For example, (for me), the "important things" about world war 2 is, who, why and how... what was before, what made people make decisions they did, how did it start, what happened during, and why and how it ended... the exact date when some named general attacked some small city somewhere is pretty irrelevant (atleast not a thing you should keep memorized), but a lot of history classes focus on exactly that... on which date which unit/general took over which town where did they break through, etc... I'd prefer half less memorization data and a googling class for kids to find the dates needed, and more focus on the whys and hows, because history repeats itself, while dates and names don't.
Also, even if I agree that history classes often go overboard, having some notion of the years and even dates that some things happened is important to having a general understanding of history. If you know the who, what, why of WW II but have only a vague idea of when it started and when it ended, or when some of the major events within took place, you'll have a very hard time correlating with other events. It matters for example that WW II happened only 20 years after WW I, not 5 years after, not a century after. You won't get a decent picture of the sequence of events if you don't know some rough dates at least - especially for events happening in different parts of the world, with more indirect linking.
To say so is missing the whole point parent comment is trying to make. Memorization is an important skill, that is one thing but saying memorizing random stuff to build that skill is entirely a different claim. I bet there are better ways so learn and hone memory skills than memorize history place/time/dates and kill a student's interesting in learning.
Still, I don't think that the claim that asking you to memorize (pseudo-)random things improves your skill at memorizing things is a strong claim, I think it's fairly obvious. It's not necessarily the best way, but if it's paired with fairly important education, I don't think it's that bad either.
It's also important to note that, whatever career you chose later in life, there will be lots of random factoids that you'll need to rote memorize to be effective at it - be it names, years and places in history, JavaScript frameworks in programming, diseases in medicine, or even hair styles and product names in hair styling.
Geography was the same... ok, countries and capitals.. sure.. but a bunch of mountains and rivers and streams, where exactly the source is, and where and into which river it flows into... not just the major ones, even the crappy minor ones. Also stuff like, what is the greatest export of nigeria and other countries that are far enough, that I didnt need to know.
Of course I forgot all of that data probably days after the exam, and never cared for 99% of it, and googled the last percent when needed.
I graduated high school <10 years ago and most of our history classes (including WW1 and 2) were spent on what, why and how. A significant amount of time was spent looking at the leadup and aftermath of both WW1 and WW2 as well as the ideas of the time. We pretty much didn't look at troop movements, generals, battles, etc. apart from mentioning the really significant ones. Same goes for pretty much every other unit of history (mediaeval Europe, colonialism in Asia and Africa, etc.).
Maybe this is a reflection of differences in teaching styles in different parts of the world?
OTOH I know people my age who went to different schools that had to memorize things like the exact date that Lincoln was assassinated, so there's definitely disparate pedagogy.
You hit the Nail right on the Head !
Given that our current society is so thoroughly intertwined with Science and Technology is why this basic knowledge is called "Education" and is said to "prepare oneself for the Modern World". Once we get into the workforce (or not) we can keep/remember/use/build-upon what is needed and leave the rest in the attic only to be brought out if and when needed.
I agree and I'll go even further:
I think that all these attitudes towards education ("it's too hard", "nobody will need this", "we should make it more fun", ...) are very typically Western and don't seem to be shared in certain Asian societies (e.g. Korea). I'm not saying we should go towards the other extreme (which has a ton of downsides too), but somehow, in certain other cultures actually applying yourself in school seems to have a higher value than it does for us. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but it seems some parts of our society have become too complacent, and I think this is ultimately dangerous for society.
For many kids, that's not true of all subjects. Some find certain courses very difficult.
And not even talking about the fact that if you don't know <SUBJECT_NAME_HERE/>, you're simply not going to notice all the places where applying it could be useful.