Let Students Learn
From policy makers to classroom teachers, we would benefit from a more robust conversation about how we support learners.
Professor Duckworth asked for a volunteer who didn’t feel confident in math. The course was “Learning and Teaching” at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It was legendary for its ability to transform educators’ understanding of learning and the pedagogy that can positively shape it.
Ali took a seat beside Prof. Duckworth on the floor and was introduced to her task: reshape a chocolate bar (in the form of wooden blocks) to specific dimensions that contain the same amount of chocolate as its previous shape. This was a volume problem. While Ali is among the most brilliant educators I know, this was not her area of strength. For ninety minutes she tried various methods to accomplish her task. Prof. Duckworth, observing quietly as she sat with Ali, would ask questions from time to time, inquiring about Ali’s current reasoning, the questions she was asking, and why she had done certain things. In the end, Ali not only completed the task, she discovered and created her own language and equations for area and volume. Ali now had a comprehensive and dynamic understanding of these core math concepts, and she learned it all in her own way.
Principle of Learning and Teaching #3:
There is no right way to learn.
As humans, we are born with innate learning abilities. Our senses, cognitive abilities, and natural desire for understanding the world are powerful capacities. They enable us to learn to communicate, walk, and manage dynamic social relationships in the first few years of life — all without formal education. We accomplish this using the tools of observation, trial and error, and inquiry. But, we each employ these tools in our own way and time.
The story of Ali sitting on the floor at Harvard to discover area and volume is one that demonstrates that her innate capacities for learning serve her well. And, Prof. Duckworth’s approach to supporting Ali’s learning offers a provocative example of pedagogy.
Knowing Our Learners
In traditional pedagogy, teachers assume it necessary to structure the learning process for students. This often takes the form of presenting a linear progression of concepts that lead to a larger idea. In theory, it keeps everyone in their seat and focused, moving ahead together at a regulated pace that ensures all content will be covered by the end of the school year. The teacher remains in control to meet her responsibility to the students.
Unfortunately, this flies in the face of what we know to be true about how humans learn. Prof. Duckworth was a protégé of Jean Piaget, a founding researcher of developmental psychology and constructivist learning theory. Decades of their research showed that learners develop true understanding through dynamic, non-linear exploration. True understanding — as compared to memorizing content — is a functional understanding of the parts of a whole, their unique qualities, and how they relate to one another. True understanding doesn’t just prepare learners to drive a car. It prepares them to diagnose the problem when the car won’t start, too.
In Ali’s case, while she managed to memorize the equations to solve these problems long enough to score well on tests in elementary school, she didn’t have a firm understanding of the concepts. One could easily conclude that Ali doesn’t have strong spatial reasoning abilities. But, it’s crucial to ask whether the deficiency is Ali’s or the pedagogical approach that should have leveraged her learning capacities. After all, when challenged to solve a volume problem, Ali’s spatial reasoning was strong enough to allow her to solve the problem and develop the language and algorithm she needed to solve similar problems in the future.
When we assume this principle — there is no right way to learn — to be true, it begs two important questions:
- How can we create learning spaces and processes that leverage and develop innate learning capacities?
- What role should teachers play to support student learning?
In the past, pedagogy and curriculum were shaped around trying to serve the “average” learner. Todd Rose makes a strong case in The End of Average that there is no such thing as an average learner. Each learner is shaped by an almost endless number of factors, including their unique neurological makeup, past experiences, current developmental stage, and their relationships with the people and context that make up the learning space. While there is no average student to teach to, we can create pedagogy that is inclusive of a wide range of learners.
To gain a more dynamic understanding of the needs of a group of learners and how they can best be supported, educators can ask:
- What are the common traits and learning needs for students at this developmental stage?
- How does home culture shape students as learners, their approach to schooling, and their relationships with teachers?
- What lived experiences hold particular sway over students’ mindset or sense of self?
- What does learning science say about how students learn about the subject of study?
