Why Don't Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham

Sep 30, 2011 Caroline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: education-books

I absolutely loved this book. I think it should be a must read in teacher-training programs all over the country. For decades, people have expected teachers to have a background in child development to help them understand how to meet students where they are. As of yet, there is not as much of an emphasis on understanding cognitive science. However, cognitive science is way ahead of what teachers tend to know in terms of how people learn, and applying those experiments in the classroom can only...more

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May 21, 2010 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's good. His premise is that students learn when they think about the meaning of what they're supposed to learn. Lessons should be structured around that. Repetition and drills have a purpose, one means of transferring short to long-term memory. There's far more evidence for malleable intelligence (you can do better if you work at it) than there is for multimodal learning styles (aural, visual, kinaesthetic, etc.).

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Jul 18, 2012 Steven Mohr rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-books

In his time of getting an undergrad at my RDU area neighbor Duke University, a PhD at my not affiliated whatsoever (but much superior to my undergrad and grad schools) far to the north neighbor Harvard University, and a teaching position at the University of Virginia, author Daniel T. Willingham has put together a healthy collection of cognitive psychology books based on education. Being a fan of both the worlds of education and brain science (maybe to solve the mystery of what happened to all t...more In his time of getting an undergrad at my RDU area neighbor Duke University, a PhD at my not affiliated whatsoever (but much superior to my undergrad and grad schools) far to the north neighbor Harvard University, and a teaching position at the University of Virginia, author Daniel T. Willingham has put together a healthy collection of cognitive psychology books based on education. Being a fan of both the worlds of education and brain science (maybe to solve the mystery of what happened to all that information I put in during decades of education), I thought it was a good idea when the professional development class I took over this summer required us to read Willingham’s book Why Don’t Students Like School? I realize the question that title poses seems strangely enough both convoluted and pretty obvious. But it turns out… it’s just convoluted.

Why Don’t Students Like School? gives some great insight for teachers; insight that often seems completely unintuitive until you read through the research based explanations Willingham gives. This title is a little misleading, though, without the very sub-subtitle (one that looks more like credits than a title) A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about how the Mind Works and What it Means for the Classroom. It’s packed with information that can’t be piled into one representative main topic (besides maybe just… education), but one of the most talked about topics was that, regardless of what most education books of the day will tell you, there are two tools of pedagogy that work better than anything else to build competent students with the best ability to take in and truly understand new knowledge: factual learning and practice… (i.e. memorizing dates in history, formulas in math, and practicing until and after we’ve got it all down).

Huh? Isn’t that exactly what we’ve been doing for time immemorial and are now leaving? Yes. What about teaching test taking strategies and research strategies so students can do well on state-mandated tests? Sad answer to this is, it might help them a little on these tests, but it hurts them in their memorization and application skills later in life… It’s like cramming; it does work if all you’re looking for that information to do is give you a passing grade on a test.

Willingham and others’ research has said that in order to build analysis skills that will last (which is virtually all students learn in school today… at least the temporary kind) they need the background information that we are presently too busy to teach them. The education debate between teaching more subject content or more learning strategies has already been won – by learning strategies (it even has a more politically correct name), but this research is saying, wait, we’re teaching them so they can have better lives, right? Not just so our school system can have more 4/4’s on the End of Grade Test than the next…

I’m not going to say the whole book was great, cover to cover. Probably a third of it was a really good read and the rest was stuff many of us (certainly teachers) have heard or read in school (college and job) many times. By the way, while it’s a comparatively small topic in the book, he does give a reason for the main title being what it is. Our brains don’t like to learn. We spend a third of our brains’ energy consumption on vision alone, and they do whatever they can to stop from using more for thought. They do so by supplementing a lot of that thought with memory, hence the reason why we need to get information into memory. Then, we can use our full amount of working-memory (or thinking) to figure out what we don’t know.

I think this came out as less of a review of Willingham’s book and more of a pedagogical rant backed up by his research. Either way, I enjoyed it.
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Feb 28, 2011 Lars Guthrie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The titular question might appear an opening to a rant against our educational system. Rest assured that Daniel Willingham is hardly scribbling out some angry screed. He’s thoughtful, and avoids polemic.

In fact, I hope I’m not oversimplifying when I say his basic answer is that students don’t like school because it’s hard.

