Teaching.

You can attest that for your history class in high school that you had a teacher (probably a coach of some sort) that probably did some of these things. They showed movies and gave out worksheets for you to do out of the text book. Or they lectured the entire class period and you tried to write down as fast as you could what he/she was saying. And then leading up to the test you studied for hours over what the teacher said and taught about. Regardless of whether or not you agreed with it, you knew it, you memorized it, you knew that when you saw the word "Paul Revere" on your test you thought of "one if by land two if by sea". You probably don't know exactly who Paul Revere was and why he joined the revolutionary cause, but you know that he rode that horse screaming, "the British are coming". Some people call this binge learning. Where you try to consume as much information/facts as you can to later throw it up on test day. 

In my "Social Science Concepts and Methods" class (Education Course), we address this very problem (and yes it is a problem). We believe that (and it will later be discussed) teaching students in this fashion is a disservice to them. Sure, they might succeed in your classroom that year, maybe even until the end of their high school career. But the truth is that there is no root in what they know. For instance can you tell me who was directly effected by the Treaty of Versailles? (Probably not, unless you're a history major) So I'm currently learning how to promote critical thinking within my students. Which is a very tricky thing to do. You have to be patient and creative while at the same time not indoctrinate them with certain beliefs (mainly yours). So this is what this critical thinking should look like:

-Provide fundamental/basic facts for them (e.g. The history of the Battle of Gettysburg)

-Once they've grasped the basic idea of what happen you begin to ask them questions (What lead to the battle of Gettysburg? How do historians interpret what happened that day? Why do they interpret that way? What about the other side of the argument? etc.)

-You should then proceed to ask them a more personal question about the event (How do you interpret what happened there, given the primary documents that we've evaluated?)

Well if you've gotten this far in reading, I'm proud of you. This seems probably very boring. But let me shed some awesome light that was revealed to me. 

Jesus taught just like that. He taught inductively. That is, he tried to promote critical thinking. Unlike the scholars of his time (Pharisees), they taught deductively. For instance, I know now that in order to become a "Godly-man" in the bible days, I was sent to school from the ages of 6-12 in Jerusalem. There I would learn what the Torah (first five books of the bible) said. I would memorize them, I knew it, I knew when I saw the name Abraham I thought of Genesis 17:5 (For I have made you a Father of many nations...) etc. I didn't necessarily know what they meant but I knew where they were and what they said. 

Jesus asked questions all the time to His disciples (who do you say that I am? Matthew 16.13) (What do you think Simon, from whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes-from their own sons or from others? Matthew 17.25). 

I would just like to say. Jesus. The Great Teacher.