Education is a critical component of the human experience. Our ability to learn and retain large amounts of information is what separates us from other life forms. That said, although memorizing facts is an important part of any persons learning development, the more valuable element of education is the critical thinking skills that are established in higher schooling. The ability to break down a problem and know how to solve it is a skill that can be applied to any field of learning. Additionally, while it is essential to know the facts, critical thinking is required to fully use that information in “the real world”. The reason that critical thinking is required is because in the real world, the numbers will never work out and the boss will not give clear instructions on what they want in a paper. While a student might know all the information on the given subject, if they do not posses an ability to think critically they will not be able to apply the abstract concepts that they know to the problem. So although it is important for history teachers to have students memorize dates, and math teachers need to teach their students multiplication tables, it is the critical thinking ability that the students develop during their classes that will stick with them and help them most in life.