James G. Sack (jim) wrote:
One of the points made in one of the many TED presentations that blq
posted was that we let young children learn to a large extent by
themselves, without encouragement but not too much interference by us.
But suddenly at age 5 (or so) we tell them to stop doing that -- from
now on they will learn by /being taught/ -- learning the old way is
(mostly) no longer tolerated!
I am not convinced about the rightness of completely unstructured
learning any more than I am about completely structured.
I would argue the failure is less in "being taught" than in what and how
things are being taught. There is also the whole "school as
daycare/babysitter rather than educator" problem, but that's another post.
Certain things need some rote. Multiplication tables, grammar rules, etc.
The problem is that not *everything* is rote, and much of school treats
everything as rote learning because it is simple to assess (gotta have
tests!).
History should *not* be simple rote learning, but often is. It should
be about interactions and motivations. Science should not be rote
learning. It should be about observation and experimentation. English
has a component of rote, but should be about people and ideas (often
intersecting with history).
However, non-rote learning requires *very* good teachers. It also
requires significant effort above simple class time. In addition, very
good teachers tend to be very tolerant because they know their stuff.
All of these are problems of the current system as the older teachers
retire (and there is a big chunk about to retire). Experience counts.
-a
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