Let me tell you something

Unfortunately, we’re raising up a generation of students, and sometimes parents, that operates on the assumption that any time learning isn’t entertaining, something must be wrong.

Poor Elijah’s niece is a sensible young woman, but she’s also an education major. Lately she’s been preaching about the evils of lecturing. Apparently, her professors told her that students learn by doing. There’s even a poster that says so.

According to the poster, telling students things they need to know is an education felony. True learning allegedly occurs only when they “discover.”

Now you don’t have to buy the poster.

The last time she dropped by, she needed directions to their cousin Lou’s house.

“Don’t you want to discover the directions on your own?” Poor Elijah inquired. “Perhaps if you conducted some self-directed inquiry into the topography of western Massachusetts.”

“Perhaps,” she sneered, “you could knock it off and tell me how to get there.”

“I’m sorry, but that would be too much like giving you information. I can’t do that.”

“I don’t have time for this,” she replied.

“Neither do most students,” Poor Elijah concluded as he drew her a map.

Lecturing is dead. I know this because I’ve heard it directly from experts. They typically begin with a pronouncement that “the research clearly shows” that lecturing students is obsolete and ineffective. That usually happens immediately before they launch into their lectures.

Sometimes these moments get almost mystical. There’s nothing like a PowerPoint presentation about the evils of lecturing where the presenter reads the words out loud from a giant screen that everybody in the room can see.

I’ve lost count of the workshops where consultants have spent the entire day proclaiming the evils of lecturing and what enlightened teachers are supposed to do instead. Naturally, they all apologize first for talking so much. “It’s just,” they each explain, “that I’ve got a lot to cover.” Welcome to my world.

You can’t expect a ten-year-old to sit still as long as a college sophomore. Even under ideal circumstances, listening means some periodic wiggling in your chair. Unfortunately, we’re raising up a generation of students, and sometimes parents, that operates on the assumption that anytime learning isn’t entertaining, something must be wrong.

Lecturing has its roots in the ancient days when books were scarce and somebody had to read them out loud. Teachers then made comments and asked questions to provoke thought and discussion. Socrates is especially famous for this. He’s also famous because he had a lot of knowledge and wisdom in his head that he passed along to his students. That’s why we call him a sage. Today being a sage is bad. Experts commonly ridicule a teacher using Socrates’ methods as a “sage on the stage.” In fact, I’m not even supposed to teach anymore. I’m supposed to “facilitate.” Passing along my knowledge makes me a “classroom know-it-all” instead of a proper “learning coach.” One clique of science innovators explicitly prescribes that teachers “get out of the way” and let their middle school students “follow the science.”

By the way, these non-know-italls also eliminate science books. That way, presumably, their twelve-year-old students, unfettered by facts or teachers who know any, can rediscover that the sun goes around the earth.

How’s this for a cutting-edge teacher’s oath: I swear not to share what I know with my students.

Naturally, this being the twentyfirst century, technology gets its turn to strut upon the sageless stage. One e-publisher promotes an electronic math text with an “audio feed.” Now “instead of just having the teacher walk you through the problem, a narrator walks you through.”

Would somebody please explain how an electronic voice that can’t respond to questions is better than a living, breathing person who can. And why is a teacher who explains something denounced as a “pontificator,” but it’s okay if an electronic voice drones on with a canned explanation on the same topic.

Education experts talk a lot about teaching styles. But there’s nothing new about the art of teaching. Moses was big on memorization, Socrates specialized in questions, the prophets acted things out, and Jesus told stories. And they all lectured. That’s because lecturing is an efficient way to convey information. Sure, lectures can be dull. But they’re no more potentially dull than reading a reference text on your own. Every teaching method can fall flat or fail. Group work can be chaotically unproductive, and role-playing can be pointless and silly.

When I teach history, my students read the material first. Then I talk to them so I can embellish what they’ve learned and explain what they don’t understand. I ask them questions and encourage them to question me. Sometimes I translate historical concepts into more middle-school terms. I tell them to think like a colonial customs agent or John D. Rockefeller. Mostly, though, you’d call what I do lecture and discussion.

Good lecturing, like good storytelling, can be captivating. Yes, sometimes students’ eyes glaze over. Sometimes my eyes glaze over. But the value of knowledge can’t be measured by how enjoyable it is to acquire it.

Good teachers have always worked from a mixed bag. Lecturing is a legitimate tool in that bag.

Part of my job is guiding learners in the right independent direction. But my value as a teacher rests in what I know and what I’m able to pass along to my students.

The day my job becomes pointing them at the right bookshelf or website, you don’t have to pay me anymore.