Are students learning how to think, or are they only learning what to remember?

Modern education places heavy emphasis on memorization, standardized testing, and the accumulation of information. Students are expected to recall facts, repeat procedures, and perform well under structured assessments. Yet beneath this system lies a fundamental question: if students are not taught how to think, what is education really producing?

Philosophy addresses this problem directly. It is not abstract speculation or idle debate, as it is often portrayed. At its core, philosophy is the disciplined pursuit of clear thinking. It asks fundamental questions: What is knowledge? How do we know something is true? What makes an argument valid? These are not distant or impractical concerns. They are the very foundation of reasoning, judgment, and understanding. 

What students often lack is not information, but the ability to evaluate it. They are rarely trained to analyze arguments, detect contradictions, or question underlying assumptions. As a result, they can absorb large amounts of information without developing the tools needed to assess its reliability. They may know many things yet struggle to determine whether those things are true. In a world filled with information, this is a serious limitation.

My view on the reason for the political divide in America can be traced to the inability to process information from a logical perspective. When encountering a political issue or news headline, we first jump to political alignment. Then respond. The problem with choosing sides is that it inherently divides. That is literally the point of choosing a side. There is another way for students to learn. What if no sides were chosen?

Philosophy develops precisely the skills that are missing. It trains students to think critically, to define their terms clearly, and to follow reasoning step by step. It teaches them to recognize weak arguments and to construct stronger ones. More importantly, it encourages intellectual independence. A student trained in philosophy does not simply accept ideas; they examine them.
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Consider a simple example. A student encounters a claim online. Without philosophical training, the claim may be accepted at face value. With philosophical training, the student begins to ask questions. What is the evidence? What assumptions are being made? Is the reasoning valid? This shift, from passive acceptance to active evaluation, is the difference between information and understanding.
There are reasons philosophy is often absent from schools. It is not easily tested. It requires discussion, patience, and careful thinking rather than quick answers. It challenges assumptions and encourages questioning, which can be uncomfortable in structured systems. Yet these are precisely the reasons it is so valuable.
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Education should not be limited to providing answers. It should cultivate the ability to ask meaningful questions. The Socratic method, which centers on dialogue and inquiry, reflects this ideal. Students learn not by being told what to think, but by being guided to examine their own reasoning.
If we want students to become thoughtful, capable individuals, philosophy cannot be treated as optional. It is foundational. A system that produces students who can recall information but cannot evaluate it is incomplete. The goal of education is not knowledge alone, but understanding.

For the first time in modern history, a generation is underperforming the one before it. If Gen Z is in trouble, then so are the rest of us. 

Not in access. Public education is free. 
Not in exposure to information. Perhaps too much exposure.
Not in technological sophistication. Can anyone figure out how to tell if a picture is AI generated or not? I don't think technological sophistication is lacking. 

But in sustained attention, deep reading ability, working memory, and mental resilience. Not the fault of Gen Z. they are not stupid. 

That should concern us.

Thankfully, the research is in about the effects of phones and tablets on our brains, but more so among our youth. Over the past decade, researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have documented a significant shift beginning around 2012; the moment smartphones and screen-based childhood became the norm. Rates of anxiety, depression, and fragmentation of attention rose sharply. Academic endurance declined. Focus narrowed. Cognitive stamina weakened. They say the brain itself feels no pain. However, I definitely can feel something lacking in my brain after a scrolling session in TikTok. 

At the same time, neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has shown that the medium through which we read quite literally reshapes the brain (Oh! So that's that feeling in my brain. I knew it was something.) The brain builds different circuitry when we read digitally versus when we read deeply from a printed text. Screens promote skimming. Books promote immersion. The difference between standing in the shallow end of a pool vs treading the deep end. 

Way back when in my day...No, please don't! This is not nostalgia. This is neurology. We have quietly replaced depth with speed. We have mistaken convenience for learning.
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And we are now seeing the consequences.

​Technology has not merely entered the classroom. It has replaced the cognitive struggle that builds the mind.
Students now:

• Type instead of writing, it's just easier.
• Scroll instead of lingering, it's just easier.
• Copy and paste instead of construct, it's just easier.
• Search instead of remembering, it's just easier. 

