The pragmatics of learning by doing

Based on his experience as an educator, the author criticizes current methods and philosophies of learning and teaching. Learning should be geared towards practice (‘learning by doing’); teaching should be about exciting students and helping them perform meaningful tasks, rather than having them passively absorb knowledge that they cannot see the use of. Feedback from former students allows the author to posit a few simple rules for teaching and learning, and identify some of the major (though universally accepted) misconceptions about the role of the teacher and the nature of the learning process. A pragmatics of learning starts from naturally occurring learning situations and emphasizes teaching that is based on the learner’s own experiences, where mistakes are seen as a major source of insight into what is needed in order to achieve success in education and to remake the broken educational system that we are trying to cope with in today’s schools.