A recent article in Fortune describes a trend that should cast doubt on all modern educational theories. The shocking headline states, “Gen Z Are Arriving to College Unable to Even Read a Sentence.”
The Fortune article primarily discusses the reactions of college-level instructors and how they deal with the situation. However, such a focus is less valuable than asking a more basic question. How did these young people, many of them extremely bright, find it difficult to read and comprehend complete sentences?
Teaching that Prizes Brevity
As a recently retired high school history teacher, I am convinced that this inability stems from the prevailing teaching methods in most schools. Until the last couple of generations, humanities teachers primarily focused on reading as a primary means of instruction. Unfortunately, modern teaching methods discourage long passages, much less books. These methods emphasize skills rather than content. This weakness exists in both of the prevailing theories of modern education – critical theory and direct instruction.
Critical theory has its roots in Marxist doctrine. Its primary goal is to challenge and to expose. It seeks to demolish the “power structures,” to level social inequities and to depict change as a process in which the “oppressed” overwhelm their “oppressors.” Many place teachers who use traditional methods among the oppressor class. In the modern school, “critical thinking” is often achieved by presenting carefully selected, usually very brief, statements designed to elicit radical opinions from students. The result is a great deal of indoctrination and very little logical analysis.
Direct instruction also features small pieces of information. It is less inclined toward indoctrination than critical theory and is, therefore, preferable. However, it, too, has severe limitations. One of its practitioners describes it as “a systematic method of teaching with emphasis on proceeding in small steps, checking for understanding, and achieving active and successful participation by all students.” (Emphasis added.) Another theorist adds, “Everyone can learn, and everyone can teach if equipped with methodologies and techniques. And everyone’s learning and teaching success can be measured and assessed.”
The problem with focusing on small bits is that students never learn how to deal with large blocks of information. They are especially ill-equipped to grasp ideas that require more than a paragraph to explain. This inability is not due to limited intelligence; it comes from a lack of practice. It would be rather like expecting a piano student to miraculously play Mozart when all they have been taught is to render scales.
Two Skills Effective Teachers Possess
Traditional education practices focus on far larger blocks of information. However, in the hands of unskilled practitioners, these can fail as well. It is common to dismiss learning content as a process of memorizing lists of events, dates and persons. Unfortunately, in unskilled hands, this can happen.
To handle large amounts of content effectively, teachers need two attributes. The first is the ability to explain complex ideas in easily understood sentences. The second is conveying to students that possessing knowledge, in and of itself, is one of life’s greatest pleasures.
The ability to explain complex material in simple words can only come to teachers in one way – thorough knowledge and understanding of the material that they teach. There is no substitute, no way to “fake it.” It is impossible to explain what one does not know. Yet, university schools of education seldom focus on imparting knowledge to aspiring teachers. Their faulty attitude is that equipping their students with modern teaching methods trains aspirants to teach anything. Such an approach may produce mediocrity in several fields, but seldom inspires mastery in any one discipline.
The second skill is, perhaps, even more challenging to isolate, but it is no less crucial. Whether students enjoy the subject being taught or not, they can instantly sense whether or not their teacher enjoys it. There is a kind of enthusiasm that seeps effortlessly into the presentation of information, and the instructor takes pleasure in explaining it. Often, that sense is contagious, and students leave having enjoyed a topic they thought to be deadly dull at the beginning of class.
Understanding Requires Complexity
Let us assume a teacher is introducing the events that led to World War II. The first step is to explain why the war was so important, the nations involved, the personalities of the various leaders, and the reasons those nations decided to make war on each other. Then, one moves on to the specifics, constructing the lesson so that students grasp the connections between those events and their effects on the war’s course.
Authors construct most good books in the same way. They introduce their topics and explain their importance. They explain their thesis, the case they are going to make. Only after carefully completing these two steps do they proceed to the details they will use to construct the stories they relate. The topic may be large or small, famous or obscure, play out over years or only a few days. Nonetheless, the author or teacher must follow it, or the narrative becomes confusing, and the readers or students soon abandon the process.
It is long-since time to return to the idea that teachers must possess a deep understanding of the content at hand. Focusing on process and small bits of information rather than broad areas of knowledge unnecessarily handicaps students.
The result is the malady described in the Fortune article by Pepperdine professor Jessica Hooten Wilson. “It’s not even an inability to critically think, it’s an inability to read sentences.” Surely American schools, after two centuries of practice and millions of successful graduates, can do better than that.
Photo Credit: © -Marcus- – stock.adobe.com
First Published on TFP.org