Publish at July 04 2006 Updated February 01 2023
While non-directive theories sound appealing and appeal to any freedom-loving mind, observations and evidence accumulated over 50 years show that non-directive methods of teaching and learning do not work very well in schools, much less well at least than more directive methods.
In this recent, reference-heavy article, "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching, (.pdf)", it is learned that as long as learners do not have sufficient prior knowledge at various levels to provide "internal guidance", as a result directive methods are superior to non-directive ones.
The authors particularly question how the most rigorous and "evidence-based" scientific disciplines come to accept methods of teaching their disciplines that are so lacking.
Far from siding with directive methods, we at Thoth always advocate for student empowerment and responsibility.
Any art teacher has seen this: even if present, children's creativity is only truly expressed after a certain threshold of technique and competent mastery. In the realm of knowledge, without materials and know-how, even if the will is there, little is built and only trivialities and obviousness are exchanged, new technologies or not.
Most valuable knowledge has taken lifetimes to discover and build; we can help accelerate its learning, but from there to asking to reconstruct or co-construct it, the process can be long...
It is apparently pedagogical processes using an explicit and systematic teaching approach that yield the best results, (Clermont Gauthier and M'hammed Mellouki, January 2006, Does new mean improved? Let's evaluate before we pursue reform at the secondary level. In Formation et profession,( .pdf) [CRIFPE Bulletin], 12.1), which has little to do with the virtues and shortcomings of directive or non-directive pedagogy.
But "explicit and systematic" is often confused with "by a teacher" and "from simple to complex." What needs to be explicit is the references that support the information and what needs to be systematic is the intellectual approach that does not settle for any grey areas. If there is directivity to be had, it is in the rigor to be maintained.
What pedagogical methods are we talking about when it is in fact and most often a matter of maintaining learners in intellectual dependence when the avowed objective is to emancipate them?
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