While I agree broadly, HB, I still believe in the necessity of specific places and dates. The relationship among the ideas and events is absolutely crucial, but being able to pin them down specifically prevents both misunderstanding and fuzzy thinking. It is helpful to know not only that an event preceded another but by how much and in what context. Vagueness in these relationships allows for over-generalization, which is probably the greatest obstacle facing people today, even so-called educated ones. It leads to the progression fallacy, the idea that somehow humanity has progressed and improved over the course of history, which any historian can easily see is tommyrot.
I also hesitate to push for children making their own decisions. Should we let them decide, for example, whether or not to play in traffic? Whether or not to drink poison or engine oil? Even when shown the hazards of both, some will choose to do so. We are trying to equip them to make good choices, and some of that equipment comes from allowing them to make some bad ones, but they simply aren't equipped to make them without restraints upon them. (Alas! the same is all too true of many, many adults!)