On Teaching, Learning, and the Hard Work of Education
““Learning happens, design or no design…it can only be designed for – that is, facilitated or frustrated.””
As human beings, psychologists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber (2017) point out, we have a “biologically inherited disposition to learn” – a “learning instinct” (pp. 69, 291; see also Pinker, 1997; Sternberg, 1988; Stanovich, 2009; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997; Gopnik, 2016; Brown, et. al., 2014). Learning arises naturally through any experience where an individual consciously engages in an activity or social practice (Tomasello, 1999; Gopnik, 2016). We instinctively learn from interacting with our environment through a process called “emulation learning,” which simply involves being aware of and adapting to our physical or social environment to achieve a goal (Tomasello, 1999, p. 29). Because learning is a natural instinct, it is not something that can be controlled or forced, although it can be motivated and guided. As Etienne Wegner (1998) has argued, “Learning happens, design or no design…it can only be designed for – that is, facilitated or frustrated” by the actions of particular individuals who either want, or do not want, to be educated (p. 225). We learn through personal experience and participation in social practices. If we do not participate, or if we are forced to participate against our will, then we will not learn, or at least, we will not remember what we were forced to learn.
Developmental psychologist and evolutionary anthropologist Michael Tomasello (1999) explained that there are three basic types of human learning (p. 5). The first is imitative leaning, which is biologically based and comes natural to all human beings, especially while we are young. The second is instructed learning, which takes place whenever an experienced and knowledgeable person, usually an adult, explains conceptual knowledge or a physical practice to a student. Finally, there is collaborative learning, which is done when we work together with other people to accomplish a goal or to solve a problem. As Tomasello (1999) explained, “social learning comes from the ‘bottom up,’ as ignorant or unskilled individuals seek to become more knowledgeable or skilled,” while “teaching comes from the ‘top down,’ as knowledgeable or skilled individuals seek to impart knowledge or skills to others” (p. 33; see also Richerson & Boyd, 2005). Humans are the only species to have developed the top-down, direct instruction of students, which, as Tomasello argued, is “one of the most significant dimensions of human culture” (p. 80).
While teachers enable all three kinds of learning, especially instructed learning, teachers do not cause student learning, nor are teachers responsible for student learning. A teacher is just a knowledgeable and skillful person who consciously and deliberately plans for student learning by “design[ing] social infrastructures that foster learning” (Wegner, 1998, p. 229; Bain, 2004, p. 49). Teachers can artificially organize relevant and meaningful educational activities through which students can learn, but only if students actively engage in the social practice as a willing participant (Ryan & Stiller, 1991; Duckworth, 2016, p. 137; Steinberg,1996, p. 15).
So, what is the purpose of a teacher or coach? Instructors have three main jobs. First, teachers must design a challenging curriculum and set up a stimulating learning environment. A teacher needs to “scaffold” new knowledge by presenting it in an interconnected way. A teacher also needs to progressively make the learning process more difficult in order to maximize student learning by pushing students towards, and past, their limits (Taylor, 1949; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976; Steinberg, 2014, p. 35). Second, teachers must demonstrate and explain a new practice so that students can see it and understand how it is done. Professor Ken Bain (2004) explains that teachers should be able to practice what they preach. Teachers should be able to perform “intellectually, physically, or emotionally what they expect from their students” (p. 16).
It’s important for teachers to be able to demonstrate a practice because after observing their teacher, students must then practice the same skill in order to produce their own learning, which develops as students copy, negotiate, create, and master the activity through deliberate and repeated activity (Tomasello, 1999; Duckworth, 2016, p. 137; Bain, 2004, p. 52; Ericsson & Pool, 2016). Children are biologically engineered to be “imitation machines,” especially during the crucial ages from one to three (Tomasello, 1999, p. 52). Imitation involves not just cognition, but also “embodied cognition” (Godfrey-Smith, 2016, p. 74; Tomasello, 1999), whereby the body learns as well as the brain. The human brain learns information and concepts, while the body learns how to use this information to act skillfully in order to accomplish a goal. Even though learning is laborious, difficult, and often painful, learning physiologically changes the brain and the body so that eventually the learning and doing process gets faster, easier, and less painful, largely because the new activity becomes, as Dr. Oliver Sacks explained (2017), “so ingrained in the nervous system as to be almost second nature, no longer in need of conscious effort or decision” (p. 37; see also Steinberg, 2014, p. 36).
