3 ms·

Antagonistic Learning

7 points by ZephyrBlu 6y ago

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> On day two, I gave my students a lecture about free will and agency, and then opened the door and invited any students who were present against their will to leave. On day three, they walked in to find a full page’s worth of instructions written on the board in an unknown cipher with a single clue. Other early highlights included the establishment of a no-warnings policy for minor infractions, a limit of one question per student per day, a refusal to give any instruction twice, regular use of deadlines enforced by the countdown clock, and a grading schema under which following all directions perfectly resulted in a B+. This guy sounds amazing.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  I thought so as well, which is why I was eager to share this article! When I read it, I realized I yearn for that style of teaching. Comparing this style of teaching to my own experiences in education, I really feel like I missed out.
Folcon 6y ago
This is fascinating, it's interesting how the author balances respect for the students, while challenging them. I would recommend anyone who enjoyed the article read the prior two posts linked at the top, they provide some nice additional context.[0][1] That being said, while I do believe this kind of teaching could be useful, it seems that the teacher who attempts this is going to have to be very skilled, there appears to be a fair bit of lesson planning involved and knowing how to maintain the balance so that students get the sense of their teacher's respect for their capability against the disappointment that they didn't perform better. > It’s crucial, therefore, to hold the students themselves as inviolate — dignified by default, and capable by assumption. > The antagonistic teacher, on the other hand, takes it as a given that most students will put forth the bare minimum of effort, and structures his class accordingly. He makes clear exactly what is necessary to achieve a B or a C (rather than presenting these as inferior shadow derivations of A-level work), and then ends his spiel, ideally leaving the students with the vague sense that they’ve just been insulted. It would be very easy for a student to get the impression that the teacher "has it out for them". The other thing I'm wondering about is how much is this a useful teaching approach vs the existing let's call it "kindly mentor" approach. There are some proportion of students that will react well to this model vs the existing one and I'd be really interested to know what the broad proportions of that would be. At the very least this approach seems to penalise students with issues such as learning disabilities, though perhaps with some adjustments made towards students specific needs a more antagonistic style might be a refreshing change to their instruction instead of feeling like they're being introduced to a teacher who just has it in for them. - [0]: https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-101-axioms-f1cba0c85794 https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-101-axioms-f1cba0c85794 - [1]: https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-102-economics-dcbe70ca5ae6 https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-102-economics-dcbe70ca5a...

7 points by ZephyrBlu 6y ago

> On day two, I gave my students a lecture about free will and agency, and then opened the door and invited any students who were present against their will to leave. On day three, they walked in to find a full page’s worth of instructions written on the board in an unknown cipher with a single clue. Other early highlights included the establishment of a no-warnings policy for minor infractions, a limit of one question per student per day, a refusal to give any instruction twice, regular use of deadlines enforced by the countdown clock, and a grading schema under which following all directions perfectly resulted in a B+. This guy sounds amazing.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
I thought so as well, which is why I was eager to share this article! When I read it, I realized I yearn for that style of teaching. Comparing this style of teaching to my own experiences in education, I really feel like I missed out.

Folcon 6y ago

This is fascinating, it's interesting how the author balances respect for the students, while challenging them. I would recommend anyone who enjoyed the article read the prior two posts linked at the top, they provide some nice additional context.[0][1] That being said, while I do believe this kind of teaching could be useful, it seems that the teacher who attempts this is going to have to be very skilled, there appears to be a fair bit of lesson planning involved and knowing how to maintain the balance so that students get the sense of their teacher's respect for their capability against the disappointment that they didn't perform better. > It’s crucial, therefore, to hold the students themselves as inviolate — dignified by default, and capable by assumption. > The antagonistic teacher, on the other hand, takes it as a given that most students will put forth the bare minimum of effort, and structures his class accordingly. He makes clear exactly what is necessary to achieve a B or a C (rather than presenting these as inferior shadow derivations of A-level work), and then ends his spiel, ideally leaving the students with the vague sense that they’ve just been insulted. It would be very easy for a student to get the impression that the teacher "has it out for them". The other thing I'm wondering about is how much is this a useful teaching approach vs the existing let's call it "kindly mentor" approach. There are some proportion of students that will react well to this model vs the existing one and I'd be really interested to know what the broad proportions of that would be. At the very least this approach seems to penalise students with issues such as learning disabilities, though perhaps with some adjustments made towards students specific needs a more antagonistic style might be a refreshing change to their instruction instead of feeling like they're being introduced to a teacher who just has it in for them. - [0]: https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-101-axioms-f1cba0c85794 https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-101-axioms-f1cba0c85794 - [1]: https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-102-economics-dcbe70ca5ae6 https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-102-economics-dcbe70ca5a...