The Case Against Teaching
An Advocacy for Self-Directed Learning, or Learning
What is teaching?
Teaching is the process by which an individual receives explicit instruction from another individual, often dubbed “a teacher”, in regards to some subject. Usually, the teacher creates a set of skills, content areas, and other bits of information that they expect students to learn in regards to some thing, and try to direct students in how to process that thing for some use. For example, a physics teacher prescribes that students need to learn how to calculate the motion of a 2D object with trigonometry and thus sets out to give the information regarding that calculation to the students directly, whether by orating or lecturing, providing examples or experiments, posing problems, etc. The teacher can check understanding through a variety of ways and judge students accordingly. The ultimate feature of teaching is that the primary source of information is the teacher and must information and its validity is filtered through that individual. The teacher has the most time, generally, in that interaction, and the teacher usually has some standards to make teaching easier, such as no talking without permission, no disruptions like using the bathroom or throwing things away, no excessive socializing or being “off-task”, etc.
Problems with Teaching and Society
This is where the authoritarianism of modern teaching begins: by centering the learning of a subject around one individual and their own biases and desires, learning can be significantly inhibited. For one, the teacher’s understanding of a subject will always focus on certain bits of information regarding it at the expense of other bits of information, i.e. that the teacher will assume some things as being more relevant than others. This can make it more difficult for students to form their own understandings and conceptualizations of the material, since they will only notice what is directly pointed out to them and may not think about other possible uses or frameworks. This can trap them in the same box the teacher is in, and for the students that do find other uses or frameworks, those alternative perspectives might be shut down since they don’t meet with the teacher’s own biased understandings. For instance, a student in an Algebra class finds an alternative way of solving a problem that differs from the teacher’s preferred method and thus it is marked as “incorrect”.
For two, teaching can be very boring. Lots of teachers prefer the lecture-based approach when they narrate the material itself and hope that students will listen and understand. The issue with this approach is, one, lots of students don’t have the attention span for hours of lectures, in fact most people don’t after around one hour of lecturing. It’s boring and overwhelming to receive so much verbal information over such a long duration of time. For some disabled students like ADHDers, this kind of instruction can be detrimental and dopamine-lacking and cause them to loose attention and “act out”. It has also been scientifically demonstrated that lecturing is the least effective means of learning in general, since it’s the least involving of the brain; all you are doing is receiving information, but you don’t get the chance to either produce or create your own information, or work to understand the topic in your own way, which all humans naturally try to do when learning something.
Of course, lecturing isn’t teaching itself, you can teach through other means, like doing experiments or demonstrations in class, which is more effective at maintaining attention and enhancing learning. You can also pose problems or questions and have students work to solve them. You can create projects for students to do. You can have students teach themselves or others. But as we investigate more effective methods of “teaching”, we begin to see the other side of the coin: learning. Contrary to popular conception, teaching and learning are completely different concepts and upon further investigation, most people begin to see why.
Teaching is simply the act of receiving explicit instruction; whereas, learning is the process of observation, experimentation, imitation, and realization, whereby individuals receive information through some source, or even themselves, work with the information in their own way, whether by thinking about it, running experiments, holding projects, asking questions, etc., or by copying what they saw someone else do, and then eventually, over time, redevelop the information in their own way, with their own unique spin and kinks. In other words, the individual integrates the new information with their old understandings of the world and resolve any contradictions that might arise. That is fundamentally learning, and all humans do it every second of every day (some evidence suggests that learning even begins before birth), and it lasts until death. It is absolutely possible to be taught physics and not actually learn any physics, and virtually every person understands this concept.
