If you play violin, but do not play scales (the violin equivalent of drill), you will not achieve past a certain point. Playing scales also highlights the importance of finger placement, simply for the sake of good technique. I would think the same holds for being able to land correctly in the long jump, or vault correctly etc, but I have no experience with sports. Even a fabulously talented basketball player presumably has to practice getting the ball in basket, because when he has the chance to put it in, he wants his scoring to be as close to a sure thing as possible.
However, most kids can not see the point of drill and will rarely do it of their own accord. I think it is good for them to learn to tolerate it as part of learning how to learn.
Like I said, it can be hard to find the right balance, but it is in the nature of drilling that you do it past the point of having mastered the skill in question.
You can't really learn any language, IME, without some degree of drill. It does not matter how "good" or smart you supposedly are. It is also tedious in many ways, because you have to accumulate an awful lot of information before you can really "do" anything, like understand a TV program, talk to somebody or write a letter. The better you are at tolerating that intitial tedium, the more likely you are to succeed. I remember taking Ancient Greek in college, intro course. We started out with about 25 people, by midsemester there were 15, and by the start of second semester we were an intimate group of about 8, lol.
I DON'T think kids get enough repetition through the kinds of activities that actually require doing the skill. Take multiplication: there is the act of doing multiplication problems (which can involve actually adding up the numbers multiple times if you haven't memorized your times tables) and there is the drill of memorizing times tables. The drill of memorizing times tables makes it much easier to do the multiplication problems. Far easier than it would be if the kids had to make do with just learning the theory and then working out the problems.
Understanding the theory behind something is mandatory and it needs to come first. But putting that theory into practice will be a hard slog if the only time kids get practice is when they are actually doing the problem/writing the paper etc. That just doesn't give enough practice to transfer the info or skill into easily accessible rote memory. Life, and schoolwork, is just easier if you can use rote memory often. Think of fire drills (and all other safety and preparedness drills). People may know intellectually what they are supposed to do. But practice, practice, practice makes that information accessible much faster when they need it.
I also think the kids who seem to have mastered something may not have as much of a rote memory grip on it as it seems without worksheet drills. I suspect that kids know and understand something long before they have literally mastered it. What I mean is they can demonstrate knowledge if they think about it, but this knowledge isn't in rote memory and they actually DO have to think about it- which is slow and may be forgotten once the class is long over, which is what you see with the grammatical errors of your older students. There probably was a time when they were taught the rule but that was long ago and they never did drills and it just fell away because it didn't get put in rote memory.
I know there are teachers who overuse worksheet drills. Perhaps they feel under the gun from NCLB and worksheets drills are a knee jerk response so they feel like they are doing something. Perhaps they are just too unimaginative to come up with more creative projects. But I do think that drills have their place if used properly. I was taught with a reasonable combo of creative projects, problem sets, and rote drills. Even in college when drills were no longer assigned, I assigned them to myself because they were just so helpful in keeping me from choking on a test. Because there is knowing the material and then there is having hefty chunks of it transferred to rote memory. Only drills can do the latter and that keeps you from choking on a test in class just as fire drills keep you from choking on flames because you don't have to stop and think about what your best exit is, your legs already know.
Not all kids play violin and those who do often quit when they find out about the drills. As far as math facts, many contemporary math curricula downplay drill (I think you experienced this), ditto for most contemporary language arts curricula.
So what do "public college costing $200K per kid and a decent 4 bedroom house costing three quarters of a million bucks" have to do with parents who find themselves super-involved in all their kids' myriad activities or else feeling bad if they aren't?
When dd was in preschool, there was a boy in her class who will probable be a star athlete in highschool. Every day before school I would see him on the playground (which was shared with an elementary school) shooting baskets or throwing a ball against the wall as his grandpa sat on the bench. It was pure drill and he was enforcing it on himself. There was a look on his face that I didn't see on the faces of other 3 and 4 year old boys- his peers- who just casually threw a ball around. He really MEANT it. He was 3 (and then 4) and I saw him under that hoop from September to June. Older boys (kindy and 1st grade) would sometimes engage him in a game. His focus (at 3!!!) when playing catch with them was jaw dropping. And he was good. So much better than any other kid even a couple years older (and inches taller) than him.
And he drilled. Every freaking day. You just don't see preschoolers do that. It was uncanny. But the drive to repeat, repeat, repeat until it was beyond perfect was something that was born into him. Tha's what makes true mastery. The drill. And the drive to drill when nobody else is making you (his Grandpa wasn't making him and would sometimes admonish him to take it easy). He will be a star athlete in highschool and perhaps beyond. No doubt in my mind. Because usually kids must be made to drill but a kid who just figures out on his own that drill is the way to go...
