Sobering Thought

One of the wonderful things about learning is that it never stops. After elementary school is middle school, after that is high school, and after undergraduate study is the pseudo-graduate era where one takes professional, pre-professional, and esoteric classes in an attempt to learn various useful and not-so-useful things. However, more often than not, these experiences allow us to view the world in new and more interesting ways, considering points that we might not have originally conceived of, or reaffirming truths we had always known somewhere deep in our little hearts.

It was only after I had walked out of the second class of my second education class of all time that I realized something. 'US high school teachers suck. Hard. And it's probably not going to change.'

Though I can probably write pages and pages on why this is so, some of which might actually be supported by real, quantitative evidence, I will instead remark only on the sobering nature of the discovery of such a bold statement and comment only on the logic that lead up to this rather cynical conclusion. Probably in a series of posts. A point in each one.

The first point is that the pool of teachers and educators is simply too soft. I admittedly, am an elitist and have a large amount of derision when it comes to 'soft' things, but precisely one of the problem with teaching is the lack of a hard philosophy. Teaching theory is a social institution and it is precisely because of this fact that relativism almost exclusively dominates any methodology and any theoretical discussion. The premise of this is simple; every student is different, with various factors that all influence how one learns and there is no 'right' answer. Relativism, therefore, regulates educational theory to 'what is best by individual basis,' and attempts to apply common solutions to wider, and wider pools until you end up with a system that is applicable to a logistically large enough group of people. This is why there are schools with distinct teaching philosophies; they essentially take an individual solution and slowly widen the pool of applicable subjects until it is enough to base an entire school on. One can extrapolate this rather skeletal (read: mildly reductionist) process to all sorts of things but I'll leave those to readers who are interesting in theoretical thinking while intoxicated or otherwise.

There is one thing I would like to point out. Tailoring distinct solutions for specific groups of people (for example, standardized test takers vs intuitive Performance-Based Assessment type learners vs people who learn by watching porn) and then separating them into schools ('programs' on a smaller scale though the division, notably, is less severe) is a form of categorizing students into distinct groups. Another word for this is 'segregation.'

The idea that there 'is no solution' (the always-repeated 'there is no right answer' mantra) is often used as a justification for this form of 'educational discrimination.' Surely, if there is no right answer then there must be 'many right answers,' each of them equally valid and applicable, right? And because of that, each of these learning environments is theoretically equal in utility when applied to their student population, right? Something like that?

If none of this makes sense, then good. It doesn't make sense either to me either. The application of hard logic into such a soft system makes the subject matter almost fall apart entirely and thus, a new form of understanding can only be reached by a new viewpoint.

Let's start with the student. It is a clear given that all people learn in different ways, and that the natural ability of all people are different (my omission of 'potential' from this statement should be enough to appease those 'fairness' folks). Thus, it is not a stretch to say that the optimal way of learning is probably different for each and every person. In an idealized case (and we'll deal with logistics after setting up this theoretical system), an educational system would be able to be optimally efficient with each kid, using precisely each individual student's way of learning. This is the basis for things such as one-on-one tutoring, homeschooling, and other things that deal with the student as an individual. However, while this might be ideal, it is not feasible. Here's where logistics come into play.

Obviously, we can't have every student in the world have one or more teachers for each subject and individual attention all the time. Let's start with the simplest 'complex' case; two students, being taught at the same time. Any teaching methodology, therefore, has to be an amalgam of the two student's ideal and thus, is now an average of the two. In addition, there is the emergent property of 'interaction;' that is, the students are not wholly separated from one another and will interact. As a teacher, all of these factors must be considered, though perhaps not with equal weight. For example, if both students willingly do not interact with one another, student interaction is downgraded in importance because the chance of it being a crucial 'key property' is much lower. Similarly, if both students model close enough ideal learning methodologies, any 'differences' between the two can be downplayed due to again, a low chance of diference being a crucial considerable factor. As more and more students are added to this system, more and more properties emerge but the method we use to teach effectively with two students will be more or less the same as the method to teach multiple students.

