The case for unassisted learning

Mar 1^st 2007

I think I’ll forgo the normal method of trying to convince you by a constant stream of words and make a list of reasons why I think schools should exchange most teachers with someone who simply ensures that students are present and not engaging in any extraneous behavior such as talking or walking around or reading unrelated information for example. Basically all they need to do is make sure the necessary books and exercises are available and complying students proceed slow enough to actually learn the material. This is to be tested by their failure rates in taking tests at the end of each day.

The person in charge should actually be someone involved in their own self study that can command the respect of the children and provide an example to emulate.

Furthermore as John Saxon has stressed in his books the why of most of the things we learn only comes after years of doing a task and becoming an expert at doing it so the how is what should be stressed by a continuous stream of similar problems rather than attempting to force understanding by stressing the why which is usually forgotten anyway.

Additionally children should not be allowed help others to do the problems since this may help the “tutor” understand but it strips the “pupil” of the ability to learn to solve problems on their own.

Now for my list:

1. Of the dozens of teachers I’ve had in my life none has taught me anywhere near as fast as or as much as I could learn from reading the same thing in a book.
2. Books often have over twenty different people involved in the creation and vetting of every syllable on every page but one person who wasn’t even involved in writing that book or any other is directing the learning process?
3. Of the list listening, reading, teaching and doing, listening is the least useful method of learning but it is the most used in schools. Why? To be clear I’m suggesting reading and doing via answering questions as the alternative. This is nothing new, kids are supposed to be doing this at home anyway. My point is this is at least ten times as effective and important as being lectured but we currently focus all the influence that we have with students on the least effective method basically the tip of the iceberg. Instead of providing a controlled environment where students can learn and perfect the art of problem solving and learning we waste the opportunity and wonder why they haven’t come up with good study habits.
4. As Wang Szu says in the 2,500 year old document “The Art of War”, "Without constant practice, the officers will be nervous and undecided when mustering for battle; without constant practice, the general will be wavering and irresolute when the crisis is at hand." Students need to continuously practice the old while learning the new.
5. All the most important lessons in life that allow most of us to function in a normal society are not taught and yet we are all experts at them. Walking, eating, potty control, speaking, reading body language, identifying different people and different voices and emotions, each of these are highly specialized complicated tasks that to this day we still cannot teach computers to do with any where near the capability of even a five year old. How does a five year old do it? By explanations by theories? No, by practice, practice, practice. Years after they can explain how but not while they’re learning.
6. What if we gave up allowing babies to learn on their own and tried teaching as we officially would we learn to walk, talk and speak faster or slower?
7. You say to yourself aha but we teach speaking to children by correcting them and that’s how they learn. Do we really teach children or do they just imitate us? Even when you aren’t correcting children they seem to realize their own mistakes and learn anyway. They even learn what we don’t want them to learn such as cursing
8. How exactly in a class of forty children who need forty different speeds of learning can one teacher accommodate all of them? The answer is they can’t and half the children are bored to various degrees and half are confused to various degrees and perhaps one or two are just right on any give day or even year.
9. What’s the difference between the student who does well and doesn’t take lessons and the student who doesn’t do well and doesn’t take lessons and why don’t we just find out and have all the students do what the good student does while they’re in school and we can control that behavior.
10. John Saxon’s books and techniques work he has the statistic to prove it. The increase in Standardized test scores, the increases in Math enrollment, in any other field his techniques would have been adopted.
11. Dr. Art Robinson prominent chemist has six children who are all above average in intelligence all from this technique of providing the tools, the time and the discipline and stepping back.
12. People learn quickly enough that class is no place to actually ask questions and learn anything. They will either be humiliated or “slow down” the class by asking questions. So they learn to fake learning by nodding and following the teacher with their eyes. They know they can always go home and read the book. I know that’s what I always thought.
13. We all know the classrooms have failed. Every student and every teacher knows it but we don’t know what to put in its place.
14. We have never approached learning from a purely scientific proven point of view we just do what our predecessors and parents did.
