You may not be wrong that tactics aren't sufficiently widespread, but that's the thing they're just tactics.

Spaced-repetition is a good example. It's so objectively better than other forms of memorization, but it's just one tactic for learning.

In this sense "teaching well requires a specific set of tools and tactics" is exactly how "a good teacher can teach anything" would make sense.

The problem is it doesn't make sense.

▲

SJMG 4 days ago | parent [-]

Yeah there seems to be some confusion. I agreed with the comment I replied to in the sense that teaching well requires specific domain knowledge and some specific pedagogy. Where I disagree is the assertion that the "tactics", to use your term, have been perfused through the system and there's nothing left to gain here.

He specifically says, "I think we've got everything we can out of the subject-agnostic approach to improvement"

So we all agree that subjects would benefit from specific interventions. The difference is he's going further and saying this is the only way forward; there are no general gains left to be had.

From the strength of the claim alone, this is hard to believe. Where do you stand on this?

	▲	apsurd 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Agree, it's unnecessarily limiting to say the well is entirely dried up re: improving status quo tools. Charitable pov though, i'd say it's about leverage. Learning outcomes globally suffer steep steep cliffs and it's inevitably due to socioeconomic factors. It's hard to argue that more chromebooks, spaced repetition, and catering to learning styles are the missing pieces johnny needs to get out of the hood. as a person in tech i believed for a long time that if only we had better learning materials, people could orient and better self motivate around subjects. (learning needs to be hard. it's biology. brain takes notice and retains new and challenging stimuli. so "making learning easier" is a misnomer. the insight becomes how do we get people to self-motivate into hard things?) I still think that's true, to your point, but all these takes are one of many many problems, and they aren't equal in leverage and i think that's where OP is coming from. there's outsized leverage in domain specific pedagogy.