I took Spanish in school for almost ten years. Fifty minute sessions a couple of times a week repeated from third grade to high school graduation. Where did that get me? Maybe to 70% fluency. TEN years of learning something should have made me ready to teach it to others. If you'd put me in Argentina for three months, I would've come back more fluent than I was after ten years of Spanish class. An absolutely bizarre and frustrating scenario; I tried my hardest in Spanish class for ten years, yet all that time was likely a waste.
Language classes often do the opposite of what matters. I'm trying to get conversationally fluent as soon as possible — I really don't care about writing a three page paper about this movie in Spanish. The classroom's focus is entirely on reading and writing, as if I were going to be a high-powered lawyer in Spain with my language skills. I'd rather be illiterate but able to carry any conversation in Spanish than the other way around. The focus on reading and writing, however, makes sense for a language classroom. It's much easier for a teacher to pass out a quiz where you write formulaic sentences than it is for them to individually talk to each student. That doesn't mean that we should continue trying to fit something that clearly isn't made for the classroom into the classroom.
There are certain things that are best learned in action, on the field. Languages, cooking, programming, business, and art are the first to come to mind. These are the things you learn by doing, not by theorizing and abstracting. Classroom frameworks can help you learn the conjugations for verbs, for example, but not how to talk to strangers in a new country. There is this asymmetry between actually doing the thing and learning about how to do the thing. Being a degree of separation away from the action not only slows you down, but leads you down a wrong path. Imagine learning how to cook by just learning the chemical reactions of the ingredients — I don't want to be the first one to eat that meal.
I wish school taught me this. Or at least acknowledged the fact that practice and theory are two completely different things, instead of pretending that the best way to learn everything is by taking this intro class, doing these five PSETs, and listening to these lectures. Of course, this is easier than learning by doing since it defines a crisp path for you. It's great to be able to learn something when you have the intellectual curiosity for it, like history, but when you need to learn how to do things, the practitioners must be separated from the theorizers. While the theorizers are busy writing textbooks about the work of the practitioners, they are out there actually doing the things I care about.
Language classes often do the opposite of what matters. I'm trying to get conversationally fluent as soon as possible — I really don't care about writing a three page paper about this movie in Spanish. The classroom's focus is entirely on reading and writing, as if I were going to be a high-powered lawyer in Spain with my language skills. I'd rather be illiterate but able to carry any conversation in Spanish than the other way around. The focus on reading and writing, however, makes sense for a language classroom. It's much easier for a teacher to pass out a quiz where you write formulaic sentences than it is for them to individually talk to each student. That doesn't mean that we should continue trying to fit something that clearly isn't made for the classroom into the classroom.
There are certain things that are best learned in action, on the field. Languages, cooking, programming, business, and art are the first to come to mind. These are the things you learn by doing, not by theorizing and abstracting. Classroom frameworks can help you learn the conjugations for verbs, for example, but not how to talk to strangers in a new country. There is this asymmetry between actually doing the thing and learning about how to do the thing. Being a degree of separation away from the action not only slows you down, but leads you down a wrong path. Imagine learning how to cook by just learning the chemical reactions of the ingredients — I don't want to be the first one to eat that meal.
I wish school taught me this. Or at least acknowledged the fact that practice and theory are two completely different things, instead of pretending that the best way to learn everything is by taking this intro class, doing these five PSETs, and listening to these lectures. Of course, this is easier than learning by doing since it defines a crisp path for you. It's great to be able to learn something when you have the intellectual curiosity for it, like history, but when you need to learn how to do things, the practitioners must be separated from the theorizers. While the theorizers are busy writing textbooks about the work of the practitioners, they are out there actually doing the things I care about.