What's Wrong with American Education - Reason #457392

"I don't want students to know what they're learning."

Believe it or not, I've heard this sentence more than once, from more than one teacher.  Every time I do, it leaves me apoplectic.  Why on God's green earth do you not want your students to know what they are learning?  Is there some contagious disease that comes with knowledge and understanding?

If you do not tell your students what they are learning, then you are not teaching.

In other words, doing is not teaching.  (Neither is telling, but that's another post.)  Doing is just doing.  Doing an activity does not confer understanding on its participants.  Understanding is the key to both teaching and learning.  Teachers break down a subject and present it (through a variety of means) so students can understand it.  Certainly doing, or practicing, is a part of the learning process, but there is much more to it.  There is vocabulary, identification, reasoning, relationships, discovery, etc.   If I want a class to learn steady beat, we will practice it constantly and in a variety of settings.  But we will also define the words "steady" and "beat."  We will listen to pieces with and without a steady beat.   The students would learn to recognize a steady beat in music they hear.  We will explore the connection between beat and tempo; and when the beat changes on purpose.  We will answer the question: Why does music have a beat? 

Anyone can train a monkey to keep a steady beat.  But, aside imitating a human, the monkey has not learned anything.  Surely we should strive for more when teaching our children.