Is explicit teaching new?

The argument comes full circle

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I began writing about education in 2012. At that time, the debate was often framed as being between progressive education and traditional education. These terms are perhaps unhelpful, but if they are widely understood then it is perverse to object to their use. Which is what some progressive educators did at the time. They denied the very existence of ‘progressive’ education or whether the term meant anything at all. It was a small target strategy—if their philosophy could not be named then it could not be criticised and instead, it could be presented as simply the way the world is.

When I pointed to a treatise on progressive education by Alfie Kohn or highlighted the founding, in the early 20th century, of the Progressive Education Association, these progressive educators were unmoved and continued to deny reality for rhetorical reasons.

The fact that progressive education is an old tradition, as exemplified by the Progressive Education Association, is perhaps one of the reasons the term ‘progressive’ is misleading. As a philosophy, it dates back at least as far as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel, Émile. The other problem with the term is that to those new to the discussion, ‘progressive’ sounds like a philosophy of the political left. It can be and has been. However, it was also the philosophy of Mussolini’s education minister, Giovanni Gentile, and its history is entangled with the history of eugenics. In contrast, notable figures of the political left, such as former British Prime Minister James Callaghan, have often set their face against it.

Of course, ‘traditional’ has its own problems. Back in 2012, traditionalists were cast as old-fashioned and hopelessly out of date. Practices such as physical punishment were associated with the term, even though latter-day traditionalists were hardly advocating for them.

A key issue is that progressive education and traditional education are philosophies. They are so much more than a set of teaching strategies. Traditional educators seek to pass on valuable knowledge from the past. That’s why so many of them have been drawn to the knowledge-rich curriculum movement. Traditionalists are not indifferent to the future; they believe this is the best preparation. As a philosophy, this represents the oldest form of education, present in non-literate societies where the memorisation of critical knowledge about nature was a matter of life and death.

In contrast, progressive educators are revolutionary, focusing on their perceptions of what is needed for the future. That’s why they are drawn to talk of 21st-century skills. That’s why they always think new technology changes everything and why calculators mean we don’t need to teach basic maths any more. In his novel, Rousseau was attempting to fit Émile to a revolutionary new kind of society.

A simple way of putting it is that traditionalists are trying to equip the child for the world as it is and progressives are trying to equip the child for the world they wish to see.

This wider understanding of these two competing philosophies is completely missed by people who still insist that they somehow do a bit of both in the classroom.

Explicit teaching clearly has a relationship to traditional teaching, but they are not one and the same. Explicit teaching does not have a wider philosophical meaning and, at least in principle, can be deployed regardless of our views about the curriculum, knowledge-rich or otherwise. However, traditional teachers would likely stand at the front of the room and explain things. They might have students sat in rows. They would probably ask questions of the students and place a premium on their students paying attention. These are all features of explicit teaching.

However, if I think about how my explicit teaching has evolved over the years, it is a far more interactive and, for teacher and student alike, intense experience than it once was. Concepts are broken down and sequenced more. I no longer ask questions of volunteers. I rarely cold call. The majority of questions I ask students are answered by responses on a mini whiteboard—a latter day slate. That way, I can see how everyone is going simultaneously.

This evolution has been informed by various currents within the education community—from research such as the process–product studies of the 1960s or the randomised controlled trials of cognitive load theory, to the classroom observations of effective teachers conducted by educators such as Doug Lemov.

This is why I would argue there are two types of explicit teaching. There is a default kind and an evidence-informed kind. They have a lot in common, especially in the tools and techniques they use. They vary in structure and intensity.

For example, when I started teaching at my current school, people had certainly heard of mini whiteboards. Some had even used them. However, they were not a daily tool. I ordered a set to keep in my office and distribute as needed. I asked the science department if they would purchase a set that could be booked in the same way as a practical activity.

Now, students bring their own mini whiteboards to every lesson.

The explicit teaching movement and the knowledge-rich curriculum movement have, over the years, become fully detached from the ‘traditional’ label. We hardly hear it mentioned any more. This has led to a strange irony. Critics now dismiss the techniques of explicit teaching as ‘nothing new’. If we had kept the ‘traditional’ label, this would seem too obvious a point to raise.

Is explicit teaching old or is it new? It is both old and new and its critics need better arguments.