If that sounds awfully facile, be aware that Willingham goes on to a knottier problem: What can we do about it?

What Willingham is really writing about is not student anathema,...more

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Nov 16, 2009 edh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a must-read, and one to pass on to administrators, decision-makers, etc. Willingham establishes that prior knowledge is essential to the learning & critical thinking processes taught in school today, so I saw a lot of evidence backing up early childhood literacy programs here. If kids aren't exposed to lots of information early on, then they can hardly be expected to manipulate information when they're busy soaking it all in for the first time.

And this is in large part creating that...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Cruton rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ch 1 People, while capable of thought will try to get out of thinking if they can. Thinking is not only time and energy consuming but there is not guarantee that the result will pay off, thus we usually simply do what we have done before. Obviously we still think, the key is posing problems just hard enough to be challenging (not too easy) and yet to not impossible which will give us the pleasurable feeling of accomplishment which, from a behavioral standpoint, will encourage future problem solv...more

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Jan 28, 2011 Wmacdonald rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Umm... liked it. Definitely enjoyed the first half more than the second. Still, I think the author had some insightful points which I will do my best to summarize here: learning and expertise needs to be build upon a pool of prior knowledge and facts (hence the author's argument for "drill and kill" at least to a point). This makes sense. Too often we expect students to be "experts" when they do not have the know how or time on task to be anything close to that. A pool of general knowledge shoul...more

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Apr 24, 2009 MCOH rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book reminded me a bit of Outliers; the author actually cites some of the same studies, and makes some similar points. Here, the primary audience is clearly K-12 teachers. The author takes the body of current cognitive science research, and applies it to the classroom, in a very quick, easy-to-read format.

Here were some of the ideas that I found the most interesting:

-People actually really enjoy solving problems, as long as those problems aren't too easy or too hard for them. Otherwise, it...more This book reminded me a bit of Outliers; the author actually cites some of the same studies, and makes some similar points. Here, the primary audience is clearly K-12 teachers. The author takes the body of current cognitive science research, and applies it to the classroom, in a very quick, easy-to-read format.

Here were some of the ideas that I found the most interesting:

-People actually really enjoy solving problems, as long as those problems aren't too easy or too hard for them. Otherwise, it's a horribly boring or frustrating experience. (Seems like an obvious point, but not one that schools have taken advantage of yet. Right now, there's pretty much a one-size-fits-all mentality going on, so that a particular lesson might hit the sweet spot for a few lucky kids, but most will find themselves either bored or frustrated most of the time.)

-You've got to have some background knowledge to make sense of new knowledge. We understand and remember new things, because we relate them to what we already know and understand. So when one child arrives at school with an extensive background knowledge that's been developed through years of trips to the zoo, museums, grandparents' houses, cooking with mom and dad in the kitchen, reading books, daily conversations with adults about all kinds of things, etc.- they've got a huge advantage over a child who's had fewer interactions and experiences. This difference becomes more pronounced over time, rather than less pronounced - you gain new knowledge more quickly, and now your advantage is even greater for understanding the next new fact; the rich get richer, and it's continually harder for the poorer kids to catch up. (I'm using rich and poor metaphorically, to mean those with more and less background knowledge - but sadly, these do actually correlate with socio-economic status). The divide is exacerbated further in about 4th grade, when the emphasis on decoding skills (sounding out words) has been replaced with an emphasis on comprehension.

-In the same chapter: "Trying to teach students skills such as analysis or synthesis in the absence of factual knowledge is impossible. Research from cognitive science has shown that the sorts of skills that teachers want for students - such as the ability to analyze and to think critically - require extensive factual knowledge.... Factual knowledge must precede skill."

THANK YOU! I have been trying to verbalize this idea for a couple years now, and Willingham did it very nicely. I have been so frustrated with the WASL-prep exercises my children have been doing in school - which emphasize these types of cognitive skills, with no real care for the actual content of the lesson. The students are given brief written clips, and asked to answer a series of questions about the text. The fact that they don't really understand the topic is of no interest to the teacher - because the point of the lesson isn't really to understand the solar system or global warming or indigenous societies or whatever - it's to learn to draw inferences. Well, HELLO - a second-grader doesn't care about the abstract concept of drawing inferences - she wants to know what the *%$# the passage is talking about. If we could tackle actual issues, answer the kids' genuine questions, have a discussion about the topic in question - then in the process, they'll learn about drawing inferences. But when the school treats all content as an unimportant means to an end (learning abstract and generalizable cognitive skills), they fail at an otherwise laudable goal. And they make school really boring in the process.

