I would tell them primarily to focus on learning logic and on computational thinking (particularly using abstraction).

I agree, and I want to add onto that thought. The schooling system here in America doesn't teach one how to think, only what to think (borrowed, second hand conclusions). There is no emphasis on the Trivium or Quadrivium, and so without imparting these invaluable tools to young minds in our country there is no gain in learning. Without knowing how to reason or how to apply logic and rhetoric on top of correct grammar what can one hope to learn. First we have to address the need for these basic skills and their absence in our schooling system.

We also have to focus our attention on reading comprehension as it continues to drop by leaps and bounds with every passing year. The kids these days refer to present tense and past tense as active voice and passive voice, and in math there are numerous examples of concepts being obstruficated in an very successful way in order to divide the parents and their schooling from the kids as well, and this is not isolated to math and literature, but goes over to sciences and social studies.

Therefore addressing symptoms such as praising ignorance won't alert the mind to the cause of those symptoms, as the root of these things lies in the continuous dumbing down indoctrination that has been happening for over 100 years through compulsory education at the watch of the educators of educators and their founding, who enjoy immovable positions, unchallenged and therefore secured in their salary year after year and the perceived obsolescence that is created with each new edition of school books that renders the old ones automatically useless, while driving the market for redundancy and printing of useless books. Until these educators and their nefarious deeds are exposed we will be left scratching our heads about problems such as the applauding of ignorance.