by Win Wenger, Ph.D.
Winsights No. 114 (May/June 2011)
Some very basic considerations about education:
What matters is not what is taught but what is learned.
Given that:
- learning is a process of making associations between current learning material and other elements of one’s experience; and that
- the more meaningful the associations, ceteris paribus, the more meaningful and effective is the learning; and
- given the degree and extent of variation among students and their respective backgrounds from which TO make such associations;
…then our schools should facilitate students into making their own most meaningful associations, instead of teacher and text (with their own respective biases and proclivities) trying to lay everything on them. x
We remark these because we here have developed a version of modern maieutic Socratic method combined with creativity-evoking and group- managing techniques from the Creative Problem-Solving Movement (CPS), which respects and exemplifies these considerations. With its several hundred students, St. Andrews Country Day School has pioneered for several years in use of this method, with some very nice results.
Some of this is brought to a very succinct, clear and simple focus in our recent book (only 57 pages!), 3 Easy Tactics To Use In Your Classroom. Of the many resources found here, we especially commend these to your attention, and most especially if you are an educator, trainer, teacher, public lecturer or conference presenter.