[ruslan_sure]

Simply put, the author doesn't know what he's talking about.

This nostalgia for the "good old days" should have a name.

This comparison of "medieval learning" and "modern learning" is tougher than "Wilt Chamberlain" versus "Michael Jordan." The amount of knowledge and usage of high abstractions is incomparable. Imagine what we've learned in the last 500 years, and then forget it all and teach children that. They'll finish school in one year.

If your goal is to create a capable laborer for a specific job that won't change in their lifetime, apprenticeships are the way to go. However, if your goal is to teach a person many abstract ideas not specifically related to a particular job, it won't work.

3. It's a popular idea to teach with real-world examples and learn by doing ("general abstractions" vs. "hyperspecific things," "do and watch" vs. "study"). But how many things that you study in school can you touch or do? If you throw away the last 500 years, then yes, what's left you can definitely touch. For example, the author refers to "economic reasoning." Okay, let's create a real-world example and have the student either do it or watch how someone else does it. Hard, right?

4. We can actually use "real-world examples" and "do and watch" for almost anything students are learning. For example, we could go with the class to a nuclear power plant and 'do and watch' there. There are two issues: many things will not be allowed for students, and it would take years to finish just one year of school. We may call not using it "an embarrassment," but there is a reason for it.

5. "Human beings, it appears, are nearly unique in the animal world for being able to learn something by watching somebody else do it." This is simply not true.

6. "It’s often not so important to understand the reasons why you should do something as it is to see it being performed correctly." We do so much of this in real life unintentionally. Imagine a world where we do it intentionally. What would happen if things changes faster and faster? Who would pay all of these "real-world example" learners during their transition?

7. "Most theories are wrong anyway." You may read this and skip the other parts.

8. He got the pyramid model wrong. Putting a base first doesn't mean learning all of math first, then physics, then chemistry, then biology. A biology base may be about the differences and similarities of animals and plants, and the types of animals.

9. "...this must mean we have an ironclad theory of how scientific knowledge is produced. Except we don’t." Yes, we actually have a scientific method. He probably couldn't "do and watch" it, so it fell out of his sight.