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phildjc1's review
5.0
“Whilst some institutional and structural reform may be valuable, what needs to change most of all is our reliance on defunct ideas. At stake is the education of all our pupils, and particularly the education of our least advantaged pupils. Unless we place the powerful and liberating force of knowledge at the heart of our education system, it will continue to fail our pupils and to deepen inequality.”
I want to preface this by saying I whole heartedly believed in many of these myths before I read this book, to the point that I was even a bit dismissive when I read the blurb. The thing is, that is the problem with beliefs. They are just sometimes… wrong. As a science teacher I should have been more suspicious of my beliefs but I was headstrong. I liked the ideas and the feeling of being right too much. There are grains of truth at the heart of each of these myths (that’s what makes them alluring) however, Daisy’s framing of these myths within modern cognitive science allows even the most headstrong to take a step back and reconsider what made you hold these beliefs in the first place.
Daisy Chrisodolou argues against the prevailing myths of education today (e.g. education needs to be student led; facts prevent understanding; we should teach practical skills; we should teach through projects / activities; the internet / 21st century changes everything). She is ABSOLUTELY clinical at debunking each myth. She first examines the theoretical evidence for each myth, then proves that it actually has widespread support in modern education and then subsequently explains why it is defunct using our modern understanding of cognitive science.
Central to a lot of the ‘myths’ is the false-dichotomy that knowledge and skills are separate things that can be taught in isolation and that facts and knowledge are ever-changing and thus unteachable. This goes up directly against what cognitive scientists actually know about how the brain learns, builds mental models and applies them; Simply put, as the cognitive scientist Dan Willingham puts it, "memory is the residue of thought". Only what is thought about will be remembered and only what is remembered can then be recombined into any sort of 'higher order' skill (like critical thinking or problem solving). Lots of current ‘best practices’ are focussed around putting the cart before the horse, teaching abstract skills BEFORE concrete knowledge
Case in point, the holy grail of '21st century skills' - scientific thinking - requires you to have a large knowledge of scientific facts to formulate a hypothesis, the central idea of scientific investigation... Without a HUGE body of knowledge we would not know how to start an experiment. Even if you somehow did get one going and obtained results, you would have no knowledge of the fundamental scientific facts to compare your findings to. Therefore you need a solid understanding and grounding in the facts of the matter before you are able to critically analyse anything. This same problem is found with teaching any abstract skill in isolation - problem solving, communication, critical thinking - we need to teach ACTUAL knowledge FIRST to drive these skills successfully.
In comparison to their wealthier peers, Daisy raises the point that students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds may not have the cultural capital in their home life to learn the critical information about the world anywhere else but inside schools. THis is why it is so important that teaching everywhere is effective and not led by defunct beliefs - one of the prerequisites for success in education is opportunity; we cannot deprive this from more-disadvantaged students.
This was nothing short of enlightening for me and I couldn’t recommend it higher for anyone currently in or about to enter education.
I want to preface this by saying I whole heartedly believed in many of these myths before I read this book, to the point that I was even a bit dismissive when I read the blurb. The thing is, that is the problem with beliefs. They are just sometimes… wrong. As a science teacher I should have been more suspicious of my beliefs but I was headstrong. I liked the ideas and the feeling of being right too much. There are grains of truth at the heart of each of these myths (that’s what makes them alluring) however, Daisy’s framing of these myths within modern cognitive science allows even the most headstrong to take a step back and reconsider what made you hold these beliefs in the first place.
Daisy Chrisodolou argues against the prevailing myths of education today (e.g. education needs to be student led; facts prevent understanding; we should teach practical skills; we should teach through projects / activities; the internet / 21st century changes everything). She is ABSOLUTELY clinical at debunking each myth. She first examines the theoretical evidence for each myth, then proves that it actually has widespread support in modern education and then subsequently explains why it is defunct using our modern understanding of cognitive science.
Central to a lot of the ‘myths’ is the false-dichotomy that knowledge and skills are separate things that can be taught in isolation and that facts and knowledge are ever-changing and thus unteachable. This goes up directly against what cognitive scientists actually know about how the brain learns, builds mental models and applies them; Simply put, as the cognitive scientist Dan Willingham puts it, "memory is the residue of thought". Only what is thought about will be remembered and only what is remembered can then be recombined into any sort of 'higher order' skill (like critical thinking or problem solving). Lots of current ‘best practices’ are focussed around putting the cart before the horse, teaching abstract skills BEFORE concrete knowledge
Case in point, the holy grail of '21st century skills' - scientific thinking - requires you to have a large knowledge of scientific facts to formulate a hypothesis, the central idea of scientific investigation... Without a HUGE body of knowledge we would not know how to start an experiment. Even if you somehow did get one going and obtained results, you would have no knowledge of the fundamental scientific facts to compare your findings to. Therefore you need a solid understanding and grounding in the facts of the matter before you are able to critically analyse anything. This same problem is found with teaching any abstract skill in isolation - problem solving, communication, critical thinking - we need to teach ACTUAL knowledge FIRST to drive these skills successfully.
In comparison to their wealthier peers, Daisy raises the point that students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds may not have the cultural capital in their home life to learn the critical information about the world anywhere else but inside schools. THis is why it is so important that teaching everywhere is effective and not led by defunct beliefs - one of the prerequisites for success in education is opportunity; we cannot deprive this from more-disadvantaged students.
This was nothing short of enlightening for me and I couldn’t recommend it higher for anyone currently in or about to enter education.
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