> Shudder. I consider the "teaching is lying" meme to be vile.
Couldn't agree more. And when I read this in the article I also thought of high school chemistry even before I read your comment. I was put off chemistry in high school precisely because of its incoherence.
The best thing to do, as always, is to be honest. Tell your students that what you are teaching them is a simplification; a model that is useful at this level. Many will be satisfied with this answer and not want to go to a deeper level. But some children, those with a greater need for coherence and for things to make deep sense, will be reassured to know it's only a model and either wait for the deeper model to be taught or want to start exploring the deeper model at that time. Which is fine.
I found the approach taken by the author of this article quite patronising and rather distasteful.
My comment, and I believe the one I replied to, is directed at the first paragraph in this piece, which is about the idea of teaching as 'a process of lying' and one which the author agrees with 'in principle'.
I also do not like his suggested definition. It comes across as smartarse-ish and I think most children would feel the same way.
Couldn't agree more. And when I read this in the article I also thought of high school chemistry even before I read your comment. I was put off chemistry in high school precisely because of its incoherence.
The best thing to do, as always, is to be honest. Tell your students that what you are teaching them is a simplification; a model that is useful at this level. Many will be satisfied with this answer and not want to go to a deeper level. But some children, those with a greater need for coherence and for things to make deep sense, will be reassured to know it's only a model and either wait for the deeper model to be taught or want to start exploring the deeper model at that time. Which is fine.
I found the approach taken by the author of this article quite patronising and rather distasteful.