More Urban Myths About Learning and Education

Challenging Eduquacks, Extraordinary Claims, and Alternative Facts

Pedro De Bruyckere, Paul A. Kirschner, Casper Hulshof

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351132411
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

More Urban Myths About Learning and Education: Challenging Eduquacks, Extraordinary Claims, and Alternative Facts examines common beliefs about education and learning that are not supported by scientific evidence before using research to reveal the truth about each topic. The book comprises sections on educational approaches, curriculum, educational psychology, and educational policy, concluding with a critical look at evidence-based education itself. Does playing chess improve intelligence? Should tablets and keyboards replace handwriting? Is there any truth to the 10, 000-hour rule for expertise? In an engaging, conversational style, authors Pedro De Bruyckere, Paul A. Kirschner, and Casper Hulshof tackle a set of pervasive myths, effectively separating fact from fiction in learning and education.

Myths about the ‘What’

What can possibly happen in the world of education that hasn’t already happened? What still needs to be done? People have been thinking about the curriculum for centuries, dating back to at least as far as classical antiquity, with its liberal arts. These liberal arts, which served as the prototypical basis for the western curriculum, were first mentioned by Cicero, but it’s not clear when they were actually formulated.¹ It should also be remembered that the model of the seven liberal arts (Grammatica, Dialectica/Logica, Retorica, Aritmetica, Geometria, Musica, and Astronomia), with which we are familiar today, is of more recent origin. These basic educational building blocks remained in the curriculum throughout the Middle Ages (5th to the 15th century) and the Renaissance (between the 14th and 17th centuries), although they each gradually acquired a different content in the process, varying from region to region, particularly as the use of the local language gained in importance.² Under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) the curriculum was also extended to include matters that went beyond language and mathematics, with the aim of more closely depicting the world in which the student behind their desk existed. What was that world really like?³

Today, there are still frequent discussions about the subjects that should be covered by education. In many countries we have seen an increasing focus on 21st-century skills in the debate surrounding new curriculum initiatives. Such discussions do not necessarily need to be initiated by the government. They can just as easily be activated by anyone who has a particular bee in his or her bonnet about ‘something’ in society that education needs to solve and who also has access to the media.

Pedro and Casper have kept track of the kinds of things that have been suggested in recent times as being the proper province of education:

• Entrepreneurship
• CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation)
• How people work, and how they can overcome obstacles in their lives
• Learning how to work with drones
• Courtesy and good manners
• Evolutionary theory
• Odd jobs and do-it-yourself
• Dealing with stress and burn-out
• Greater awareness of privacy issues
• Learning about sleep
• Citizenship
• Breastfeeding
• Sign language
• Dealing with laughing gas
• Chess as a miracle aid to mental development (alongside other computational skills)
• …⁴

Just as in the past where the learning of Latin was seen as an aid to the learning of other languages, nowadays learning to program a computer is seen as an aid to developing problem-solving skills. These 21st-century skills, it’s argued, will become increasingly necessary in the decades to come, in a world where futurologists predict that 65% of the jobs that will be carried out by today’s students do not yet exist.

In our first book we explained why knowledge is perhaps more important than it has ever been. In this book we’ll look at some of the many claims made on behalf of particular subjects and curricula.

Learn A, so that You Are Better Able to Learn B

In our previous book, we discussed how brain apps can help people perform better, but only on those particular brain apps and not on anything else. We made clear that brain apps don’t transfer from one domain to another⁵ whereby ‘transfer of learning’ is seen as the use of knowledge, skills and/or attitudes that you’ve learned in one situation in a different situation.⁶ This new situation can either be a similar situation (near transfer) or a dissimilar situation (far transfer). In recent years, we’ve encountered numerous different forms that claim to be examples of far transfer:

• Learn how to program, so that you can easier learn mathematics.
• Learn Latin, so that you can better learn other languages.
• Learn music, so that you can better learn arithmetic.
• Learn chess, so that you can better learn to do just about everything!

But are these claims justified? Are they really examples of far transfer?

Near versus Far Transfer

Imagine that you’ve learned to drive. You quickly become accustomed to your own car: how the gears work, where to find all the right buttons on the dashboard, etc. If you need to drive a rented car on vacation, some of these things may be different, but your past experience in your own car will soon help you to get the hang of things. It will even help you if you ever need to learn how to drive a bus. This is what we mean by ‘near transfer’.⁷ Many things from one situation are fairly similar to many things in the new situation, although there may be minor differences here and there.

Far transfer was an idea first described in 1923 by Edward Thorndike.⁸ It was Thorndike, for example, who discussed whether or not learning Latin could have a positive effect on logical thinking. Even in those days, it was apparent that this was not the case. According to him, it merely seemed that way because so many of the stronger students and thinkers were automatically encouraged to study Latin. In other words, it was more a question of a correlation than a causal relationship. Consequently, both results were the result of something else, namely smarter students or students from a higher social-economic background.

There is, however, another problem with the delineation of near and far transfer. Perhaps you’ve come across the following situations in your own classroom. During a geography lesson, students learn how to read a map, but then have difficulty in reading a historical map during a history lesson – which, at first glance, you might think should be an example of relatively near transfer. In a comparable way, mathematics is also used during physics lessons, but here the transfer is much easier to accomplish.

To explain such situations, Thorndike formulated his Theory of Identical Elements, which posits that near and far transfer can best be regarded as a continuum. Or to paraphrase his basic conclusion: transfer is easier in relation to the extent that there are more similar or identical elements between what has already been learned and what needs to be learned in the future. Accordingly, he argued that near transfer is, by definition, much easier than far transfer.⁹ If we were to take the precepts of this ‘old’ theory at face value, the outlook for the advocates of far transfer might be fairly pessimistic. But is this really the case? Let’s take a closer look at a number of examples.

Is Chess the Key to Success at School and in Life?

In 2011, chess became a compulsory subject in Armenian schools. Armenian authorities are convinced that chess is the key to success at school and in life. By making chess mandatory, they hope to teach children how to think creatively and strategically. As a result, they’ll become more intelligent and better able to solve problems. What’s more, this does not just mean chess problems, but all problems in all other school subjects, as well as in later life. If true, this is extremely far transfer. There are indeed research studies that demonstrate a link between chess mastery and improved cognitive skills and work performance.¹⁰

The Advantages of Chess

This section is based on the Armenian curriculum, but it needs to be borne in mind that the idea is not new and is only of limited regional importance. On Chess.com,¹¹ Tayyab Kahn noted the following benefits of learning to play chess:

• By playing chess regularly from an early age, the learning, thinking and analytical skills of children improve, as does their ability to make decisions.
• Chess teaches children to think strategically about both the game and life in general. In particular, it helps them to realize the importance of thinking ahead and planning.
• By playing chess regularly from an early age, children learn the importance of discipline.
• Chess improves self-confidence, which is an essential element in the growth process of children.
• By playing chess, children learn to investigate, analyze and estimate situations thoroughly before taking decisions. This type of intellectual exercise stimulates mental clarity. Mental clarity and mental agility are essential tools for the solving of problems, the analysis of consequences and the formulation of strategies for the future.
• Children who play chess from an early age develop exceptional powers of memory.
• Chess ...