And that is why all educated people read consistently. I read a book a day, plus for at least 5 hours every single day. I read abstracts, news from every continent (from the publications in those countries), and, browse occasionally through social media.
In my youth, a university degree was a qualification - not an education. It was always acknowledged that an education came through two things - travel and reading. They should have added contemplation of those things.
Some facts are transitory. Gravity isn't, and that, in itself, is taught. The names of countries change, political systems change, etc. Those are facts.
The fact that you remember that 'major event' is evidence that you absorbed more 'facts' after you left school. That is what reading does.
My point for the article is that Americans aren't voting for 'the wrong people' and 'believing the wrong thing' because they haven't been taught critical thinking. To my thinking, it's because they were never given a solid background of the way the world goes round.
For instance, by the time I finished my K12 education, I had learnt South African history, Russian history, French history, German history, Italian history, British history, Roman history, Greek history, Eolithic, Paleolithic, and neolithic history, Babylonian and Hittites history, etc.
I had read Virgin and Cicero in Latin. I could speak two languages fluently. And although I was personally writing to publication standard by the time I was 10 or 11, it was not possible to go to university without a science, a third language, and English (or another language) to publication standard.
We also never had multiple choice answers. We either knew the answer to a question or not. There were no clues or suggestions. By the time, we were 13, we had to write essays for our exams. There were four exams per year, and the only one that counted towards going forward to the next year was whether you passed the last one.
We were never taught critical thinking. I think critical thinking is an automatic product of the brain... :)
