I experienced the strict setting of sitting in a classroom, facing forwards, listening to the teacher give demonstrations and then answering tens of questions that followed the same pattern. This was from 16-18 and was only a small change from what I had experienced previously.
Before that we had at least been allowed to talk to each other, I think because the teacher recognised how needed that is.
Once I was studying for my A-levels however I was in a group of people who wanted to learn maths, we had chosen the subject after all. But we were given a teacher who demanded that we were silent, demanded that when we had a problem we asked her and not each other. Except for some students she came to the conclusion that their not understanding was their fault and would just tell them that they should have listened originally, for others it would just take too long to get an answer because the class was overcrowded with students. Twenty-five students at that level is far too many for one teacher.
Some students fell behind, and when they decided that instead of doing the parts of the subject they had no chance of understanding they would work on things they did understand to get up to speed, they had less advanced mock papers taken from them and told to do what they were told to do.
Students dropped maths, very able students dropped the subject. A lot of people's marks were hurt drastically due to just coming to hate the subject. We knew that discussing things with each other would help us a lot, it was good that I could turn to someone and ask them to explain something right then without having to wait for the single teacher to deal with the five other people who needed help before me. Hence, we did it anyway because it worked and we weren't stupid enough to keep silent just because the teacher told us to, we had to do this to learn, and we had voluntarily chosen the subject to learn.
So yes, I completely agree with the argument that the traditional approach is broken and that nobody wins. It's the only thing at that school that I have bad memories of, every other department, even other teachers within the maths department, knew the value of group based learning.
A bad teacher using a bad method can ruin peoples view of an entire subject extremely quickly which can lead to disastrous results.
Once I was studying for my A-levels however I was in a group of people who wanted to learn maths, we had chosen the subject after all. But we were given a teacher who demanded that we were silent, demanded that when we had a problem we asked her and not each other. Except for some students she came to the conclusion that their not understanding was their fault and would just tell them that they should have listened originally, for others it would just take too long to get an answer because the class was overcrowded with students. Twenty-five students at that level is far too many for one teacher.
Some students fell behind, and when they decided that instead of doing the parts of the subject they had no chance of understanding they would work on things they did understand to get up to speed, they had less advanced mock papers taken from them and told to do what they were told to do.
Students dropped maths, very able students dropped the subject. A lot of people's marks were hurt drastically due to just coming to hate the subject. We knew that discussing things with each other would help us a lot, it was good that I could turn to someone and ask them to explain something right then without having to wait for the single teacher to deal with the five other people who needed help before me. Hence, we did it anyway because it worked and we weren't stupid enough to keep silent just because the teacher told us to, we had to do this to learn, and we had voluntarily chosen the subject to learn.
So yes, I completely agree with the argument that the traditional approach is broken and that nobody wins. It's the only thing at that school that I have bad memories of, every other department, even other teachers within the maths department, knew the value of group based learning. A bad teacher using a bad method can ruin peoples view of an entire subject extremely quickly which can lead to disastrous results.