Minor Thoughts from me to you

Various teaching methods intrigue me. What makes a good teacher or a bad teacher? What makes a kid learn or sleep through class? How can we best prepare the next generation to face an increasingly complex world?

I tend to largely agree with Alex Tabarrok: Heroes are not Replicable.

You know the plot. Young, idealistic teacher goes to inner-city high school. Said idealistic teacher is shocked by students who don't know the basics and who are too preoccupied with the burdens of violence, poverty and indifference to want to learn. But the hero perseveres and at great personal sacrifice wins over the students using innovative teaching methods and heart. The kids go on to win the state spelling/chess/mathematics championship. c.f. Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, Dangerous Minds etc.

We are supposed to be uplifted by these stories but they depress me. If it takes a hero to save an inner city school then there is no hope. Heroes are not replicable.

He talks about an instruction method called "Direct Instruction" (overview from the Washington Times or a slightly more technical overview) that was tested in a research study from 1967 through 1995. The study cost $1 billion and involved more than 20,000 students. It was judged to be a huge success, more so than any other method studied. The other methods are popular ones in use today, including the Learning Center Model, Open Education Model, and Self Esteem model. DI trounced all of them.

There's a catch though. DI involved giving teachers a script and having them follow it. Apparently, teachers don't take kindly to the suggestion that they'd do better following a script than they would following their own initiative. So, nothing much has come of DI yet.

What I found more interesting, however, was the comment section at Marginal Revolution. I saw three broad themes: 1) you should fire all of the econ profs at GMU and teach economics this way, 2) how boring: rote instruction from a script, 3) I did a scripted training class at work and it was worthless.

I find #1 and #3 interesting, because the entire method is about teaching young children. Why anyone would think that that automatically applies to teaching adults is beyond me. I'm intrigued by the idea of DI, but I'd need a lot of convincing to use it as a method for college or corporate instruction.

I find #2 interesting because the more technical overview specifically states:

In poorly designed phonics programs, young children are expected to sit through hours of dull repetition. This is unfortunate, since it is possible to turn drill into a highly engaging, exciting group activity through the use of Direct Instruction.

It appears that most of the commentors didn't really read through the material -- either that or they reject the entire idea without even seeing what the scripts look like. Neither option speaks well of their intelligence.

Given how utterly failed most of America's big-city public schools are, I think a switch to DI could hardly make things worse. Isn't it worth a shot?

UPDATE: In fact, the reaction in the Marginal Revolution comments section reminds me of this post from Scott Adams and The Dilbert Blog. Might these commentors be suffering from cognitive dissonance?