Couldn't have said it better, exactly -- the negative connotations of the word prevent us from recognizing what powers learning at its core

But imo acknowledging this unlocks greater speeds and gets us to the "fun part" quicker

Absolutely, especially in real world application. If you don't have the ability to pull on fundamental ideas anywhere, anytime, then have you really mastered the learning material?

Right. I noticed this acutely in an abstract algebra course. We learned several different proof methods, then the exam was just "prove these theorems with the tools you have". I'd never been challenged with math like that before. I mean, I bombed it lol, but nobody was going to pass if they didn't remember, say, how to do a proof by induction or what it means. At some point, you need to be able to recall this information. Maybe the psychologists categorize these things differently, but I'd argue it's clear that some form of memorization is necessary for the task.