15. Children learn to walk at their own pace and talk at their own pace along with everything else but once they get to school this natural pace of learning is forsaken and they are forced to learn at the pace that someone else dictates, neither faster nor slower and yet we wonder why it fails? And yet we are surprised?
16. What is the best way to learn a language, total immersion correct? Like a child, at one’s own pace, but with non stop practice from the basics of the weather to how to bake a cake 24 7.
17. Correspondence schools have the highest dropout rate of all forms of education. Does this mean that teaching is actually better? Nope it just means perhaps that people are more committed to do what they are supposed to when discipline is enforced by the presence of other people they can see. But in normal circumstances they still end up cramming passing the exam and forgetting everything.
18. But won’t students just day dream away while they’re at school? With nothing else to do a student will eventually give up and simply do what he is supposed to. Even if it takes weeks or months they will. An example of this is provided by one of Dr. Robinson’s six children one of whom was at first taught by a tutor and rebelled against learning in this suggested way. Once the student has accomplished the goals set for the day in terms of either correct answers or time spent they can either have a reward or leave for the day. The student has zero distractions nothing on the walls, no windows, no traffic noise nothing, except what they have to do.
19. One of the main points is that students are daydreaming classes away as we speak, this is what they do. I consider myself one of the most attentive students in any class I’ve ever been in and in every class after 30 minutes maximum and usually much less my mind was gone. I’ll read a book for hours but barely listen to the same person more than 20 minutes in a stretch before I’m thinking “I wonder how much money he makes” or something else and I know that this is 100% normal.
20. I have taught in many different scenarios from being a tutor, to being a math teacher at my old high school and without fail when I am done teaching the clearest most precise and best lesson ever and I try to get someone to answer a question or do a problem I explained they have no idea what to do. I’ve also been on the other end as well for many years and it’s true. Sure, many people may remember what you say but to apply that knowledge usually takes more than just talk or even examples, it takes practice.
21. The word teach should not even exist so much as the word present and nothing significant should be presented by listening so much as by reading. Think about the last time someone gave you directions. As short and as simple as them are they are they are ten time more effective if they are written and read rather than just listened to even several times over.
22. A child like Choc’late has learnt many times over what other school children may have learnt because she learnt by reading, doing and emulating rather than just listening.
23. The country needs people who are leaders and entrepreneurs, people who are confident in their ability to solve any problem they come across rather than looking for leadership in other people. Instead of creating this schools create people who are always looking for the “teacher” or the tutor to help them or they just give up and never attempt anything without help. This is obvious in the way that rather than taking ownership of the
24. Learning to walk or speak etc is far harder than any other task that a human being will ever do in their lifetime yet most people having accomplished these tasks actually believe that there are things that other humans can do that they cannot! Jobs such as being a lawyer, a doctor or a CEO are considered beyond the reach of many people when these jobs involve no where near the mammoth leap of going from knowing absolutely nothing to being able to read and write and talk and walk. To me this is incredible, that the amazing latent talent and drive in 99% of the population is routinely stunted and destroyed and we just accept it. Those who escape with their yearning for knowledge and accomplishment intact can actually end up believing that they are better instead of just being lucky enough to escape.
25. The mentality of following that schools help to establish can and does lead to those in authority looking at many entrepreneurial types within organizations as troublemakers rather than opportunities for entities to excel. If a seamstress tries to use on a better way to make a dress she might just lose her job because she makes the others look bad instead of having her teach the others how to do it. Because they have been suppressed themselves others may become jealous and act out because they cannot find a way ahead themselves.
26. I remember my first days of secondary school I had no idea how I was supposed to study for my exams or anything. Was I supposed to read the book once, twice three times, four times? Fast forward to form 4 and I still had no idea. Fast forward a couple of times and I was still not sure. I just muddled through my decades of school really with no real clue of how to study properly. Now I think I realize that much like karate class used to be I was supposed to practice everything I knew over and over every day or every class.