That kind of lazy, apathetic mindset is totally incompatible with true learning. ... It makes educational attainment meaningless. Which is awful in and of itself for the impact that it has on an entire society/culture which no longer values excellence or sees it as a culmination rather than an "event", but it also then makes education as a whole stultifying for the few students who will not/cannot operate that way.
:grr:
IMO, "education" in the United States is dominated by crass thinking and industrial metrics (i.e. scores on watered-down multiple choice tests and GPAs that are based on lots of rubrics that can be manipulated). Excellence, the creation of thoughtful citizens, and learning things well as a way of contributing to the previous two things aren't part of the picture. What's important is that the widgets be good enough to be passed on to the next level of manufacturing. If the end product falls apart, it doesn't matter, provided the score on final inspection/final multiple choice exam was a pass.
I worked at a community college for a while and do grant review. The reliance on multiple choice tests is depressing. What's worse is that people seem to accept them without question. There's no room for being thoughtful or for honestly applying knowledge when the question has to be answered in a minute or less.
And I think it leads to apathetic mindsets. If a mind isn't challenged in a meaningful way, it's no surprise that it works in the way it was trained: in the service of expediency.
