implemented twenty-first-century education strategies in their public school system through govern-
ment policies (12).
6 Kevin S. Krahenbuhl,“Student-Centered Education and Constructivism: Challenges, Concerns, and Clarity
for Teachers,”The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas89/3 (2016): 31.
7 Government of British Columbia,“BC’s New Curriculum,”https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum-info,
accessed January 17, 2017.
8 For a critical analysis of the Alberta plan, see Sean Steel,“Transformative Education? A Philosophic-
Augustinian Response to the 2010 Albertan Reform Initiatives in‘Inspiring Education’,”Interchange
43 (2012): 43–55.
9 Paul Kirschner, John Sweller and Richard E. Clark,“Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not
Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-
based Teaching,”Educational Psychologist42/2 (2006): 75. See Anna Stokke,“What to do About
Canada’s Declining Math Scores,”Commentary no. 427, (May 2015), C.D. Howe Institute, (4), and Daisy
Christodoulou,Seven Myths About Education(London: The Curriculum Centre, 2013) where in Chapter
Three Krahenbuhl points out that“Jamin Carson (2005) outlined the metaphysical and epistemological
assumptions one must adhere to if accepting constructivist pedagogy,”including the claim that“reality is
dependent on the perceiver, and thus constructed.”But, as Krahenbuhl observes,“these assumptions are
typically unstated and less often even considered(emphasis added)”(3).
10 Ken Robinson,“All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education,”National Advisory Committee on
Creative and Cultural Education [England], (1999), 14, quoted in Christodoulou,Seven Myths About
Education,48–9.
11 Michael Fullan and Geoff Scott,“New Pedagogies for Deep Learning Whitepaper,”Seattle: Collaborative
Impact SPC, July 2014, 3.“For the first time in history the mark of an educated person is that of a doer
(a doer-thinker; a thinker-doer)–they learn to do, and do to learn. They are impatient with lack of action”3.
12 Richard E. Mayer,“Should there be a Three Strikes Rule Against Pure Discovery Learning? The Case
for Guided Methods of Instruction,”American Psychologist59/1 (2004): 14.“According to this interpret-
ation, passive venues involving books, lectures, and online presentations are classified as non-constructivist
teaching whereas active venues such as group discussions, hands-on activities, and interactive games are
classified as constructivist teaching.”
13 John Dewey,Democracy and Education(Paradigm Publishing, 2014 [Macmillan, 1916]). Kindle edition, 10.
14 DanielH.Carao,JennyLenkeitandLeonidasKyriakides,“Teaching Strategies and Differential Effectiveness
Across Learning Contexts: Evidence from PISA 2012,”Studies in Educational Evaluation49 (2016): 31.
15 Dewey,Democracy and Education, 13.“When the acquiring of information and of technical intellectual
skill do not influence the formation of a social disposition, ordinary vital experience fails to gain in
meaning, while schooling, in so far, creates only‘sharps’in learning–that is, egoistic specialists.”
16 Christodoulou,Seven Myths, 38.
17 Patrick Malcolmson, Richard Myers and Colin O’Connell,Liberal Education and Value Relativism: A
Guide to Today’sBA(Lanham: University Press of America, 1996), 56.
18 Anthony T. Kronman,Educations’End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the
Meaning of Life(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 180–83.
19 Ibid., 151.
20 Leon Craig argues,“the acceptance of this view undermines all confidence in the principles that have
guided Western life for almost three millennia, while it precludes our discovering any that are better
(denying as it does any rational basis for judging better or worse). The fact-value distinction represents
nothing less than the rejection of reason as adequate for disclosing how one ought to live.”Leon Craig,The
War Lover: A Study of Plato’s Republic(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), note 19: 329.
21 Paul Kirschneret al.,“Why Minimal Guidance,”75.
22 Ibid., 76.
23 Ibid., 76.
24 E.D. Hirsch Jr.,“Sustaining the American Experiment,”inKnowledge at the Core: Don Hirsch. Core
Knowledge, and the Future of the Common Core, Chester E. Finn and Michael J. Petrilli, eds. (New York:
Thomas Fordham Institute, 2014), 7.
25 Paul Kirschneret al.,“Why Minimal Guidance,”79. Emphasis added.
26 Anna Stokke,“What to Do About Canada’s Declining Math Scores,”Commentary No.427, (CD Howe
Institute, May 2015), 4.
27 Hilda Neatby,So Little for the Mind(Toronto: Clarke Irwin and Company, 1953), 95.
28 Ibid., 90.
29 Plato,The Republic of Plato, Allan Bloom, trans. (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 536e. All subsequent
citations are in-text.
The Socratic Method and John Dewey 91