For Ausubel, "meaningful learning is a process in which new information is related to an existing relevant aspect of the individual's knowledge structure" (Novak, 1998, p. 51). This stance is one that many if not all teachers agree with, and I believe it explains when skills are presented to students and their relevant prior knowledge are often so distant, that the student can't make the connection, and the teacher doesn't understand the culture the student is from to help the student assimilate the gap. The modern classroom is full of diverse students with diverse needs that vary on any given day. The modern teacher can only present a topic in so many ways or from so many angles. Even if time were not an issue, there comes a point when a teacher's ability to communicate the concept, skill or material is exhausted and the student must then choose to engage or not.
As an academic teacher of very large classes with students of varying strengths and needs, I often get the question "when are we ever going to use this stuff?" It's hard to explain to a 14 year old that just because she will not write academic papers in her work life or because he won't use the quadratic equation when going about his home life, doesn't mean it isn't helping to develop the student's brain and cognitive structures. Helping students to understand the difference between obliterative subsumption and forgetting may help motivate them, even a little bit, to learn concepts that may not have an obvious direct effect on their quality of life and learning in the immediate future.

Novak, J.D. (1998). Learning, Creating and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations (pp. 49-78; ch 5—Ausubel’s Assimilation Learning Theory). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ormrod, J. E. (2011). Human learning. (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Perry, B.D., & Pollard,