The teaching methodology will be, therefore, an 'average' of the ideals between all students because that is the solution that best meets the needs of the group as a whole. This methodology is to be further modified in effectiveness based on emergent properties (intrinsic cultural differences, student-student interaction, etc) which need to be judged on how much impact each property would have on the overall learning of the group. True, there might not be a unified answer that is equally efficient to everyone within a group but this is certainly not 'many answers with equal value.' In fact, this points to one distinct single answer, even if that answer is simply a 'best-fit.'

However, if we take a closer look, we see that one should not be fitting students into teaching methodologies, but fitting methodologies over students. In this vein, segregating children into different schools with different teaching methods is the exact opposite of this conclusion. While logistically it might allow for the job to be easier, as teachers have a preformed methodology already made that needs minimal tinkering to fit into each class, it is not ideal because it prevents students from meeting with students who learn entirely differently; in short, it mitigates progressive education movements entirely. A part of experiential learning is being placed into situations, particularly ones one is not used to, and meeting people one perhaps has not met. How can this occur if children are already presegregated by the very schools they go to based on something as esoteric and unyielding as 'learning method'?

Some might disavow this interaction as important, but if schools really are a social institution, well, it is clear this interaction is as important as having more than one teacher through 12 years of standardized education and not being in the same homeroom for those same 12 years. Ironically, it takes hard rigor to reach this conclusion as opposed to the soft 'all solutions are equally valid' approach that is the essence of circle-jerk education courses. No, not all solutions are equally valid; no, there probably isn't a universal methodology in the colloquial definition, but this should be decided by class to class, not through a pre-screening process to make things easier. In some ways, progressive educational reforms pidgeon-hole children almost as badly as standardized testing does by stripping away 'the world' with completely tailored learning environments.

'Free-learning' environments seem to be the best solution to this, as they allow for individualized discovery by students and no 'set philosophies' (in the colloquial sense of the word) for students to abide by. However, a problem with pure free-learning environments is the utter lack of structure. Will kids learn on their own? Won't they? Clearly, I as an observer should not leap into free schools as a solution against pidgeon holing, despite the environment certainly supporting the idea of 'methodology fit into children' as opposed to 'children fit into a methodology.' But where should structure come from? Teaching method, which I just pretty much argued against for a standard (and thus, a structure)? Results and assessment methods? Taste in TV shows?

That's a question for another time. For now, the conclusions to be reached are the following for you tl;dr peeps.

1) The most effective teaching methodology for a given sample of students is one which best resembles the average ideal methodology for the group. This insures the teacher hits the largest amount of students possible with the greatest yield, as opposed to favoring one group over all others through the decision on what methods to use.

2) The given is the student population. In terms of what this means, it suggests that teachers should tailor methodologies to a student population, making the entire process student-centric.

3) Segregation occurs when students are divided by learning methodology. This intrinsically is not a problem, but results in conditioning students to learn in certain ways through institutions devoted to only one teaching methodology (or, to be more precise, one family of educational theory); in other words, making the entire process method-centric.

4) While being 'method-centric' is not inherently a problem, it results in two problems. One, students are removed from 'choosing' their own learning method (self-discovery) and are pidgeon-holed based on either performance, environmental, or other criteria. Two, students who are therefore segregated into an institution with only one or one family of teaching methodologies lose the interaction with students who learn differently, removing experiential learning. In layman's terms, students learn to deal only with the same, not with the different.

5) Method-centric segregation stems from the false premise that if there is no answer, all answers must be equally valid in some way. This not only fails to examine 'best-fit' solutions, but also allows ideas to propagate that fit only extremely specific people that cannot be applied to other cases. Note with student-centric thought, these same ideas can all be reached but innately have a distinct context for application and for consideration in future development. Also note that 'best-fit' is not the same as 'shotgun technique.'

6) Free schools provide an environment where there is no set methodology (colloquial sense). However, there is, at the same time, a lack of structure that is intrinsically present in other schools (where methodology serves as the structure). Thus, two questions arise; is structure required, and if so, what sort?

Tune in next time for more psychobabble!

Today is sunny, but I'm lazy (and somewhat disappointed).

Cheers.