In general, at least through high school, probably way too much teaching involves basically memorization of trivia.
Yes, some foundations of facts are needed. For example, there's some very basic operator precedence that students should internalize. And history inevitably does involve names and dates. But too much attention is probably devoted to remembering whether a battle was fought in 1746 or 1750.
It's somewhat understandable because testing for those things is easy and unambiguous. But it's unfortunate anyway.
Yes, some foundations of facts are needed. For example, there's some very basic operator precedence that students should internalize. And history inevitably does involve names and dates. But too much attention is probably devoted to remembering whether a battle was fought in 1746 or 1750.
It's somewhat understandable because testing for those things is easy and unambiguous. But it's unfortunate anyway.