An Essential Book for Teachers, Parents, and Anyone Interested in Learning

Willingham uses insights into how the brain works to provide better recommendations for teachers and schools.

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 Willingham, Jossey-Bass, 2009, 228 pages

The verdict: Willingham’s book should be assigned and put into practice by schools of education nationwide.

WHY THIS BOOK MATTERS

By and large, students don’t like school. According to the American Institute of Stress, “75% of high school students report experiencing boredom, anger, sadness, fear, or stress in school.” The consequences range from everyday boredom to more serious mental health concerns. CDC data reveal that suicides and suicidal ideation are significantly higher during the school year than during summer and winter breaks. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In Why Don’t Students Like School, Willingham explains how classrooms and schools can be designed to make learning inspiring instead of depressing.

THE ARGUMENT

In Why Don’t Students Like School, Willingham presents nine fundamental principles about how the mind works and what it means for teaching and learning. Two pithy examples are “factual knowledge must precede skills” and “memory is the residue of thought.” Taken together and put into practice, these principles can transform the classroom into a place where students are eager and well-positioned to learn. Many of Willingham’s insights challenge today’s well-meaning “child-centered” practices, arguing that they actually do children a disservice. For example, he contends that the theory of “learning styles” is overblown and that it’s impossible to teach abstract “skills” without first teaching facts.

Willingham’s nine principles each comprise their own chapter. Each chapter opens with a question and answer illustrating the principle, followed by a thorough explanation, often accompanied by helpful figures and fun examples. They end with “implications for the classroom.” These practical applications mean that teachers (and homeschool parents) can put Willingham’s advice into action immediately. Willingham also puts his own advice into practice, presenting material that might seem dull or daunting in other hands in a way that is memorable and exciting.

“Teaching, like any cognitive skill, must be practiced to be improved.”

WHAT WORKS

Almost everything about this book works. The text itself demonstrates that Willingham’s principles can be used to teach more effectively: he employs them throughout. One example comes in chapter six (“What’s the Secret to Getting Students to Think Like Real Scientists, Mathematicians, and Historians”). Willingham argues that students cannot simply be taught to think like experts. Only a well-stocked mental toolbox, shaped by hours of practice, transforms novices into experts. In keeping with that principle, he treats his readers like novices in cognitive science, equipping them with the facts they need, building on early chapters, and using mental tricks to help readers remember what he has written. As a result, this book has stayed with me since I first read it half a decade ago.

WHAT DOESN'T

Willingham’s very short section on “How to Evaluate Which Knowledge to Instill” sidesteps the question by reframing it. To a cognitive scientist, he argues, “the question What should students be taught? is equivalent not to What knowledge is important? but rather to What knowledge yields the greatest cognitive benefit?” Thus, his answer—“whatever information writers assume [readers] know and hence leave out”—is ultimately unsatisfying. He adds that “we may still be distressed that much of what writers assume their readers know seems to be touchstones of the culture of dead white males.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Far too many students dislike school, leading to disengagement and ultimately failure. Nearly a third of 12th-graders read at a “below basic” level. Such students are thus unable to participate fully in work, family, or civic life. They cannot reach the first rung of the ladder to the American dream. The longterm health of our society depends on finding more effective ways to reach these students.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Teachers are the single most important in-school factor affecting student achievement. Every teacher, from novice to veteran, should read Why Don’t Students Like School and put its insights into practice. It has the potential to change their students’ lives.