-In the last couple decades, theories about different learning styles and multiple intelligences have gained a lot of traction among educators. According to Willingham, the research doesn't bear it out. Sure, some people are more talented at music, other at movement, and so forth. But it doesn't follow that kids will be helped by having various subjects taught to them through these particular channels. The fact that one child is a better auditory learner means he or she will do better at remembering how something sounded (e.g. which voice was deeper?), while a visual learner will do better at remembering how something looked. But usually, in school, we want kids to think about what something means - for example, the meaning of a vocabulary word. Presenting the vocabulary list through auditory or visual channels seems to make no difference - because the meaning of the word (and the way the brain processes that info) is distinct from the sight or sound of the word. Thus, he says, lesson content, not student differences, should drive the decision about how to teach.

-Intelligence is a function of both genetics and environment. Intelligence is malleable - it isn't fixed. For example, he refers to twin studies which showed that children who were removed from a deprived home and adopted by a more affluent family showed an increase in intelligence. So while genetics are clearly a factor, we can take steps to increase the intelligence of our students. One specific tip: if you want to praise your child or student for a job well-done, you should praise their effort rather than their smarts. Multiple studies have reinforced this idea. When we tell kids, "Great job! You're really smart!", they ultimately perform worse than kids who are told, "Great job! You must have worked really hard!"

I thought the book lost a little steam by the end. In the last chapter, he claims to explain what cognitive research has to say about the minds of teachers themselves. Apparently, the answer is: try harder to be a better teacher, try videotaping yourself teaching, and talk to your teaching buddies about teaching, but nicely, so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. I guess the advice is all right, but the link to actual research seemed more tenuous in this section.

My favorite quote from the book:

"I am willing to bet you have heard someone say, "Every student is intelligent in some way"... I think teachers say this in an effort to communicate an egalitarian attitude to students: everyone is good at something... This sort of statement rubs me the wrong way because it implies that intelligence brings value. Every child is unique and valuable, whether or not they are intelligent or have much in the way of mental ability. I admit that being the father of a severely mentally retarded child probably makes me sensitive on this issue. My daughter is not intelligent in any sense of the word, but she is a joyful child who brings a lot of happiness to a lot of people."

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Aug 02, 2011 Heidi Thorsen added it · review of another edition

This book is setup like a text or manual, it is clearly intended that readers take action using the information presented. The book explains what cognitive scientists have determined makes people eager to learn, and then points out the ways a typical school education works against nature.

Some of the observations seem like common sense to anyone who has seen a student take several minutes to tell you what 7x5 is because they're using "strategies" instead of just having the answer memorized. The...more

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May 22, 2009 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent book on how what we've learned recently in cognitive science can be applied practically in the classroom. There are nine cognitive lessons, one for each chapter. These are very useful and interesting with examples and research explained for the lay person. However, the type is tiny, and the book is very dense. It doesn't have that "learning is fun," breezy, accessible feeling of Malcolm Gladwell books. On the other hand, it is worth the effort. I particularly learned from the chapters...more

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May 09, 2013 Jonathan Chen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first part of the title is a bit misleading. The author doesn't really answer the question of why students don't like school. It should've been "why do some students struggle with learning?"

One of the key arguments made by Willingham is that students can improve through meaningful practice. The idea is that rote practice (i.e. meaningless practice) does not lead to improvement, such as driving or teaching, since there is no incentive to improve after an adequate level of expertise is reache...more The first part of the title is a bit misleading. The author doesn't really answer the question of why students don't like school. It should've been "why do some students struggle with learning?"

