As a person studying to be a history teacher myself, I am rather disturbed at your failure to understand the need for students to gain critical thinking skills.
That is what this teacher is doing. He isn't indoctrinating kids in Soviet thought.
It is a great way to teach and much more interesting than having a kid read a textbook and call it good. That is lazy teaching. Dates are not important in most cases except for context.
There are some dates are that important: Dec. of Independence, D-Day etc. But, most are not something that people must know.
Let me get this straight, you are calling Marxist interpretations of U.S history examples of "critical thinking?"
This is a classic...
"Most are not something that people must know."
NET: This approach trains students to be skilled in applying dogmatic Marxist approaches to critically thinking about U.S. history -- and leaves them utterly clueless about "most" facts of U.S. history. And you are posting to a conservative web site?