While some of this inquiry will be successful as a Google search, much of it won’t. It requires observation, formal and informal conversation, and intentional efforts to understand the community and each student’s experience within it. It’s a daunting task to learn about each student, their families, and their culture, particularly when they are different from those of the teacher. But, the more teachers come to know their students, the better equipped they are to connect in humanizing and loving ways.
Crafting Learning Experiences
Learning to critically understand oneself, others, and the world requires cognitive and emotional skills that go beyond normal academics — an ability to wield love and intellect symbiotically. Pedagogy must intentionally create a learning culture, space, and processes to build these capacities.
Prof. Duckworth’s approach started with the creation of the learning space — both for Ali and those of us observing. She built a culture of trust. She challenged us to lean into our innate capacities for observation, inquiry, and processing rather than looking to her for direction. Prof. Duckworth carefully crafted experiences for us as participants and observers. She provided texts to challenge our assumptions and perspectives. And, she asked expertly formulated questions that pushed us to reflect critically upon our understanding of learning and teaching.
While Ali bravely and humbly entered the course ready to take public risks as a learner, I entered differently. In my eighteenth year of formal schooling, I was well-heeled in traditional pedagogy. When I realized on the first day of the course that I would not have the science of learning passed directly to me via assigned readings, insightful lecturing, and heavily facilitated conversation, I bristled. I would pay for this course every month for the next ten years. I wanted more to show for it than observations of someone discovering math concepts I mastered long ago.
Over the course of the semester, the scales fell from my eyes. Each new experience revealed new insights that forced me to rethink everything I believed to be true about learning and teaching. While the readings provided challenging perspectives, Prof. Duckworth’s pedagogy assumed that to truly understand learning and teaching I had to see the process in its dynamic reality. I needed to build connections among concepts and experiences, and I’d have to give those connections meaning by relating to the human experiences of the student and teacher. I needed to leverage my capacities for love and intellect to develop meaningful understanding.
Though it remains incomplete, my understanding of pedagogy is true to its dynamic reality. The course brought into stark relief the beautifully liberatory and powerfully oppressive potential of pedagogy. Prof. Duckworth expertly crafted the space and provided the support for me to do this transformational learning.
The Wrong Way to Learn
This principle also begs the question of whether there is a wrong way to learn. If the goal is to prepare students to positively contribute to society, then there are undoubtedly wrong ways to learn.
Learning processes that set the goal as having an answer for every question are problematic. By rewarding students for definitively answering questions, we separate them from the complex and dynamic reality of our world. Pedagogy that separates learning from authentic engagement with the real world is also problematic. The real world is where meaning and purpose live, and it makes learning a humanizing process.
While the list could go on, there is a commonality among the wrong ways to learn. Pedagogy that diminishes our capacities for love and intellect is wrong. It is oppressive and dehumanizing. It leads to a world dangerously misaligned with core human values held throughout history and across cultures. Dr. King, for example, challenged individuals and communities to leverage their love and intellect in pursuit of understanding across the barriers society places between people. While Dr. King stated that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, he also believed it only bent that way because of highly capable citizens. Our learning and pedagogy must prepare us for this difficult work.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Creating learning spaces, educational institutions, and systems of schooling is incredibly difficult. There is no perfect formula for pedagogy that will result in universally humanizing outcomes. Yet, as we look at many of the learning spaces in the world today, it’s easy to see that delivering humanizing education hasn’t always been the priority. From policy makers to classroom teachers, we would benefit from a more robust conversation about how we support learners. And, we’d do well to identify and cordon off those processes that result in the wrong way to learn.
This post is part of a series supporting educators in reflecting on their pedagogy and practice. Read the intro to this series If We Don’t Work on Pedagogy, Nothing Else Matters or explore the most recent posts below.
The Essential Role of Love in Learning and Teaching ← P R E V I O U S
N E X T → The Revolutionary Pedagogy of Truths
