Why Don't Students Like School?

This post is based loosely on a book review done by Christopher Chabris in the Wall Street Journal (4/27/09, p. A13) about a new book by Daniel Willingham entitled, Why Don't Students Like School?, published by Jossey-Bass. I have ordered the book to read myself and will follow up later on my own book review but wanted to call it to your attention as an essential summer read. Reason being, the book does not advocate some of the teaching methods many of us may use in our classrooms and laboratories based on recent research findings on the way in which the brain functions.

The author, Willingham, built his book around nine questions that a teacher might want to have answered by a cognitive scientist, such as the question that is the title to the book. He then answers each question by citing empirical studies and suggesting ways for teachers to improve their practice to be more effective educators.

One of the key reasons given by the author in response to why student's do not like school is that teachers require students to think abstractly, which according to research is not something our brains are designed to be good at or enjoy doing. Apparently our brains are wired to take on a task that is just difficult enough to capture our attention but not so difficult that we give up in frustration. This insight actually gave further validity to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Theory, I learned as a doctoral student which suggests that when the skill of the individual is in sync with the level of the challenge, the individual is in a state of flow and so engaged that, among other things, they lose all sense of time. When the challenge is beyond the skill level of the individual s(he) becomes anxious and when it is below the skill level s(he) becomes bored. Thus, Willingham suggests that the challenge for teachers is to design lessons and exercises that will maximize interest and attention and make students like school more than they do.

Is "drilling" and old fashioned teaching method? Apparently not. Based on the book reviewers article, "research shows that practice not only makes a skill perfect but also makes it permanent, automatic and transferable to new situations, enabling more complex work that relies on the basics."

Willingham also rejects the trendy notion that each person has a unique learning style. The reason is that no research study has found consistent evidence supporting a theory describing such a difference, indeed research suggests that children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn!

The only negative comment Chabris had about the book was that there should have been less graphics/pictures; he stated that "the space would be better spent on more of Mr. Willingham's brilliant analysis of how we really learn and his keen insight about how we ought to teach."

I cannot wait to read this book. For more information about the author and his work, visit: http://www.danielwillingham.com/