And this begins to get into the wider issue of teaching itself. It is just not a particularly effective way to learn. The evidence seems to point to the notion that FREE play, experimentation, modeling desirable behaviour or skills, integrating information into the environment, etc. are far better ways of learning for human beings. In other words, letting people learn on their own and simply providing them with the support and guidance necessary to do so. Thinking about all of the things I am good at now, the primary reason that is the case is due to my own, self-directed efforts. I learned how to write well by reading lots of books and imitating what I saw until it become “learnt” or integrated into my understanding of the world. I had the space to explore reading and writing on my own and developed my own way of writing and doing that works for me. I learned politics, not because I had a teacher, but because I immersed myself in virtual political environments and picked up vocabulary and concepts, looked up the things I didn’t understand or know, and produced political work of my own.
It is also worth noting that the process of learning politics on my own was fun. It genuinely enjoyed it, I would wake up early just to watch my favorite political podcasts and drink tea like some professional. It was fun to make my own political takes and communicate them to people. It was fun to debate and discuss with others. It was fun to learn and explore the entirety of the political world and develop my own perspectives. And to some extent, it still is very fun now.
I think the largest issue with modern approaches to learning and education is this notion that suffering is some kind of virtue or necessity, that for any desirable outcome to occur, you have to endure pain of some kind and once you endure the pain, you can be blessed with the privilege of having that desirable outcome, and we take this approach to education, by making it as boring and insufferable as possible. Part of why we do this in schools is to “prepare” students for the boredom and suffering of adult life as wage slaves — I mean employees — who have bills to pay, laws to obey, and employers to suffer for; i.e. the idea that fun is only for kids and that being a mature adult is to be okay with having a largely boring or painful life.
My counter-thesis is that life can and should be fun, enjoyable, something you freely control, and something you look forward to, and that learning should be organized in that same way. Suffering should not be a prerequisite for success, a good life, or desirable social outcomes, nor learning something new. We should seek to create and prepare kids for a world where they can choose the kind of life they want, free of work, bills, and other obligations, and organize our educational systems around that idea of self-determination.
Further Considerations
This also isn’t to say that explicit instruction has absolutely no place. I learned how to make clever redstone constructions in Minecraft by watching videos about it and by being told explicitly, step-by-step, how something is done. If you’ve tried to figure something out on your own, sometimes that can be really complicated and time-consuming and sometimes you don’t know where to start or go. I think having guides for some subjects can be really important; it can help give you a sense of direction when there is none, or answer your specific problems or questions when no one else can. I think the difference between guides and teachers though is that while teachers are the centre of the learning process is conventional classrooms and models of learning, guides are an after-thought: they are there when needed, but ultimately the learning process is centered around the students and their own goals and desires. So in the redstone example, the video creators were guides: they didn’t force their presence on me, they didn’t make my learning redstone experience about them or centered around them, or they didn’t deny me the ability to determine how I learn redstone or what I do with it, all they did was give me clear instructions that I could follow of my own free will and use to do my own thing, which in this case was creating a redstone power grid for a town I built.
Most people are taught how to read, and most people aren’t really good readers. Most people are taught science, but most people aren’t particularly good at science. Most people are taught math, and especially in America, most people are god awful at it. This isn’t to say that teaching is the only culprit in the chronic reality illiteracy of the world, lots of factors are involved here, such as the wider schooling system and its many flawed assumptions, poverty and economic insecurity, hunger and lack of access to healthcare, housing, and other basic needs, early exposure to violence, cultures of ignorance and anti-intellectualism, lack of parental support for learning, bullying, bigotry, etc. etc. However, teaching is the primary mode of instruction as well as the primary way students learn subjects like reading or science or mathematics or history, or whatever. If teaching was half as effective as is commonly claimed, this situation would not be as dire. But it is, because teaching on its own is not a very effective way of learning and we already know more effective ways.
So, ultimately, learning should be self-directed and guides should exist on the side, not be centered as teachers as the sole individuals learning should be based on. Students should be given the space to practice self-determination and we aim to meet them where they are at and help them with their own goals. We should let go of the idea of molding a particular person and instead let children form and be their own person. We should re-learn how to learn, and unlearn the idea that suffering is a necessity for a good education. Center comfort and fun and make a world where people are actually happy and in control. That’s what should be done.
Research and Further Reading:
