#didactic instruction

[Note:  If the reader has taken up reading this blog with this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next one in a series of postings.  The series begins with the posting, “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html).  Overall, the series addresses how the study of political science has affected the civics curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.]

 The last posting reviewed the effects of the New Social Studies on that portion of the curriculum.  That initiative was an effort by social studies educators to jump on the federal government’s science bandwagon in the 1960s. In general, the effort was to introduce scientific methods into the study of various social studies subjects. That includes history, government/civics, and economics.  

Here in this blog, the concern is over government/civics, to be referred to as simply civics.  That subject is directly charged with imparting the knowledge and skills associated with citizenship (a responsibility that all social studies subjects share to some degree).

         The last posting left off with a challenge that any reform in curriculum faces.  That is, teachers reluctantly giving up on how they do their jobs.  Most reform efforts from the last century into this one has emphasized changes in instructional methods.  Teachers who feel comfortable with using one approach – usually didactic methods – will not readily shift to another promoted method – usually an interactive approach called inquiry.

The important concern that transcends both instructional approaches is that to be successful either way needs for students to be reflective about what is being taught – i.e., not having students merely recalling the subject matter but thinking about it.  This might be more challenging when a teacher uses didactic methods since that method emphasizes the dispersal of information without calling for any mental action in response unless the teacher calls for it – it’s a demand that is not essential to the method, but can be made a part of it.

An online review as to the prevalence of didactic teaching practices today reveals that there are those who defend and promote this style of teaching.  Editorially, this writer argues that didactic teaching, while it can be used to solicit from students’ higher levels of thinking, the usual result is that students are expected to recall information (a low level skill and highly dependent for its success on an individual’s inherent ability to remember).  

But this writer can personally testify that even honors students who were exposed to didactic teaching could not recall basic information about a subject in the subsequent year.  He would, for example, ask ten basic American history questions – a subject taught in the eleventh grade – to twelfth grade honors students that they could not answer.  For whatever reason school officials require American history for graduation; this evidence seems to indicate that the reason is not being met.

While a lot of what this blog argues can be said to favor interactive instructional approaches, it does not rule out the ability of teachers to be effective “didactic” teachers.  When this writer taught, didactic style was the prevailing style of teaching and his ongoing communication with educators today indicates that is still the case.  The only proviso one might interject today is the effect technology might currently be having on instruction.  It is difficult to say, without any reservations, what teaching method prevails today, but common observation does not indicate that inquiry has taken over.