Comment by hunterpayne
18 hours ago
You are projecting. Those things are true of teachers who worked the best for you specifically. In some classes, these can work. Unless you have a high tracked class of kids with engaged and pro-education parents, it won't. It also tends to work better with kids in a specific age range, generally 10 to 14. But its not universal and don't project it into public policy that tries to maximize educational outcomes for the majority/all of the students. It also tends not to work for certain fields, like math for example. Its better for fields like history where debating viewpoints is part of the field instead of the scientific method.
Those things were not true of the teachers who worked the best for me specifically. I cite them based on stuff I've read during 40-50 years of reading about education and what actually works and how it works.
People do not, as a general rule, "learn" stuff by people telling them stuff. The retention rate is incredibly low, the comprehension is even lower. Now, it is often the case that good learning environments in our culture combine being told stuff with the sort of experiences that really lead to knowledge and skill acquisition. But everything I've read suggests that it is the latter, not the former, that generates the results we're hoping for.
Also, it may not be obvious, but sometimes testing is a critical part of those successful educational experiences. Nobody learns their times tables because a teacher told them the times tables ... but if you put children in an environment where they can both experience the patterns (or not) in the tables and where there is suffficient incentive to memorize either the tables or some heuristics, then they learn them.
You should look up "direct instruction" or mastery based learning. I was in agreement with you, mostly, but self-discovery has limits. I recently think this isn't the "optimal" way to teach, sometimes it's counterproductive. There might not _be_ an optimal way to teach and it might all be situational.
> People do not, as a general rule, "learn" stuff by people telling them stuff.
Yes. Recalling stuff and applying stuff is how we learn.
I strongly suggest you look into Math Academy and just bowse Justin Skycak's books on their method. I think they are right in many many aspects perhaps except the behavioral motivation ones. I think kids going through school need to either build self motivation or have someone build it for them, and I feel that is the gap in MA.