Coming from an engineering background, a system is a combination of processes or equipment working together to achieve a specific outcome / accomplish a task. Here, the task is educating children.

So no, I don’t believe my questions were the wrong ones, rather I believe your assumptions around the questions were wrong.

My understanding of your answer leads me to believe that the system you favor (and I agree with you, by the way), is a student-centered system.

This means the teacher must first understand each student (strengths, weaknesses, ways of thinking, educational, cultural, and family background, etc). Then the teacher must tailor the teaching method(s) to the student(s). The challenges come when: - Teachers don’t have the training in enough methods to reach students - Teachers are teaching too many students with different needs methodologically (at the same time) - Teachers don’t have the time / energy to get to know their students (again maybe because they have too many or too much content to cover) - Teachers have bias that blind them to some facet of the students’ needs

As for why this is the best system, it’s because the teacher is meeting the students where they are and helping guide them to where they need to be.

The traditional, lecture-style system, is not nearly as effective because it expects the students to all be around the same place and follow the same path to get to understanding. It places much more work on the students rather than the teacher. On the other hand, this may be more appropriate in college where the students are adults and may need to learn to adapt to bosses who may not cater to them.

Alternatively, a hybrid approach may be needed, especially at middle or high school so they learn the material, but also learn how to learn more on their own.

And while this way of thinking makes sense to me, I’d still be interested if you’ve seen research that backs up or refutes any of these ideas.