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12/10/04 WSJ Article on How Schoolchildren Learn
Posted by Andy Smith on 12/14/2004
In Reply To:12/10/04 WSJ Article on How Schoolchildren Learn Posted by Philip Abode on 12/14/2004
Billions of dollars have been expended on educational research since the passage of NDEA over forty years ago, and the best summary of the research on teacher methodology is that some teachers can use some methods and techniques that work with some students under certain circumstances some of the time. Wow! Isn't this helpful?
One can argue about the designs of the education research and make excuses why more research based conclusions have not emerged, but I think the conclusion is obvious: teaching is an art form, not a science, and experimental research will not likely produce much.
If there is a key to the teaching art, it is motivation. Teachers with general knowledge about the subject matter content and who are excited about what they are teaching have a pretty good chance of exciting their students. (I've seen excellent lecturers turn on groups of dull students on to the most esoteric content. Alternately, I've seen boring lecturers focusing on the most lively content utterly fail to communicate with the best students. Likewise, I've seen experiential techniques -- such as systems dynamics-- used with great effect and I have seen them utterly fail.)
Whatever the method employed, excited students have a better chance of learning content, concepts and processes, and improving skills than will students who are bored to tears, which is the usual state of most students in most schools. Excited students will learn much more than just the content covered in the teacher's lesson plans or the researcher's experimental designs. Alternatrely, students who are not motivated -- no matter what a teacher does or says -- will not learn very much, except how much they hate schooling.
I do agree that many teachers use the complexity of the educational art as an excuse to use methods that they feel comfortable with regardless of what the affect on students. This is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with, but, in my humble opinion, this will not change until teacher tenure is modified.
Andy Smith
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