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PaulDavisThe1st | on: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling
1. the best teachers (of anything) rarely convey information or skills in any direct sense. Instead, they create the conditions where (willing) students will (or are at least more likely) to have experiences that cause them to learn.

2. John Holt (look him up)

3. I always wanted to offer people the chance to both leave and return to K-12 education. Lots of kids want out as teenagers, and we should make that possible but only if we make equally easy to come back when they realize the downsides.

4. Almost every child is a willing, in fact, overachieving learner. The fact that they fail to be interested in a topic is a reflection of things other than their capacity and capabilities for learning.

programjames | parent | next
My experience was pretty contrary to points (1) and (4). My best teachers/professors directly conveyed information or skills. I found most students did the bare minimum to pass their classes (where "pass" = "not get their parents mad"). I tried to get a CS club started at my highschool and basically no one was interested, not even my friends.

Now, I did have a great coach in middle school who "created the conditions where willing students will learn", but I don't think she would have been a good teacher. She was great at organizing club meetings, finding the right materials to study, utilizing intraclub competition to motivate everyone, and getting her former students to come back and teach in highschool. I'm sure there was a lot more going on behind the scenes that she just knew how to do right, which made the club a whole lot better. But she wasn't a teacher. Closer to an administrator, but I think "coach" in the (m)athletic sense makes the most sense.

And, this is probably why my computer science club was not the success I envisioned. Yes, people are generally underachievers, but I also did not have the coaching skills to create the conditions where people wanted to overachieve.

vunderba | parent | next
> 1. the best teachers (of anything) rarely convey information or skills in any direct sense. Instead, they create the conditions where (willing) students will (or are at least more likely) to have experiences that cause them to learn.

When I was an international ESL teacher, this was known as “guided discovery,” the goal being that students organically uncover the rules that govern the specific domain being taught.

It works quite well because it transforms what would otherwise be a passive curriculum from more of a spectator sport into an active, participatory learning experience.

hunterpayne | parent
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.
PaulDavisThe1st | root | parent
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.

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