Matt Barrow writes:

I might add that history, geography and most other classes were NOT taught
by rote, at least my elementary (parochial) school.

History and geography cannot be taught any other way, since they are mainly
just memorization of facts.

Some subjects, such as math, can be taught theoretically. However, teaching
theory rather than simple rote memorization considerably raises the bar for
students, since the former requires more intelligence than the latter. For
this reason, most learning of most things is by rote rather than by theory.
Students are taught, for (figurative) example, that everything that goes up
must come down, but they are not taught the theory of gravity.