Apparently this guy got seven A1s in his leaving cert. I say well done to him and he deserves his marks, but the headline in The Irish Times is very misleading (big surprise there.)
From reading the article, it turns out he actually equates rote learning with knowledge of the subject saying that, "there is no faking it" in subjects which demand this kind of learning. So, once again a newspaper headline says the exact opposite of the article content.
Obviously, opinions differ on the value of rote learning in real life. My own is that rote learning has a place, but it should be secondary to practical application and knowledge of the fundamental basics of a subject. I never really got much of a chance to test this out because it wasn't until I really started studying subjects on my own after leaving school that I had the "eureka" moments and understood what was happening, but I think this is more of a failing of the system in general rather than a particular kind of method. I don't think there is any one method that works for everyone and unfortunately the accepted method seems to be the one that rewards recall ability over reasoning.
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