One of the key arguments made by Willingham is that students can improve through meaningful practice. The idea is that rote practice (i.e. meaningless practice) does not lead to improvement, such as driving or teaching, since there is no incentive to improve after an adequate level of expertise is reached. On the other hand, meaningful practice leads to higher level of achievement, thus the concept of "malleable intelligence".
This part is completely unconvincing for me. Firstly, he cites the study that shows those who practice piano for a greater number of hours show higher achievement (concert pianists vs. music teachers). The argument against this kind of study is self-selection -- musical talent is identified very early on one's career. Those who "have it," are inclined to practice more in order to compete at a high level, whereas the less talented (sorry, music teachers), choose not to devote as much of their time on practice.

This parallels Malcom Gladwell's "Outliers," which argues that people attain true expertise by practicing something for 10,000 hours. This concept has been thoroughly debunked. Think of minor league baseball players who toil for years without making it to the big leagues, they practice just as much, if not more than their more talented counterparts. There are also many athletes who simply do not practice very much, such as Bo Jackson. I also take issue with using Asian/Asian-American students as a shining example of "malleable intelligence." Many high-achieving Asian students struggle once they reach the college level, which require a deeper level of analytical thinking that go beyond rote memorization. Many immigrant students have no choice but to use rote memorization before they reach English fluency, yet they are able to do well, at least on standardized testing.

Another major argument that Willingham makes is that multiple-intelligence, a widely accepted concept, might not hold up to scientific scrutiny. In my own experience (both undergraduate and graduate school, multiple-intelligence is seen in the same light as the law of gravity, so I was glad to finally see a counter argument. Every lesson plan had to have different components of the 7 intelligences, which is highly impractical to say the least.

In the very last chapter, Willingham offers some "practical" advice for teachers, including video-taping oneself and asking other teachers for peer review, ideas have been around for decades. In the end however, I think resources should be allocated more on how students learn, rather than how teachers teach. Recent studies have focused on more students' emotional intelligence (EQ) and other intangible qualities, such as "grit". Teaching students how to cope with setbacks and conflicts should yield better results than finding "star" teachers.

*Full disclosure, I have a B.A. in Education (1996) and an M.A. in Curriculum & Instructions (2011).
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Jan 09, 2013 Amy Brown rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, how-to-self-help

The title of this book is a bit of a mislead -- it's the title of the first of nine chapters, each dealing with a different lesson that cognitive science can offer to teachers. The criteria for each lesson's inclusion in the book is that the principle should be "fundamental to the mind's operation" -- they don't change with circumstances, age or socio-economic status; other criteria are that applying the principle has a significant impact, there is a large amount of research to back it up, and i...more The title of this book is a bit of a mislead -- it's the title of the first of nine chapters, each dealing with a different lesson that cognitive science can offer to teachers. The criteria for each lesson's inclusion in the book is that the principle should be "fundamental to the mind's operation" -- they don't change with circumstances, age or socio-economic status; other criteria are that applying the principle has a significant impact, there is a large amount of research to back it up, and it should suggest novel teaching techniques.

The organization of this book is extremely satisfying. Each chapter presents the problem, then the research, and finally a summary and a section called "Indications for the Classroom" which presents specific ideas and techniques.

At the end of the book is a table summarizing all nine principles along with their most important classroom implication. This table is particularly helpful because the titles of the chapters are misleading: "How Can I Teach Students the Skills They Need When Standardized Tests Require Only Facts?" is actually about the usefulness of factual knowledge. "What's The Secret to Getting Students to Think Like Real Scientists, Mathmaticians and Historians?" is actually about the differences between how novices and experts think. If I owned this book and needed to refer to it, I would put the page numbers for each chapter beside the corresponding row on the summary table and forget the table of contents altogether.

That chapter on the differences between novices and experts is the only one which I really had issue with in terms of content. The author says that novice learners don't think about their subject the same way as experts because they lack the experts' practice and depth of knowledge, and further that there's little benefit in trying to get learners to think like a "real scientist" or a "real historian". His argument boils down to: there's no point in trying to get students to think like experts because they'd be really bad at it.

It seems to me that, specifically with respect to science, the author is conflating "thinking like an experienced, working scientist" with "learning the scientific method", and throwing out the latter because the former is untenable. School "science" classes involve getting students to do demonstrations and memorize facts, not make predictions, design experiments and interpret results. Obviously a student is not going to be able to do rigorous, productive 21st-century science -- that takes years of study and practice. But learning how to do everyday science -- how to apply the principles of the scientific method -- is not, if you'll excuse the expression, rocket science. You can "do science" without "being" a scientist.

