Are teachers trying to turn creative kids into robots?
Are teachers really trying to turn creative kids into robots by insisting on “self regulation?” What is self-regulation anyway? Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham looks at this in the following post. Willingham is a professor and director of graduate studies in psychology at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His latest book is “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education.” This appeared on his Science and Education blog.By Daniel Willingham
The cover story of the latest edition of The New Republic wonders whether American educators have fallen in blind love with self-control. Author Elizabeth Weil thinks we have. Titled “American Schools Are Failing Nonconformist Kids: In Defense of the Wild Child,” the article suggests that educators harping on self-regulation are really trying to turn kids into submissive little robots. And they do so because little robots are easier to control in the classroom.
But lazy teachers are not the only cause. Education policy makers are also to blame, according to Weil. She writes that
valorizing self-regulation shifts the focus away from an impersonal, overtaxed, and underfunded school system and places the burden for overcoming those