Greater expectations

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

One January morning in 1800, a mysterious being emerged from the woods near Aveyron in France. The size of a twelve-year-old boy, dressed only in a torn shirt, this strange creature was unbothered by the winter cold and oblivious to his nakedness. He grunted but didn't speak, and he ate ravenously, pulling potatoes from a fire with his bare hands. For obvious reasons, he became known as the "Wild Boy of Aveyron."

Coinciding with the Age of Enlightenment, the discovery of the wild boy stimulated considerable controversy among philosophers and educators. Was he an example of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "noble savage," untainted by the social restrictions that had suffocated Europe for centuries? Would the boy learn to speak and look after himself as his innate abilities emerged, like Rousseau's Émile? Or, following John Locke, was he a tabula rasa that needed to be filled in by carefully designed experiences?

Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, a Parisian doctor, undertook to answer these questions. He adopted the child, naming him Victor after a character in a play about a wild child. (Apparently, the woods were full of wild boys in those days.) With persistence and patience, Itard set out to civilise Victor using what he considered to be progressive teaching methods. He devised games to encourage the child to "discover" how to read and speak, and he took Victor on field trips, such as visits to the zoo, to help him learn the names of animals. Itard believed that a stimulating environment, progressive education, and a dedicated teacher could compensate for Victor's deprivation during his solitary years in the woods.

Unfortunately, Itard's teaching program was unsuccessful. Victor only learned to say one word-lait (milk). After five years, the teacher and pupil parted ways. Victor remained in the care of Itard's housekeeper until he died. He could not return to the woods, yet he never fit into the urban world of Paris. His sad fate called into question the efficacy of Itard's teaching methods. However, modern educators have retrospectively let Itard off the hook. Instead of blaming the teacher, they assign the fault to Victor, whose supposed "autism" rendered him unable to learn.

The persistence of romanticism in education

Education has long been caught by utopian ideals rooted in Rousseau's vision of the "noble savage." Education, according to this view, requires freeing students from formal teaching methods and letting their natural learning abilities emerge. For over 200 years, these ideas influenced teaching despite little or no empirical evidence that they worked. Proponents relied on an emotional appeal: every child has the potential to self-actualise; all they need is love and the freedom to explore the world in their own "natural" way.

Even now, in the early 21st century, sentimental notions about learning remain resilient. One notable example is the persistence of whole language learning. Based on the idea that children learn to read by being exposed to texts and deriving meaning from context, whole language learning dominated education practice for decades. Teachers were encouraged to allow their students to "discover" how language worked, rather than breaking it down for them through explicit instruction.

This advice was more wishful thinking than effective pedagogy. The persistence of student failure in progressive education systems, especially among disadvantaged students who lacked exposure to rich literacy environments at home, forced a reevaluation and a shift in approach.

The shift to explicit teaching: everything is politics

Thomas Mann once said, "Everything is politics." And this certainly includes education. The battle over how best to teach reading became a focal point in the so-called reading wars, a debate over equity and social justice. The conflict pitted proponents of phonics and other forms of direct instruction against advocates of whole language learning, but the debate extended far beyond pedagogy. It was, in many ways, a reflection of broader ideological divisions in society.

Teachers who support discovery learning tend to be progressives politically. They framed their approach as more inclusive, arguing that phonics was too rigid and failed to account for the diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds of many students. However, research demonstrated that whole language instruction was failing the very students it sought to help-particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds who lacked access to rich literacy environments at home. For these and most other students, phonics provided the structured support they needed to develop foundational reading skills. As a result, phonics advocates were able to argue that their approach was more equitable and socially just, as it gave all students an equal opportunity to succeed.

Government policies and intervention played a significant role in the reading wars. In the United States, the debate became particularly heated in the early 2000s with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) under the George W. Bush administration. NCLB tied federal funding to schools' adherence to scientifically based reading research, which overwhelmingly favoured phonics instruction. The act's emphasis on standardised testing and accountability further solidified phonics as the dominant approach in many public schools.

Meanwhile, in Australia, John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory became central to the argument for explicit teaching. Sweller's research demonstrated that learning is most efficient when complex tasks are broken down into smaller, manageable parts, with teachers guiding students through these steps. His theory suggested that discovery learning often overwhelms students, especially those without prior knowledge because it assumes they can process large amounts of new information at once. In contrast, explicit teaching minimises cognitive overload by scaffolding instruction-ensuring students master each foundational skill before moving on. Sweller's work gave educators a robust scientific framework to support their position.