While researching a question for a colleague, I found myself in the opening pages of The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. As I began flipping to the chapter I needed, the first page opened to R. Keith Sawyer’s Introduction. In the bulleted list on that page, Sawyer observed that curriculum and instruction is organized around five assumptions (my paraphrasing):
- Knowledge (essential facts and procedures) is well-known;
- Instruction is intended to transfer that knowledge to students;
- Teachers recognize the knowledge and know how to transfer it;
- Instruction should proceed from simple to complex;
- Testing is an effective way to measure learning (the transfer of knowledge).
Regarding the current rhetoric surrounding education, it seems that the philanthropists, politicians, and even educational leaders who are advocating the latest reforms believe these assumptions to be true. Before any educators, parents, or others who care about education follow these advocates, it is important to know that Sawyer preceded his list with the words,
“... the schools we have today were designed around commonsense assumptions that have never been tested scientifically:”
and that is followed by the list I summarized above.
The cognitive scientists and learning scientists who have been working in recent decades have made amazing discoveries about human cognition and the conditions that facilitate learning. The longer we ignore the nature of learning, the longer we waste financial and human resources chasing educational mirages. Remember what Richard Feynman observed: “...reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Sawyer, R. Keith. 2006.
“Introduction: The New Science of Learning.” In The
Cambridge Handbook of Learning Science, edited
by R. Keith Sawyer, 1-16. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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