Q: - It is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts.
Essay:-
I completely second the opinion that it is more important for the students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts. There are many reasons behind this opinion. First of all, there is so much factual information available about everything around us that it is practically impossible for anybody to remember all of them. So, it is not wise to try to learn the facts about everything around us.
Secondly, understanding the ideas helps the students get a better picture of the topic they are studying. It is always better to understand why a particular thing works in a particular way, why the sky looks blue, why do we have eclipses, etc. than to know that it happens. Understanding the ideas and concepts acts as an incentive for the curious minds of the students, whereas facts without proper reasoning tend to degenerate this capacity of the students.
Another important reason to understand ideas and concepts is that it is always easy to deduce facts from concepts and ideas, but not vice-versa. If a student is made to learn a fact that 2 multiplied by 2 is always 4, he will know only that. But, if he is made to understand why 2 multiplied by 2 gives 4, he not only will understand it correctly but also will be calculate the multiplications of other numbers with 2.
Thus, learning facts is same as spoon-feeding the person, whereas, understanding the ideas is teaching the person how to eat. A person who is spoon-fed always needs to be spoon-fed and is not self-reliant, but a person who knows how to eat can feed himself, and thus is self sufficient.