In forcing children to memorize unrelated data bits, educators deprive children of becoming involved in the dance of life. The dance of life is the movement and involvement with the physical world which all parents can see their children engage in before their children start school. The dance of life is the talking about things, the touching, holding and manipulating of things that all children under the age of ten must be able to do if they are to find out the things they need to know about how the world works. The dance of life cannot be done in a hard wooden chair. It cannot be done under the psychological duress of the classroom and it cannot be done by trying to memorize isolated data bits which have been taken out of their natural context.
People remember only the subjects they have danced with.
Human beings under the age of ten must do this dance of life or they are rendered permanently incompetent. As adults, they can have all the technology in the world at their fingertips, but they cannot use it to solve their own problems if they have not danced with it. Our Congress is filled with senators and representatives who spent their time memorizing unrelated data bits and were robbed of the dance of life. Now they are rendered incompetent to solve the serious and in some cases life-threatening problems which this nation faces. Children must have the opportunity to study the physical world and acquire real knowledge of the physical world before attempting to achieve in the mental world.