How to Wake Up Slumbering Minds - WSJ.com

How to Wake Up Slumbering Minds - WSJ.com

This Wall Street Journal article is a review of "Why Don't Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom" (Daniel T. Willingham). Willingham bases his answer to the question on recent research in neuroscience. The main points are

• The human brain does not like abstract thinking. We are more receptive to "doing" learning than to "thinking" learning. This is not new. Socrates engaged his students in debate. He didn't lecture them.
• We learn best by "drilling" and repetition. This goes against current educational theory, but is generally true to my experience. In most cases I can do mental arithmetic more quickly than students can do calculations with a calculator. As a child I had to memorize and repeat the "times" tables. I just can't do it with big numbers
• Getting students to "think like mathematicians" or philosophers or any other trained specialist doesn't work. This, too, goes against contemporary theory. The line is that  if we get them to think like mathematicians, they will be better at math. Not so. First expose them to the knowledge of the discipline (possibly by drilling it into them) and some of them might start to think like workers in the field, eventually.
• Students cannot apply generic critical thinking skills until after they have acquired a considerable amount of knowledge and fact. Until students know something, they cannot analyze it critically
• "Learning styles" are largely a myth. There is no empirical evidence to back the claim that different people have different learning styles. Frankly, this comes as no surprise to me.It has always seemed to me that they represent trivial differences in individuals and should not be used as a basis for educational planning. Now we have scientific data to support that conclusion. The belief that all students are "equal in ability but unique in style" is hokum.
• Placing an emphasis on knowledge and content is the best way to ensure student learning. Again, no surprise. I remember with fondness and admiration the teachers and professors who "knew their stuff". More importantly, I remember much of what they taught me.

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