Source:  http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=48341

In this week’s readings and postings, we were to pick a story from the gator, look at teachers and their roles, and write about it.   I chose this article for the heart of its message–Caveman learned by example, and we are still like cavemen.  At first, you are thinking about the years of evolution, our civilized societies, modern advances in housing, transportation, and technology, and feeling a little insulted at being compared to a caveman.  Then, the author makes this point:  “Why does it matter that cave men did not have classrooms? The existence of classrooms is based on the assumption, an assumption that is never discussed but always assumed, that people can learn by sitting quietly and listening. We imagine that people learn by being told the truth by experts and practicing to take tests to see if their minds can retain that truth.”

The role of a “teacher” in the caveman era was to show someone how to hunt, how to survive, and history was passed down orally, sitting around a campfire.  The role of the modern teacher has been to tell students what they need to know while they sit quietly, give them lots of busy work to show that they know the material, and grade them on how well they can remember.  The author of this article, Roger Schank,  calls this the “mass compulsory education.”

Now, educational learning theory is favoring the hands-on approach, cooperative learning, learning by doing, getting our students more actively involved in their learning.  Schank sums it up pretty well with these sentences:   “If experience is separated from knowledge, if what we teach is not about doing at all, then we teaching to the conscious. Conscious people may make good intellectuals, but those intellectuals are unlikely to become practitioners.  Call me crazy but I think we have plenty of intellectuals and the ability to train more. Teaching people to work together, reason about new situations, achieve their goals, just as cave men did, is what education should be about.”