[SiVal]

Do yourself a big favor and read the book "Why Don't Students Like School?" by Prof. Daniel T. Willingham. He's a prof of psych at the University of Virginia specializing in the application of cog sci and neuro sci to K-12 education.

I don't know who chose the title, but it doesn't describe the book, which is really a collection of articles about the results of experiments comparing various learning & teaching techniques. Only one chapter is about why children, who like learning some things, don't like school.

Willingham publishes in academic journals and in journals for educators, so you can find other writings online. He tries to persuade teachers that so much of what the elite grad schools of education teach is intellectual fashion out of touch with actual cog sci findings, but all he cares about are the science experiments.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Huge upvotes for this. The book isn't just about learning, it's about how our minds really work - as opposed to how we think they work.

It's as useful for insights into practical intelligence as it is for theory-of-teaching.