Another Example of Less Teaching Leading to More Learning

Delinquent boys made huge academic gains when freed from classroom lessons.

Now here’s yet another bit of education research that nobody today talks about. It was published in 1930 in the academic journal School and Society under the title “An Experiment in Self-Directed Education,” by Herbert Williams, the teacher who carried out the research.

The experiment was started in January, 1924, and lasted until the beginning of June that year. During that period the boys were excused from regular school classes and, instead, were assigned to a special room created for them in a technical school. The room was equipped with desks, blackboards, a large table, and a collection of books, including storybooks, nonfiction works, and textbooks for the various grades. The boys were given standard academic achievement tests in January and again, four months later, in May.

And now, I know no better way to convey what happened than to quote Williams directly:

In concluding the article, Williams wrote:

Wouldn’t it be great if education authorities would take a look back at some of these old research studies and try repeating them today? Today education authorities seem to think the only solution to educational deficiency is more teaching — more of the same of what already isn’t working. But research such as Benezet’s and Williams’s suggests that the solution might lie in less teaching and more trust.

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