There is a growing body of literature that makes the case that learning how to learn is every bit as important as the content of instructional material. A significant part of that research also suggests that the key to successful learning resides with enabling the learner to learn and not with enabling the instructor to teach. That creates special challenges for teachers because the teacher is nevertheless intimately involved with the learning process. What is different about current thinking on the subject of learning is that the way teachers and students handle their respective roles can be decisive for whether any learning actually takes place. That is the subject of this research.
Many learning theories have emerged over the years, in part as a response to the perception that educational systems have been largely incompetent at educating students. Traditional methods of instruction, which position teachers as expert and authoritarian systems and which emphasize the importance of memorization and rote, were under scrutiny for much of the 20th century. However, actual implementation of innovative practices lagged behind the discourse of learning theory, and even today there persists a view that the problem with failed education lies in the content of the curriculum. Education fails not because students lack academic ability or "willingness to learn but because of inherent shortcomings in curricular organization. A systemic failure to teach all children the knowledge they need in order to understand what the next grade has to offer is the major source of avoidable injustice in our schools" (Hirsch, 1999, p. 33).
Hirsch is sharply critical of 20th-century proponents of progressive education as it evolved over the course of the 20th century. He says that John Dewey, who is generally regarded as the father of progressive education in the US, was misunderstood by some learning theorists and was used improperly to justify a whole ran...