The last duty of a teacher is to help students deliberately practice their skills by guiding students and motivating them (Deci & Flaste, 1995, p. 92), especially by giving students critical feedback (Steinberg, 2014, p. 35; Oettingen, 2014, p. 112). In order to gain mastery of a skill, it’s not enough to simply practice over and over again. Such simple repetition does not lead to successful learning and skill development. While simple repetition results in some learning, it is superficial, it does not last long, and it only leads to a basic level of “acceptable” performance, which marks one as an amateur (Ericsson & Pool, 2016, p. 13). In order to master a skill and become an expert, a student needs to stretch beyond their limits by engaging in deliberate and “purposeful” practice, which entails focusing on specific goals to reach and learning from mistakes (pp. 14-17; see also Yin, Wang, Evans, & Wang, 2019; Wang, Jones, & Wang, 2019). As law professor Daniel Markovits (2019) explained, “Quantity and quality both matter for education: practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect” (p. 123). Most of us need help setting realistic goals, understanding our mistakes, measuring our progress, and staying motivated through this difficult process. These are some of the most important services that a teacher provides.
It’s important to remember that purposeful practice leading to mastery is very difficult, time consuming, and painful, which is why most students don’t really like learning, either in school or out of school. True learning is hard work. It takes a lot effort. It also requires failing – a lot of failing! But, more importantly, we have the ability to learn from our failure (Noonan, 2019). In a recent scientific study trying to quantify the dynamics of success, one group of researchers argued, “The more you fail, the more you learn, and the better you perform” (Yin, Wang, Evans, & Wang, 2019, p. 4; see also Wang, Jones, & Wang, 2019). Authentic learning is uncomfortable because you are stretching beyond your limits, which often results in failure, causing a lot of stress and pain. But the successful student must push through the pain and discomfort. As business professor Andy Molinsky (2016) argues, “if you’re not outside your comfort zone, you won’t learn anything” (para. 1). Stretching our limits and learning from failure takes a lot of time. It often requires many years of dedicated and deliberate practice to learn a skill, and many more years after that to master it. During that time, you have to sacrifice a lot of other activities in order to devote yourself to learning and mastering your new skill, which means the successful student will need concentration, dedication, and stamina (Ericsson & Pool, 2016, p. 93; Richerson & Boyd, 2005, p. 73).
The talented few who learn to master a craft are not born that way. Neither did they get lucky. And they certainly didn’t buy their talent. Experts have a “rage to master,” as psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman explains, which he defines as “an intense and sustained drive for excellence” (Kaufman & Gregoire, 2015, p. 18). Or, as novelist Stephen King explained his craft, “If you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well” (p. 144). Experts push themselves hard for years in order to perfect their craft. No teacher can produce competence, let alone mastery. A teacher can only help a student who is willing to do the hard work and put in the time.
As psychologist Anders Ericsson explained, “If you never push yourself beyond your comfort zone, you will never improve” (Ericsson & Pool, 2016, p. 18). When a student engages in purposeful practice, one of the most important skills successful students develop is the ability to “acknowledge their failures, even to embrace them, and to explore and learn from them,” an attitude that creates and sustains long-lasting learning and personal growth (Bain, 2012, pp. 100, 120-21; Duckworth, 2016). And luckily, the more students push themselves through deliberate practice, the more their brains and bodies physiologically change, which makes further learning and growing much easier (Ericsson & Pool, 2016, p. 40).
But it’s important for teachers to impart the enigmatic truths of mastery, which only accomplished experts can really understand. Success is always momentary. It is often over far too quick. And failure is ever-present. We are always less than perfect, so there is always opportunity for criticism. Thus, the process of expertise, of practice and perfecting, is never-ending (Lewis, 2014, p. 7). We simply choose to stop at some point, often because we get too old to compete any more. We have to accept the tragic condition of our mortality. Whatever expertise we achieve in this life will decline once we get older and stop pushing our self, and our expertise will gradually weaken and dissolve as we age.
