Teaching a group is hard
Teaching a group is hard, so there’s a tendency to retreat to what works for individuals. Give everyone flashcards. Give everyone a computer. Every kid has a tutor. Every kid works on the app. This tendency is maybe especially strong in thinking about math facts, since they’re so heavily studied by special education and psychological researchers who tend to think in terms of individual support—the one-on-one intervention or study. The “Science of Learning” has a bias towards individual pedagogy.
This tendency should be resisted. Teaching a group is most viable when you’re able to teach them as a group. When you treat them as twenty single individuals, each on their own different path, the job also gets twenty times harder. Now, I’m not naive. I understand there are times when the different needs of students are too great for uniform expectations. But I think we’re often too eager to turn a class into a collection of individuals. Instead we can keep class vibrant, interactive, and engaging without asking everyone to retreat to their desks. The collective deserves more respect
