How to teach

[Kai]

What Kel said, with perhaps calmer punctuation.

Oh and yeah, rote mem is great for certain things.  Like the table of elements.  Or the constitution.  Less so for history, art, and certain parts of math (why things happen a certain way is more meaningful than the "answer" sometimes.)

No good for most of science. Knowing the laws of gravitation are no good if I can't actually apply them in anticipating reality.

[Jasper]

Pretty much- unless, say, you were just fudging a curriculum that sounded like science to keep people from complaining about ineducation.  Lucky us nobody would ever do such a terrible thing.

[Placid Dingo]

Placid Dingo, are you familiar with Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets? 

They can be found here:  http://www.search-institute.org/40-developmental-asset-middle-childhood-8-12

Search has data that the more of these assets a kid has, the less likely they are to engage in anti-social behaviors and the more likely they are to engage in pro-social and positive behaviors, such as doing well in school. 

This is one thing schools can do, weave more of these developmental assets into curricula and make it a part of their overall school culture.

Some of these are beyond the domain of the school and more for community and advocacy groups to take on.  But there are some schools can take advantage of and implement.   

I am not familiar but it seems fantastic for the most part (and tweakable where not fantastic.)

Cain: Right now I teach Japanese. And I agree so much with the idea that what we need to provide is in some ways a web of reference points. I'm reading a stack now, and a lot of the things I read, I don't understand properly (and will need to reread) but every so often I get to a country, political figure, time period etc and go Ohhh, THEY did THIS, or THAT'S where THIS happened. So enough reference points provide point of knowledge that kids can begin to build up on their own (oh that T shirt guy, he's from Cuba! ... Bay of Pigs in Cuba, oh yeah!, Cuba's where the T shirt guy was!)

Khara
In terms of gifted/tallented people, there's a book on this idea by Dr Ken Robinson. It's called 'The Element' and looks at the idea of education as a way of helping students discover their areas of maximum potential (not that there aren't also generally gifted or polimathic people out there)