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If you play violin, but do not play scales (the violin equivalent of drill), you will not achieve past a certain point. Playing scales also highlights the importance of finger placement, simply for the sake of good technique. I would think the same holds for being able to land correctly in the long jump, or vault correctly etc, but I have no experience with sports. Even a fabulously talented basketball player presumably has to practice getting the ball in basket, because when he has the chance to put it in, he wants his scoring to be as close to a sure thing as possible.
However, most kids can not see the point of drill and will rarely do it of their own accord. I think it is good for them to learn to tolerate it as part of learning how to learn.
Like I said, it can be hard to find the right balance, but it is in the nature of drilling that you do it past the point of having mastered the skill in question.
You can't really learn any language, IME, without some degree of drill. It does not matter how "good" or smart you supposedly are. It is also tedious in many ways, because you have to accumulate an awful lot of information before you can really "do" anything, like understand a TV program, talk to somebody or write a letter. The better you are at tolerating that intitial tedium, the more likely you are to succeed. I remember taking Ancient Greek in college, intro course. We started out with about 25 people, by midsemester there were 15, and by the start of second semester we were an intimate group of about 8, lol.
OK; I agree with you about the value of repetition,
I DON'T think kids get enough repetition through the kinds of activities that actually require doing the skill. Take multiplication: there is the act of doing multiplication problems (which can involve actually adding up the numbers multiple times if you haven't memorized your times tables) and there is the drill of memorizing times tables. The drill of memorizing times tables makes it much easier to do the multiplication problems. Far easier than it would be if the kids had to make do with just learning the theory and then working out the problems.
Understanding the theory behind something is mandatory and it needs to come first. But putting that theory into practice will be a hard slog if the only time kids get practice is when they are actually doing the problem/writing the paper etc. That just doesn't give enough practice to transfer the info or skill into easily accessible rote memory. Life, and schoolwork, is just easier if you can use rote memory often. Think of fire drills (and all other safety and preparedness drills). People may know intellectually what they are supposed to do. But practice, practice, practice makes that information accessible much faster when they need it.
I also think the kids who seem to have mastered something may not have as much of a rote memory grip on it as it seems without worksheet drills. I suspect that kids know and understand something long before they have literally mastered it. What I mean is they can demonstrate knowledge if they think about it, but this knowledge isn't in rote memory and they actually DO have to think about it- which is slow and may be forgotten once the class is long over, which is what you see with the grammatical errors of your older students. There probably was a time when they were taught the rule but that was long ago and they never did drills and it just fell away because it didn't get put in rote memory.
I know there are teachers who overuse worksheet drills. Perhaps they feel under the gun from NCLB and worksheets drills are a knee jerk response so they feel like they are doing something. Perhaps they are just too unimaginative to come up with more creative projects. But I do think that drills have their place if used properly. I was taught with a reasonable combo of creative projects, problem sets, and rote drills. Even in college when drills were no longer assigned, I assigned them to myself because they were just so helpful in keeping me from choking on a test. Because there is knowing the material and then there is having hefty chunks of it transferred to rote memory. Only drills can do the latter and that keeps you from choking on a test in class just as fire drills keep you from choking on flames because you don't have to stop and think about what your best exit is, your legs already know.
When dd was in preschool, there was a boy in her class who will probable be a star athlete in highschool. Every day before school I would see him on the playground (which was shared with an elementary school) shooting baskets or throwing a ball against the wall as his grandpa sat on the bench. It was pure drill and he was enforcing it on himself. There was a look on his face that I didn't see on the faces of other 3 and 4 year old boys- his peers- who just casually threw a ball around. He really MEANT it. He was 3 (and then 4) and I saw him under that hoop from September to June. Older boys (kindy and 1st grade) would sometimes engage him in a game. His focus (at 3!!!) when playing catch with them was jaw dropping. And he was good. So much better than any other kid even a couple years older (and inches taller) than him.
And he drilled. Every freaking day. You just don't see preschoolers do that. It was uncanny. But the drive to repeat, repeat, repeat until it was beyond perfect was something that was born into him. Tha's what makes true mastery. The drill. And the drive to drill when nobody else is making you (his Grandpa wasn't making him and would sometimes admonish him to take it easy). He will be a star athlete in highschool and perhaps beyond. No doubt in my mind. Because usually kids must be made to drill but a kid who just figures out on his own that drill is the way to go...
Pages