The more I think about it the more I think the organizing concept of this particular chapter is a strawman created so the author could fit in some important points about novice versus expert thinking. (Developmental editor fail!) Suggesting that having students do experiments, compose music or interpret historical source materials won't advance their understanding of a subject is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Appreciating, from experience, how knowledge and art is created certainly contributes to understanding that knowledge and art.

Apart from that one quibble I think the interpretation and presentation of the research is spot on and very well presented.(less)

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Sep 04, 2012 Andrew Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012

had this sitting on my shelf for about a year but was finally spurred into action when I saw Goldstein's post.

insightful. this is really a book on effective teaching. The classroom stuff - how to break big topics into engaging questions; the connections between deliberate practice, broad factual knowledge, and thinking; brain development and motivation - is strong. His simplified model for thinking

is the if-you-learn-one-thing chart from the book. Basically: the reason that you can think thoug...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Andres rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book because I'm interested in all things cognitive science and, in this case, how people learn, not because I'm in any way close to being a teacher. While the book is aimed at helping teachers understand the underlying concepts of how people learn, I think anyone interested in this subject will benefit from this book. I haven't really delved into this subject before so I can't compare it to any others in the field.

In general the author explains the mechanics of how and why people le...more

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May 13, 2009 Shelley rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: education, science-for-the-masses, non-fiction, favorites

After making my way through two teacher ed programs, I've heard a lot of the following:

"Your job as the teacher is to be a facilitator of learning. Be 'the guide on the side' instead of 'the sage of the stage!'"

"Don't write in red pen; it hurts students' feelings."

"If a student isn't responding to your writing instruction, it's probably because he's a kinesthetic learner. Have him make up a dance for every comma, and he'll be just fine!"

"Treat students like the experts they already are!"

"If stud...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Gabriel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Regarding writing/formatting/etc.

I was a little disappointed in how simplistic some of the writing and examples were. I was even more disappointed in the use of "figures" to illustrate his point. Most of the figures were akin to the pictures I see in my students' textbooks that had very little to do with the bulk of the text other than offer an example. The book felt like a compromise between a good excursion about the effects of cognitive science on teaching and a textbook written with younger...more Regarding writing/formatting/etc.

I was a little disappointed in how simplistic some of the writing and examples were. I was even more disappointed in the use of "figures" to illustrate his point. Most of the figures were akin to the pictures I see in my students' textbooks that had very little to do with the bulk of the text other than offer an example. The book felt like a compromise between a good excursion about the effects of cognitive science on teaching and a textbook written with younger students in mind.

Regarding ideas presented.

A good deal of the reviews already up discuss the different principles described. I highly recommend reading this for a more informed opinion of those principles.

In fact, anyone who does any sort of teaching or tutoring should read this book. It has changed the way I approach the lessons I teach and will most likely affect the way I structure my classes next year. Already I'm asking my seniors in Calculus class to think of ways they can move beyond the surface structure of the problems and see the concepts that are being tested. In our discussion today of why they find the AP problems so hard, it basically came down to how they were getting lost in the surface of the problem and unable to see the concepts that were being tested (which is something that a few members of College Board may want to think about when writing the tests).

It also reaffirms my idea that the schedule as it stands right now doesn't really help students the way that the administration thinks it should. This is the second book (the first being The Shallows) to describe multi-tasking in a negative light and the impact on the amount of learning we can do. Here, it's constructed as overloading our Working Memory (a concept I already had some exposure to while reading A Mind At A Time and going through a course on All Kinds of Minds) which leaves less room for us to actually delve deep into what we are thinking about. In terms of my school, because students have to think about what class they are going to all the time (rotational schedule with a portion of the day fixed), that leaves less room for the students to think about the math I'm trying to teach them.

I don't think that this book will be the final word on education. I don't want it to be. However, what this book should be is a cornerstone in any discussion of how to educate and how to help teachers educate their students. Beyond the basic principles of how students think, there are also ideas for improving the work teachers do.

