{"id":4210,"date":"2019-01-30T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T13:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=4210"},"modified":"2019-01-24T15:43:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T20:43:58","slug":"two-swings-two-misses-the-new-york-times-on-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/two-swings-two-misses-the-new-york-times-on-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Swings, Two Misses: The New York Times on Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two recent articles in the New York Times have gotten lots of teacherly attention.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s Love Got to Do With It?<\/h2>\n

The first, an op-ed by David Brooks, announces that “students learn from people they love<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Brooks’s piece includes some heart-warming anecdotes, and name checks some important researchers: Antonio Damasio, for instance, and Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.<\/p>\n

(Everyone admires Immordino-Yang’s work. An interview<\/a> with her appeared on the blog just six weeks ago.)<\/p>\n

The hyperbole of the headline, however, strikes me as profoundly unhelpful. “Love” just isn’t a useful word for considering the research that Brooks cites.<\/p>\n

Said differently: lots of people learn all sorts of things from people they don’t love.<\/p>\n

Students learn better when they have strong positive relationships<\/em> with their teachers.<\/p>\n

They learn better when they feel safe<\/em> and taken care of.<\/p>\n

They learn better with appropriate levels of stress<\/em>. (Not “lots and lots,” but not “none” either.)<\/p>\n

By all means, teachers should keep emotions in mind when we teach. But if “love” isn’t central to your teaching, don’t let Brooks worry you.<\/p>\n

(Honestly: too much talk about “love” makes me worry about professional boundaries. We should respect and care about our students. Let’s keep it at that.)<\/p>\n

Strike Two<\/h2>\n

The Times also offers an article about memory training techniques<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I often hear from teachers about\u00a0Moonwalking with Einstein<\/em>-like strategies for learning list of words and numbers.<\/p>\n

(Another favorite: the method of loci<\/em> — associating words with a string of familiar places.)<\/p>\n

While I don’t doubt these strategies help people memorize random collections of names or digits, I have to ask: how often do teachers want our students to do that?<\/p>\n

Most teachers answer that question: “almost never.”<\/p>\n

As an English teacher, I want my students to understand the meanings of words, or to know how to subordinate a quotation in a participial phrase, or to explain the concept of “group protagonist” in\u00a0Grapes of Wrath<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I simply can’t think of a long list of random stuff I want them to memorize.<\/p>\n

(A student recently told me she’d been required to memorize information about 60 chemical elements. The method of loci<\/em> might have helped her.<\/p>\n

However: a) I’ve yet to find a chemistry teacher who thinks that this homework assignment was a good idea, and b) how much time would it take to learn those memory techniques in the first place?<\/p>\n

Oh, and, c) I’m not sure that assignment really happened in the first place. It’s just possible that student exaggerated a smidge.)<\/p>\n

In Sum…<\/h2>\n

Read the Times (or don’t) for its political coverage. Subscribe (or not) for the crosswords.<\/p>\n

But: if you see education advice, check with a friendly MBE professional before you make changes in your classroom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two recent articles in the New York Times have gotten lots of teacherly attention. What’s Love Got to Do With It? The first, an op-ed by David Brooks, announces that “students learn from people they love.” Brooks’s piece includes some heart-warming anecdotes, and name checks some important researchers: Antonio Damasio, for instance, and Mary Helen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[38,23],"class_list":["post-4210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-emotion","tag-long-term-memory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4210"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4228,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210\/revisions\/4228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}