Over the years, I have been writing about misconceptions regarding the schooling process. The purpose of these posts is to explain why I disagree with various comments that I have heard people make about schooling. These are meant as personal thoughts rather than conclusive proof, and I will admit that I'm not always the best at explaining my thoughts. Regardless, I have decided that I should be willing to share these posts when I encounter someone online who makes an argument that I have already discussed.
I once read an article that defended lectures in school. The argument was that if students should be able to learn to their strengths, why can't teachers teach to their strengths? This relies on an inaccurate understanding of how teaching and learning relate.
Learning is a more direct concept, and it doesn't matter how well a teacher can provide a lecture if a student doesn't learn well in such a manner. Of course, I can't imagine any child learning well when everyone is fed the exact same thing in the exact same way at the exact same time. As far as I'm concerned, lectures are never suitable for practical learning.
To further complicate things, there are multiple ways of viewing teaching and learning. The belief in teaching to strengths seems to rely on an equal partnership. For all learning that occurs, there must also be an equal amount of teaching. In all fairness, this is better than what my teachers believed. They were reliant on the idea that education is all about the teaching. They didn't care one bit about the learning.
The problem with this argument is that most teaching is actually internal. In other words, the only way you can view teaching and learning as equal is if you embrace the idea that most teaching is the responsibility of the learner.
If you teach to your strengths, you are devaluing the importance of learning. You are embracing an approach that undermines individual needs. You are putting what you think you do well over what's best for the students.
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