Why Don't Students Like School? By Daniel Willingham

[Sarah Hanawald]

Is anyone else reading this book?  I'm almost finished and I'd really like to discuss it with some other colleagues.  I'm finding the book very challenging.  I know that much of what Willingham says about cognitive science is true.  What I'm struggling with are some of the conclusions he draws, such as Students Are Ready to Comprehend but Not to create Knowledge, which is a subtopic in one of his chapters.  Another is that we can't expect to teach children about a subject by having them do what experts in the field are doing.  He calls this Don't Expect Novices to Learn by Doing What Experts Do. 

Willingham makes a good case for the value of direct instruction.  Sometimes, educators sound like we are eschewing direct instruction when what we're really doing is assuming it.  Kids need some explicit instruction in order to be able to engage in meaningful project-based-learning.  But when we talk about the learning afterwards, we mostly share the PBL part, not what went into it.

I like Willingham's call to clearly teach students about learning, and not just about content.  I know I try to actually use the terms for the types of teaching I'm using.  My students know the term Imaginative Rehearsal and that it means they are using fiction to imagine scenarios and role play possible outcomes.

What are others doing to be cognitively responsible yet progressive educators?  Help!
Sarah

[Simon Jeynes]

Yes, I heard him by chance too. I hope that the conversation doesn't end in us or them statements. The reality, as we find talking with students constantly in schools, is that a mediocre teacher in a 40 minute period is far more preferable than a mediocre teacher in an 80 minute period. It's easy to teach in a direct style and the results are more consistent (see the research study attached and also in our research tab at isminc.com).

 

BUT, good/very good teachers are effective in a 40 minute period teaching content and MORE effective in an 80 minute period in teaching content and process. We are moving swiftly to a point where computers will be (and sometimes can now) teach content more effectively than teachers. Why have a teacher when a computer can do the job more reliably, without emotion, and over and over again in adaptive ways (e.g. aleks.com), not to speak of cheaper? We have to figure out what we actually need teachers to do and that comes back to effective teaching not being about style but about (I think another person said this earlier) relationships, about being immersed in the lives of children, about being enthusiastic, about have good technique, and so on and so on.

 

We are in a revolution. Willinngham is helpful in keeping us centered and focused on what actually works.

 

Simon