speaker's notion about how we should learn concepts and ideas gets the learning process backwards.
In the third place, strict adherence to the speaker's advice would surely lead to illconceived ideas, concepts, and theories. Why? An idea or concept conjured up without the benefit of data amounts to little more than the conjurer's hopes and desires. Accordingly, conjurers will tend to seek out facts that support their prejudices and opinions, and overlook or avoid facts that refute them. One telling example involves theories about the center of the universe. Understandably, we ego-driven humans would prefer that the universe revolve around us. Early theories presumed so for this reason, and facts that ran contrary to this ego-driven theory were ignored, while observers of these facts were scorned and even vilified. In short, students who strictly follow the speaker's prescription are unlikely to contribute significantly to the advancement of knowledge.
To sum up, in a vacuum facts are meaningless, and only by filling that vacuum with ideas and concepts can students learn, by gaining useful perspectives and insights about facts. Yet, since facts are the very stuff from which ideas, concepts, and trends spring, without some facts students cannot learn much of anything. In the final analysis, then, students should learn facts right along with concepts, ideas, and trends.
Orignal From: Educators should teach facts only after their students have studied the ideas, trends , and concepts that help explain those facts.
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