Too often educational administrators, policy makers, and many teachers make education seem quick and easy, as if it is a simple product that you can pass on to a student through a lecture, which they can write down on a piece of paper and regurgitate on a test. Even worse, many policy makers and administrators talk about education as if it were a product that can simply be bought and transferred to customer. In this financial transaction version of education, a teacher is nothing more than a salesman or woman who delivers a standardized product, a conception that makes teachers the most important factor in a student’s education because students are just passive recipients (Cuban, 2013, p. 12). This “banking” concept of education (Freire, 1970/2003) leads people to believe that teachers are in control of students’ learning. This is utter nonsense. As educational historian Larry Cuban (2013) pointed out, “Teachers cannot carry alone the total responsibility for their students’ well-being and achievement” (p. 12).
Take athletic coaches, for example. Few believe that coaches are in control of athletes on the field, let alone controlling the outcome of a game. While coaches are held partially responsible for the outcome of a match, the main responsibility falls to the athletes who are on the field playing the game. If anything, teachers have much less control than coaches. Athletes are carefully selected and trained, and only the best make it on the team, and only the very best make it on the field. More importantly, athletes want to be on the field competing. Athletes choose to play and compete. Most students are forced to go to school. Thus, most students are not prepared or motivated for success, and many resent their powerlessness at being forced to learn, which makes a teacher’s job very difficult, if not impossible.
When it comes to learning, and gaining skill and knowledge, it is the student who is in control of the process, not the teacher. The student must choose to learn. No teacher can force learning, let alone control it. In order for learning and personal development to happen, a student needs to not only “use or lose” the practice they are learning, but also “use and improve” their knowledge and skill through deliberate practice (Steinberg, 2014, pp. 34-35). As professor of education Ralph W. Taylor (1949) noted over a half century ago, "Learning takes place through the active behavior of the student; it is what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does" (p. 63; see also Ryan & Stiller, 1991). Thus, for thousands of years, one of the hardest tasks of a teacher has been to get students to be actively involved in their own education, as philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum (1997) explained, “to confront the passivity of the pupil, challenging the mind to take charge of its own thought” (p. 28).
Teachers do influence, but never produce or control, student learning. Teachers play an important part in the learning process, but not the central role. Teachers embody the knowledge and skills of the particular social practices they are trying to impart to students, which they expertly demonstrate through pedagogical activities that will be conducive to student learning. Once a teacher has enacted and performed their knowledge and skill, then they move into their primary role, which is to help facilitate the learning of students by motivating, guiding, and critiquing students’ practice. But there is no guarantee that students will learn, let alone master an activity. Students have to want to learn. And, they have to work at learning. This is why little learning takes place in schools, and why most students never attain mastery of the skills that they do learn. Most students don’t want to work at learning. Learning is hard work.
As professor Constance Weaver (2007) has explained, effective teaching demands “ongoing experimentation” (p. 154) in the classroom, especially new ways to try to motivate students so they want to learn. Teachers must continually monitor, assess, and revise the curriculum and the educational environment in order meet the diverse and ever changing needs of individual students. Professor of education Mary M. Kennedy (2019) argues that “teachers are essentially tinkerers” (p. 157) because the classroom dynamic is constantly changing every day, every month, and every year. Effective teaching is only ever measured in small gains each day, and these gains never last. Weaver (2007) went on to add, “Adaptations will usually be necessary as well as desirable” because “we must all to some extent reinvent the wheel of effective instruction” for every class (pp. 154-55) because not only is every student different, but every group of students is different as well.
Thus, there are no silver bullets with teaching. There are no certainties that a teacher will ever be effective, and even when they are effective, it doesn’t last long. All teachers often fail to get some students to learn each day. When practicing education, a teacher’s work is never done. There is only hard work, dedication, and experimentation, which require not only knowledge and skill, but also vision and creative flexibility. For those that have actually studied education or practiced teaching, they know, as professor of education Sean Kelly (2012) explained, “being a teacher is one of the most demanding of all careers…the task is so very difficult” (p. 27).