Second<\/strong>: this summary implies that I’m in favor ONLY of memorization and retrieval practice. It suggests that I\u00a0— like Dickens’s Gradgrind — want my students to know facts, facts, facts<\/em>. (No doubt, someone is aching to use the verb “regurgitate” to capture my purported obsession with facts.)<\/p>\n Third<\/strong>: it further implies that I genuinely don’t care about the meaning<\/em> behind the facts, my students’ interest<\/em> in them, or the future usefullness<\/em>\u00a0or flexibility\u00a0<\/em>of them.<\/p>\n I am, simply put, a doctrinaire extremist.<\/p>\n Because I see myself quite differently — heck, I recently wrote a book with the name “Goldilocks” in the title — I was taken aback by this rhetorical move.<\/p>\n I’ve been thinking about my new Gradgrind Status since receiving this email, and have arrived at a few tentative conclusions about the nature of educational debates.<\/p>\n As implied above, I see myself as seeking out a reasonable middle ground in many educational debates<\/p>\n For instance, as I’ve written repeatedly, I think that working memory limitations\u00a0suggest that novices<\/em> will benefit from “high-structure” pedagogies more than from more “low-structure” pedagogies. (See this recent blog post<\/a> for the difficulties in summarizing this\u00a0 “high-vs-low” debate simply, fairly, and accurately.)<\/p>\n At the same time, as I’ve also emphasized, I think students’ increasing expertise<\/em> should promote them from high- to low-structure pedagogies.<\/p>\n That is: the more my students know, the more they should be challenged with open-ended, creative, quest-like assignments that will help them consolidate, connect, and extend their knowledge. (If you know Adam Boxer’s book<\/a>\u00a0Teaching Secondary Science<\/em>, you know he makes the same argument.)<\/p>\n Given these three paragraphs\u00a0— so earnest in their moderation —\u00a0 you can see why I’m puzzled (and amused) to see myself reduced to a pitchfork carrier.<\/p>\n At the same — and here I’m guessing — I suspect almost everyone in an educational debate believes they’ve struck up the most reasonable position: probably one in the middle of some continuum.<\/p>\n For instance: my interlocutor explicitly champions a\u00a0stem-to-stern overhaul of the US educational system.<\/p>\n From his perspective, the system we currently have\u00a0is so disastrously out of synch with the needs of human flourishing<\/em> and\u00a0the genuine truths behind human cognitive and emotional functioning<\/em> that its wholesale replacement is the only logical option.<\/p>\n That is: although “stem-to-stern overhaul” might sound radical, it is — in fact — an entirely moderate and sensible position given the extremity of the crisis we face.<\/p>\n Just as I think I’m a sensible moderate, he (I suspect) thinks his position is sensible and moderate-given-the-dreadful-circumstances.<\/p>\n We’re all moderates here.<\/p>\n When someone accuses me of being a “high-structure extremist,” I have an easy rejoinder at hand: “oh, come on; NO ONE believes any such thing.”<\/p>\n![\"Crowds](\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AdobeStock_554625739-300x133.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWe’re Mostly Moderates (?)<\/h2>\n
We Are Moderates, but Extremes Exist<\/h2>\n