Learning has become frictionless. And friction is precisely what builds neural strength. No different than building muscles. A lot of our youth have become the individuals who sit on gym equipment without actually training. Going to the gym every day doesn't build muscle. Resistance is what builds muscle. 

Cognitive development requires effortful encoding. When we remove effort, we remove depth. When we remove depth, we weaken understanding.

Generation Z is the first generation raised fully inside the digital ecosystem. And early data suggest they are the first generation in modern times to show measurable decline in certain cognitive and psychological markers relative to previous cohorts. I am not here to say that this is the only reason. Clearly, teachers are overwhelmed and underpaid. That is a high priority problem as well. The point being is that a rewiring of a youth's brain goes beyond a logistical crisis. It becomes a biological reprogramming that nature was never meant to undertake. The cognitive part of their brains is not fully developed.  

​This is not an attack on Gen Z. It is a critique of the environment we have given them.

​The findings are consistent across multiple domains:

1. Screen Saturation and Mental Health
Haidt’s research correlates the smartphone era with sharp increases in adolescent anxiety and depression. Twenge’s generational studies show similar patterns: more screen time, less psychological well-being. The human brain did not evolve for constant digital stimulation. It evolved for depth, silence, narrative, and sustained problem-solving.

2. Digital Reading vs. Deep Reading
Maryanne Wolf’s work on the “reading brain” demonstrates that deep reading activates complex neural pathways associated with empathy, inference, and critical reasoning. When reading shifts primarily to screens, those pathways weaken. Students become efficient skimmers but weaker thinkers.

A PDF is not cognitively equivalent to a book. A scrolling feed is not cognitively equivalent to a chapter.
Physical books create spatial anchors in memory, the left page, the bottom paragraph, the dog-eared corner. Screens flatten that experience.

3. Handwriting and Memory
Multiple studies from universities such as Princeton and the University of Stavanger show that students who handwrite notes retain more information than those who type them. Cursive writing in particular engages more extensive motor planning and neural integration than simple printing or typing. It strengthens spelling memory. It improves recall. It slows thought to a pace that allows structure to form.

Typing is efficient. Cursive is formative. When cursive was removed from most school systems, we removed more than an aesthetic tradition. We removed a neurological training ground.

This is not about romanticizing the past. It is about understanding how the brain works. Cognitive strength is built through resistance.
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• Hard copy books require patience.
• Handwriting requires discipline.
• Long-form essays require structured reasoning.

Convenience has never produced greatness. Discipline has. Even prodigies need a workout. 

The argument that “technology prepares students for the future” misunderstands the issue. Technology is a tool. But if the tool replaces the cognitive labor necessary for mastery, it does not prepare students; it weakens them. Why could we adults recall phone numbers of our family and friends from memory without a rolodex? The more we use our memory, the more our brain can imprint data. 
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Students must first build the mind. Then they may wield the machine. Without cognitive strength, technology becomes a crutch. With cognitive strength, technology becomes leverage.

​At Pax Academia, we are not anti-technology. We are anti-cognitive erosion.

We require:

• Cursive fluency
• Hard copy classical texts
• Handwritten first drafts of essays
• Structured, disciplined reading

Students will write their essays first in cursive. Only then will they type them.

Many might push back and say, "that is too hard and tedious." My response is simple. "Exactly."  I am glad we are on the same page.

Why?

Because the first draft should be thinking, not editing, not formatting, not copy-pasting. The act of forming letters continuously on paper slows the mind just enough for structure to emerge. Arguments become deliberate. Sentences become intentional. Thought becomes visible.

After that, technology can refine. But refinement must follow formation.

• We believe that the restoration of intellectual strength requires intentional friction.
• We believe that the mind must be trained, not entertained.
• We believe that education should produce depth, not distraction.

​​We can continue accelerating convenience and watch attention spans shrink. Or we can restore the habits that formed every great thinker before the digital age.

• Cursive.
• Hard books.
• Deep reading.
• Structured writing.

These are not relics. They are neurological necessities.

If we want a generation capable of thinking clearly, reasoning deeply, and leading wisely, we must build the habits that create such minds. At Pax Academia, we choose depth over speed.

The future belongs to those who can think. And thinking requires resistance.