In Defense of Real Education.

• Author: Roberts, Russ

Which college professors do you remember most vividly and with the most respect? I suspect many of us think back to the best lecturers--the ones who captivated us and entertained us while sharing their expertise. I have nothing against charisma or a compelling lecture. But what I think of as real education goes way beyond a great scholar sharing insights in an entertaining fashion.

UCLA econometrician Ed Learner shared a story with me when I interviewed him for my podcast, EconTalk, that captures for me the essence of real education and great teaching. A young aspiring economist comes to him from China for a summer of instruction. At their first meeting, he hands her a book, tells her to read it and to come back for their next meeting prepared to discuss it. She reads the book. He asks her questions. They discuss the book at their next meeting.

At the end of that meeting, he gives her some data. Study it, he says. We'll talk about it next time. When she returns, he asks her what she learned from the data and pushes her to defend her claims. The rest of the summer proceeds along these lines. There's no lecturing. He gives her things to think about, and they discuss them. At the end of the summer, the young economist sends Learner an email. She tells him that she had been at Santa Monica pier and there she had seen a father teaching his son to fish. Rather than having the son watch the father and learn to imitate him, the father let the son hold the fishing rod. The son did the best he could and the father commented here and there. You, the student wrote Learner, are the first teacher I've known who lets me hold the fishing rod.

There's a temptation to criticize the father at the pier or Ed Learner, the teacher, for being lazy. You didn't do any teaching, Ed! All you did was tell her to read some stuff and ask her some questions. You know so much more than she does. Why waste her time letting her make mistakes misinterpreting the data and misunderstanding the articles you made her read? You could have taught her so much more. Surely it was tempting for the father or the teacher to say, hey--give me that fishing rod and let me show you how to do it right!

Learner certainly could have told his student so much more than he did. But only by holding the fishing rod and making mistakes and losing a fish now and then can the student actually learn. Listening and learning are related. But they're not the same thing.

Once you've gone to graduate school and taught a course a few times, you often know not just the right answers to good questions but the wrong answers that students inevitably make in grasping new material. It's so tempting to just tell them the truth, let them write it down, and test them on it later. The problem is that if you teach that way, you may get some students who score well on exams. And if you are a sufficiently entertaining lecturer, you may get high scores from your students on course evaluations. But your impact on your students will be limited.

Plutarch said it best--the brain is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. This was true even in Plutarch's time, which did not have Wikipedia. Without Wikipedia and without Google, there is some value to filling the vessel--to sharing knowledge in hopes that it will be retained. But real education--the ability to read thoughtfully, the ability to think, the ability to synthesize, the...