Yes, the part about Howard Gardner and how the various "ways students learn" isn't founded in science will get a lot of press. What the reviews I've read have left out, though, is that Dr. Willingham's point is NOT that students have different ways of learning, but rather that the material being discussed needs to be the center of the discussion, not whether there is a visual, verbal and kinesthetic way to teach the lesson. He focuses on the following idea: What is thought about is what is learned. Example: If students are busy making commas with their bodies, they are thinking about its shape, not the purpose of the punctuation. If students are listening to a reading and asked to pay special attention to how the reader "reads" commas, then they are thinking about the effect of the comma on what is read. That works better (after all, knowing the comma's effect is part of knowing the comma) than just moving your body into the shape of a comma. Thus making sure our students are thinking about the concept in a particular way will guide the way the lesson can be presented more effectively than trying to fit in various learning styles.

In any case, this is an important book for teachers and tutors alike. It's something that school administration should read ... but they probably wouldn't understand the implications. Still, I have hope.(less)

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Feb 01, 2010 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: education-2010

Eight principles of cognition, along with their implications for education, are discussed:

1. The brain is not designed for thinking--we are not naturally good at it.
2. Rote memorization of facts IS necessary before deeper skill/thinking can occur.
3. We remember what we think about the most.
4. We understand new things by relating them to our prior knowledge.
5. To be proficient, we must practice, not just experience a task.
6. Novices and experts do not think in the same way.
7. Children are more al...more

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May 25, 2009 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: education, must-reads

LOVED IT!!! Although I suppose one reason I loved it is because it took things I already believed and expanded upon them, but he did it so well and so convincingly that I am sure many other types of educators would enjoy it as well. His nine principals are based on plenty of research, so I definitely find him credible. I really want to show my students the section on practice; I always tell them homework is not punishment and this chapter shows scientifically why this is the case. I especially a...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Theresa Leone Davidson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Willingham is a psychologist who has studied student behavior and knows what works (and what doesn't) in the classroom. I haven't had too many students who did NOT enjoy school, though they'd be hesitant to admit it; nevertheless, I get the point of the title. Willingham wrote this, I would expect, for new teachers as well as veterans; the problem with being a veteran teacher is that we've heard hundreds of times, beginning in grad school, that, for example, students should link new knowledge to...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Zack Hiwiller rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I became a teacher with almost no formal training about how people learn. So when I saw this, while it is "popularized" science, I felt I could at least glean some useful takeaways. The book exceeded my expectations and should be required reading for those who want to teach, not just formally but informally as well. The book debunks popular teaching standards like "teaching modalities" and at least gives me something better to hang my hat on than my kneejerk reactions "teach kids biology by maki...more

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Feb 21, 2013 David Glad rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-your-brains-are-belong-to-me, beliefs, civilization, exploring-society, to-be-revisited, think

This is probably one of those books where they went with a provocative title to try to get the attention of readers with a more mundane title about how children learn and their mental development. (Really brings to mind the author who spoke at Stanford about his book titled "Is Marriage for White People Only?" -- he is black, as if that were not obvious -- where he originally was going to use some more boring academic title along the lines of Differences between Races and Cultures when his resea...more This is probably one of those books where they went with a provocative title to try to get the attention of readers with a more mundane title about how children learn and their mental development. (Really brings to mind the author who spoke at Stanford about his book titled "Is Marriage for White People Only?" -- he is black, as if that were not obvious -- where he originally was going to use some more boring academic title along the lines of Differences between Races and Cultures when his research assistant suggested that more provocative title. Needless to say people unfamiliar with him wonder what his race is and, upon learning, question if he hates his own race.)

Some of the nice key ideas of this book include:
"Understanding is remembering in disguise"
Children learn faster in part because they are unlikely to question the reliability of the information
Prior knowledge (children -- privileged and poor alike -- up until third grade reading at same level before diverging due to different experiences; "cultural bias")
The mind takes shortcuts rather than viewing the same situation as requiring novel solutions,
Topic of rote memorization
"Chunks" of familiar patterns (cnn + fbi + abc etc)
Mistake of telling a child "you are smart" versus being specific. Better to stress areas for improvement while also stressing what was great (Your opening argument was good, but......)
Topics of working memory, working background knowledge, experience in procedures
The apparent problem of how children (and probably even older people) being unable to transfer knowledge across different topics: Book used an example of how to blast a tumor without damaging the surrounding healthy tissue that you need to hit it from all sides. He then gave a hypothetical situation of how best to send in troops to overthrow a dictator, knowing that the four roads leading to the fortress had land mines that trigger under too much weight. Obviously send them from all angles, even if it possible (from my perspective) that they took it as a kind of trick question by sounding too obvious.

