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Students should memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts. Students who have learned only facts have learned very little. 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 speakers 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 speakers 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 speakers 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. | 
