VIDEO TRANSCRIPT - Teachers lie on a daily basis. But why?

The best teachers are liars. But, that’s a good thing for both students and teachers because it ensures that teachers can specialise and teach to the best of their abilities within a specialism, whilst students only understand what they need for each topic and thus have clarity about subject content.

1. But How?

So, what lies are told? Teachers avoid information that is not currently important and too advanced for students’ current understanding of a topic. Take this example, here we have different topic blocks within a subject, increasing in difficulty down the stack with the most basic and easiest to understand at the top. If most of these topics are taught, is it bad to avoid the final advanced topics?

Teachers also analogise by linking concepts to pictures, are these false relationships helpful for students? And is lying bad to avoid a more complex truth?

2. The Point

How does this help? It ensures that students gain a full understanding of a subject by building up knowledge slowly in blocks rather than as one large continuous mess that is difficult to understand.

Moreover, learning knowledge is aided by analogies which ensure that a complex topic is introduced as a picture before reality is added to create a final full understanding.

3. Uses

However, blocks are not always the way forward - as to complete the course, teachers have to deal with a network of interconnected topics which don’t always make sense individually - leading many teachers to deal with blocks individually by avoiding certain information to make overall blocks make sense.

But, we can do better. Instead of completing blocks, students can complete sections of blocks in a logical order which ensures that students are not lied to by teaching sections where needed. Is this better?

4. Good?

I believe that lying is a good thing but that the other options available are also very good methods to use and are generally better than the current “normal.”

What do you think?

Apologies are extended to Brian Cox for the negative connotations expressed within the thumbnail of this video.

Sources and Further Reading

“EEF Blog: ECF– Exploring the Evidence: Prior knowledge and Pupil Misconceptions” (EEF) [2021], available online at Education Endowment Foundation

“Encyclopedia of Science Education, Analogies: Uses in Teaching” (David Treagust, SpringerLink) [2014], available online at SpringerLink

“Teaching with Analogies” (Terrell Heick, TeachThought) [2021], available online at TeachThought

Image Sources

Thumbnail: Brian Cox: Sunday Times (Pal Hansen/Contour) “Brian Cox, Sunday Times UK, March 13, 2011” [2011]

All other images and graphics designed exclusively for SkinnerMedia and its subsidiaries.