When I was between the ages of 8-12, myself and a dozen of other primary school aged children, plunged into a pool and begun our first swimming lesson. It was very evident to our instructor that skill and strength were going to come through practice and doing. Small bits of technical knowledge would be followed with lots of practice and doing. When the technical knowledge had become part of our experiential knowledge, we would receive more, which was similarly followed by intense practice and doing.
An alternative teaching method the instructor could have employed, would have been to give us a years’ worth of technical knowledge to use in a pool at some future time. But taught in this way, we would have soon lost interest in swimming, and the knowledge to be applied in some distant future. Moreover, we would have had very little swimming ability to show from all our getting of technical knowledge. This alternative method rules education today, and consequently education is not creating many intellectuals.
It seems largely forgotten that we “that we learn by doing; that practice makes perfect; that example is more powerful than precept; that true education is a development—a growth, —and not a manufacture or an accretion; that ability can neither be borrowed nor lent; that strength and skill come through exercise, and not by imitation.”
The most able teacher could give learners all the technical knowledge needed to have a good command of English grammar, with hope they’ll make use of it at some future time, but knowledge that isn’t immediately applied will soon be forgotten. Children will soon lose interest in English grammar, and they will have very little skill to show in reading and writing from all their getting of technical knowledge.
From the youngest to the oldest, we should have children forever doing. We learn by doing; it is practice that makes perfect, and it is activity that builds intellectual strength.
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