So I would obviously recommend this book to anyone who either is curious on how children learn or perhaps even as a benefit to trying to learn as an adult.(less)

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Jan 18, 2010 Terry rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: education, non-fiction

I just finished this book today, and I'm still mulling it over. For a quick review, I'd say this book really is only for people who seriously enjoy reading subjects like education theory in their spare time. It's not a good book for a casual reader, even though Willingham's tone is very, well, almost folksy--very approachable, enjoyable, quirky, enthusiastic, fun. I struggled at times to understand some of the finer distinctions he was making in approaches to teaching.

However, I was happy to se...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Abi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: profdev, psychology, own

Willingham has carefully crafted a book that is engaging, memorable, easy to follow, firmly grounded in research, and extremely relevant and useful as a tool for teachers.

Teachers:I'd highly recommend checking it out. Psych nerds, parents, students? You might enjoy it, too.

He has such high and specific standards for what he'd include in the book that there are only nine chapters because there were only nine principles that fit his standards.

There are also pictures, charts, and even a chart at th...more

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Aug 20, 2009 Mary Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: professional-development

I definitely took away some interesting points from Willingham's book, but I can't say that I really liked it. My major complaint is that the type is so small that it was hard to read! Hardly Willingham's fault. But it affected my experience.

Here's what I really liked: paying attention to what students are thinking about, what we (teachers) are asking students to think about. The importance of having puzzles, so that you engage students in problem solving - as a way to get them thinking. It's on...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Melanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: psychology, pedagogy, non-fiction, skipped-parts-of-this-book

About how the brain works in order to teach children. Kind of dry. Luckily it's short. Written for educators. Contains nine major points.
I probably would have given it four stars, but parts of it were just dull enough that I skimmed some sections. I'd definitely recommend it for educators though.

1) The brain doesn't really like thinking because it is a slow process often fraught with error. People prefer to use memory instead of thought whenever possible.

2) Thinking isn't effective without backg...more

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May 19, 2009 Erik rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A cognitive scientist "debunks" a lot of current popular "Ed-Theory" about teaching and learning using the very tools progressives seem to dismiss--neuroscience coupled with direct observation and quantifiable testing. This is a wonderful counter-point to the kool-aid drunk Ed-schoolers who dominate discussions and conference panels. That said, there are a lot of pictures and dumbed-down graphs and charts. Even the lay person isn't as simple-minded as Willingham implies. However, each chapter ha...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Gloria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not too sure he backs everything up with what cognitive science has to say about school. one source is questionable to me. He does not make a convincing argument about the invalidity of learning styles.

But the rest of the book is useful. Learning about how to challenge but not overwhelm students is important. The idea of working memory and how it limits learning is important as are the means to aid working memory. Understanding why students struggle with the abstract and how to bring them to...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Jamiella rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pedagogy

This is an excellent, well-researched book. It is organized in a very clear, systematic style and the author has clearly spent a lot of time not just thinking about the problem (learning in school) but how to solve it. You won't get bogged down in too much verbage and specialized language and you are treated to interesting quotes and comparisons on every page. This is a valuable book for every classroom--I plan to apply many of these concepts to even the college classroom. A must-read if you are...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Ben Babcock rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, textbook, education, 2011-read, non-fiction, science

Drumroll of irony, please: I bought this book because it was the required textbook for one of my education courses, Educational Psychology, and this is the first time I’ve opened it. Those of you who know me as a student will understand that this is uncharacteristic behaviour and might even suspect I’ve been replaced by a school-hating doppelgänger. In fact, Educational Psychology was one of very few courses that I disliked during my time at university, and it was entirely due to the professor’s...more

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Sep 21, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-teaching

1. People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking.
2. Factual knowledge must precede skill.
3. Memory is the residue of thought.
4. We understand new things in the context of things we already know, and most of what we know is concrete.
5. It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice.
6. Cognition early in training is fundamentally different from cognition late in tra...more

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Why Don't Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom

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