Is it the role of a teacher to impart information or to empower students with the skills needed to find information on their own?

When a teacher professes a political position in a classroom, student learning suffers a short-circuit. Teachers have strong rights of expression, although courts will uphold teacher dismissal for indoctrination (see this pdf from Pearson: Teacher Freedom of Expression).

From my view, indoctrination isn’t the only problem, it’s the teaching itself that has gone wrong. With properly aligned teaching that aims to develop both core knowledge and independent student thought, there will be no indoctrination.

Education theory: content or skills?

Pedagogy can get all twisted around the seemingly opposite goals of developing student content knowledge or thinking skills. In their extremes, the one is pure fact-based learning and the other is all process without destination. Continue reading →