Vibes-based, guide-on-the side teaching is 'soul destroying'

Explicit instruction is "soul destroying," argues Rachael Jefferson, an advocate of "embodied learning." An university lecturer and researcher in Australia, Jefferson sees the "science of learning" as "dogma," she tells EducationHQ.  Scripted lessons deprive teachers of autonomy, treating them like technicians rather than professionals, she says.

Photo: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

Teacher James Dobson disagrees. It's a "myth" that scripted and structured lessons deprive teachers of creativity, he tells EducationHQ. “No one argues that a script robs an actor of their ability to perform Macbeth incredibly well.  No one argues that musicians shouldn’t be following a piece of music."

Ms. Sam, a science teacher, writes that her soul -- or at least her motivation to learn -- was crushed by middle-school teachers who left students to figure everything out for themselves, she writes in response to Jefferson.

Although English is her second language, she'd been a high achiever in elementary school, where teachers explained new material, Ms. Sam writes. In middle school, where most teachers had abandoned explicit instruction, she floundered.

Her math teacher would assign a "Problem of the Week" with only "vague hints" how to tackle it and exhortations to "try harder." Eventually, Ms. Sam and her classmates gave up. "I stopped asking questions," and lost a whole year of math learning, she writes.

(My daughter had the "Problem of the Week" in seventh-grade pre-algebra. Even her father, who'd been a math major at Stanford, had trouble figuring out what students were supposed to do. But, at least, unlike the teacher, he was willing to explain things.)

Students used magazine pages for collages in English class. "It was fun," but did nothing to build reading and writing skills.

Her immigrant parents were disappointed with her B's, C's and an occasional F, she writes. She was resigned.

Then her high school chemistry teacher helped her actually understand the material. "He explained concepts clearly and broke them down in a way that made them easily accessible," writes Ms. Sam. She regained her confidence, her love of learning and her motivation. She studied at home, did well on exams and qualified for AP Chemistry, then more AP courses.

Her straight A's got her into UCLA, where she earned a BS in biology with a minor in science education, and became the first in her family to earn a college degree. As a science teacher, she provides students the "structure, clarity, and support they deserve."

Cognitive science, the so-called "science of learning," really is science, writes Carl Hendrick, a Dutch professor and co-author of How Learning Happens in his response to Jefferson. Unlike a dogma, it's constantly "questioned, revised and debated" as new evidence emerges.

"Decades of converging evidence"  supports the effectiveness of direct instruction, especially for novice learners who need to build foundational knowledge, he writes. Cognitive-load theory has more than 30 years of "robust research behind it."

Cognitive science research has found that knowledge, stored in long-term memory, enables learning, Hendrick writes. "One cannot think critically about what one does not know." Or to put it another way, "You cannot connect the dots if you don’t have any dots."

"Teacher autonomy" shouldn't mean letting teachers ignore the evidence about what works in favor of "vibes, ideology and whatever 'feels right,'" he writes. "Professionals in other high-stakes domains such as medicine, aviation, engineering, routinely follow evidence-based protocols, not because they are automatons, but because they are accountable to what works."

Explicit instruction works well for children with learning difficulties, he adds.