Maybe Teaching is a Bad Idea : Why Faculty Should Focus on Learning

This book proposes a radical restructuring of teaching so that it conforms to how people learn. Spence maintains that teaching cannot and should not be aimed at transferring knowledge from teacher brains into student brains. .

Deep and lasting learning results when we teach human brains in ways responsive to how they’re structured and how they function, which is not how we imagine they work or wish they would work. This book proposes a radical restructuring of teaching so that it conforms to how people learn. Spence maintains that teaching cannot and should not be aimed at transferring knowledge from teacher brains into student brains. In his words: “Decades of experience have made perfectly clear that this approach frustrates teachers, bores students, and results in minimal learning.”

This is a book that challenges—it will poke and prod your thinking. The author writes near the end of Chapter 4, “I wanted to write a book that asked real questions and explored possible answers. I am not concerned that you agree with my answers or ideas, but I fervently hope the questions I’m raising will lead you to questions about habitual teaching practices and the resulting failure of students to learn.”