[PaperclipGames]

The main reason why secondary school tends to teach strategies the way they do is simply because they need to teach a broad curriculum. Pupils need to know what a particular subject is about as a whole, to form a decent opinion, and to find out what they kind of study they even wish to pursue. It is impossible to properly judge particular courses and studies without knowing anything concrete about it.

Because there's only a limited amount of time, and in particular a limited attention span, the courses in secondary school must be given in a sort of "information" way, rather than an "understanding" way. It is impossible to teach secondary school students to understand every course, primarily because these students will have particular interests and skills - and thus simply cannot understand particular things well because of it. I always regarded secondary school to be an extended orientation for the student to decide what he actually wishes to learn.

Thus, it is about plain knowledge first - and the main methods that come along with that are simple memory; short-term memory in most cases (at least for me). Which is why it's actually a poor preparation for college/university, but the question is: how else are we supposed to acquiant students with all these different types of studies?

I think most students that enroll into college and uni quickly learn that the way things need to be dealt with are fundamentally different from that in highschool. In my case at least, the students are for a large portion let go of: coursework is all your own responsibility to do and hand in, you're free to enroll for a course or a test, or not to; and you're free to show up whenever you do and don't like. The arrogant and lazy will see, after their first semester, that going the way they did before isn't going to be enough. Some will learn from this, others will fail. I've seen this happen to my fellow students, and to myself, too. (I wasn't so much arrogant, I simply never learned to... well, properly put a lot of effort into anything, simply because I never had to.)

I think we can all agree that BS teachers are a negative influence on students as a whole.

I think the main problem is that it is nigh impossible to both acquaint students with lots of different courses, and providing them the right tools to understand and learn in the proper way, at the same time.