There are so many facts to learn as a young child that the teacher does simply need to be a dispenser of information. Young children generally do not have the attention span to delve deeply into a topic and arrive at the same conclusion that others before them have. While learning by doing is a powerful tool, it’s not appropriate in all situations.

If the results of this type of learning truly resulted in increased social skills and acceptance of other cultures, it’s interesting that this technique didn’t remain for at least a portion of the day, perhaps as a “social half hour”. For it to be abandoned entirely suggests complete failure despite this author’s best intention to make it sound successful. The paper has somewhat of a wistful spin to it, like this teaching style was some sort of nirvanic dream whereby the teacher could abdicate his or her role entirely and simply become moderators, removing the need to “judge” students (i.e. give them a grade) and other responsibilities that traditionally fall under the teacher’s charge.

Paper Summary: Traditional teaching is stodgy paternalistic trash and should be abandoned. In its place, we recommend letting an average of 200 children per “pod” (98% of them with an attention span of four seconds) self-direct their learning. Children will discover all that they need to know (including those wacky derivatives in calculus) simply by reading a few books and talking with their peers (who don’t have any more of a clue than they do).

Conclusion: FAIL!