Why do we want children to do more in school than just remember things? According to this article (32 page PDF), identifying abstract relations such as 'same' and 'different' is essential for commonsense reasoning. And children who are asked to offer explanations for things, rather than to merely describe them, are better able to learn abstract relations. They are "more likely to discover and use an abstract relational rule when they were prompted to explain observations instantiating that rule, compared to when they received demonstration alone." Obviously, since it's a small sample and a narrow study, we should not be too quick to generalize. But it does explain why children learning through rote memory lack a common sense that children more engaged in problem-solving and explanation demonstrate.
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