How to Teach: The Three Modes of Learning

When we talk about teaching, we tend to want to reduce it down to one goal. For some it might be an exclusive emphasis on knowledge, for someone else it might be basic skills, for another a deeper understanding of ideas and values. In classical education, we often fall into the habit of talking about “Socratic teaching.” But it is a mistake to think that the goals of education can be achieved by any one method.

Our methods of teaching must be determined in light of the objectives of learning, and there is no way to reduce the objectives of learning down to any one thing. Knowledge is certainly important, as are basic skills. And certainly critical thinking has its part to play.

What we need is an education taxonomy—or classification—of teaching and learning. What are the objectives of teaching? And what are the methods by which we can best achieve these objectives? These are questions that have been addressed by several great educational thinkers, including Mortimer Adler and William Bennett, and are implicit in the thinking of many others.

If we do a little digging in the archives of learning, we find that there are three distinct goals of teaching: the acquisition of knowledge, the development of skills, and the cultivation of ideas and values. These goals of teaching and learning work themselves out in the actions of the teacher and the learner, and in the various components of the curriculum. The method we use to teach is determined by whether we are trying to impart knowledge (what), develop skills (how), or cultivate higher-level understanding (why). This is as relevant to a homeschool parent as to a classroom teacher.

Because of the influence of Dorothy Sayers’ essay “The Lost Tools of Learning” on modern classical educators, some of us are conditioned to think of education in terms of “stages of learning.” But Sayers’ taxonomy of learning is developmental: It has to do with when we teach what. When it comes to the method of teaching, we need something very different: a methodological taxonomy.

Teaching Knowledge

When the goal for our students is the acquisition of organized knowledge (knowing what), the pedagogical method of the teacher will be primarily didactic. This will often take the form of a lecture, but can also take other forms of direct instruction from the teacher. An instructional text of some kind can play a role in this process too, but the teacher will still play the major role, even if it is only to help the child take what he should from the text. And this process will not be merely passive on the part of the student; the student’s part in this will involve various mnemonic activities (whose purpose is to utilize the memory), such as listening, answering, and memorizing.

Although all subjects will involve knowledge acquisition—even the more advanced subjects for older students—a reliance on this first method will be most pronounced in the teaching of younger children. All of us—young students, older ones, even adults—are faced with the learning of new knowledge, and the way this must be done will remain the same: We will need a teacher (sometimes in the form of a book) to teach it to us, and there will be certain activities like memorization in which we must be engaged in order to learn well.

Subjects that are sciences (in the old sense of being “organized bodies of knowledge”) will lend themselves well to this approach. Christian studies, the natural sciences, and the human sciences of history, literature, and philosophy all involve the acquisition of organized information.

Teaching Skills

When the goal for our students is the development of intellectual skills (knowing how), then the pedagogical emphasis of the teacher will be on coaching the student, meaning that the teacher will serve in a role that more effectively assists the student in mastering certain operations. The teacher’s role is still directive but will involve coming alongside the student: pointing out errors in the formation of letters and how to fix them; identifying problems in the student’s mathematical steps that must be corrected; editing writing for clarity, style, and concision; and helping him see how his work may be done better. In the development of skills, the student’s activities will involve practicing, reviewing, and applying, leading to mastery.

Again, all subjects and ages will involve the mastery of certain procedures, but those taught in the early grades are the most important and fundamental; they are the foundation of any later skills the student will be required to learn.

Subjects that are arts (in the old sense of “skills”) will lend themselves naturally to this approach. Reading, penmanship, calculation, formal grammar, and, later, logic and rhetoric, are the basic arts, along with arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and calculus. This approach will also apply to the fine arts of music, painting, and drama.

Teaching Ideas

When the goal for our students is the cultivation of ideas and values (knowing why), then the pedagogical approach of the teacher will be on questioning and discussion. The teacher will still be in charge but will elicit from students their own reactions to the ideas and values the teacher has helped them encounter. This will assist students in learning how to better perceive, judge, and evaluate the ideas discussed by great thinkers. If the ideas are judged to be good, the teacher must then help students to articulate why they are good, and, if bad, what is wrong with them. If the ideas are judged to be true, the teacher must then help students to articulate why they are true, and, if false, why they fail. Again, the teacher’s role is still essential but will involve more of the give and take of inquiring, reflecting, and synthesizing on the part of the student. In the understanding of ideas and values, students will learn, not only how to derive ideas and values from what they read, but to determine which ones should be accepted and how to make them their own.

The understanding of ideas is mostly the province of literature, history, and philosophy, for which knowledge and skills relating to these are a prerequisite. We know through other disciplines, but through these we see. Through these disciplines—the humanities—we gain an understanding of ideas and values through the eye of the mind (the concepts of philosophy) and the eye of imagination (the concrete examples of literature and history).

Student Development

As hinted at previously, the relative importance of these three modes does change at different stages of student development. In general, there is a sliding ratio of priority that shifts as the student gets older and becomes more intellectually mature. In other words, generally speaking, the younger the student the more focus he will have on the acquisition of knowledge, and the more mature he is the more focus he will have on the deeper understanding of ideas and values.

That being said, however, the relative focus on each method of learning will be dictated as much by the subject being studied as by the age of the student. Also, although individual subjects will naturally lend themselves to a prioritization of one or another of these modes, all of these emphases will be present in all subjects to some degree, no matter the age at which they are taught. In other words, lecture will never lose its place in the teaching of great literature, and, conversely, there are Socratic elements involved even in the process of acquiring basic knowledge. There is practice and review in knowledge acquisition; there is inquiry and reflection in the development of skills.

Still, the distinctions employed in the three modes of teaching and learning provide classical educators with an excellent paradigm within which to think about how to teach.