“Progressive” education theorists have all sorts of notions on how to improve education. One that has gained currency to the point where it’s now widely accepted is that a teacher should not be a “sage on the stage” but instead, a “guide on the side.” You see, students need to develop their own knowledge and having a teacher or professor tell them things just gets in the way.

Ah, but not everyone agrees.  In today’s Martin Center article, David Phillips makes the case for keeping the sage on the stage.

He writes,

It is undoubtedly true that many higher-education teachers aim to motivate self-guided, reflective learning. But it should absolutely not be the case that they don’t also aim to transfer knowledge, even within the confines of the teaching space. And the “sage” is in a far better position to accomplish both objectives than is the “guide”—especially when he is allowed a stage to do it from.

The progressives say that lectures turn students into passive learners, which is obviously less desirable than “active” learners.

Phillips responds,

Contrary to widespread characterizations, the sage on the stage does far more than merely transmit information to a necessarily passive audience. The lecture, write Amanda Fulford and Áine Mahon, ‘should . . . be seen as a special form of human encounter.’ And it is a human encounter that allows for the kind of “guidance” that the flipped classroom may or may not actually provide in practice.

He agrees that sometimes the “sage” approach isn’t best, but argues that it’s a mistake to discard and denigrate it.