Project-Based Learning vs. 'Drill-and-Kill'? Just Say Yes.

A false dichotomy has formed in the education world: rote practice versus project-based learning.

As in music, it’s important to both drill the knowledge & skills AND pull it all together into a cumulative performance.

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I have a confession. When I was a kid, food fights, I kind of got the appeal. But as an adult, not so much.

Yet we have food fights all the time in education.

And we pit things against each other that I don't think are actually diametrically opposed to each other.

Here's a classic one. Have you ever heard an educator say, no more drill and kill? It’s not good for kids! And while what they might mean is they don't want someone doing just busy work for its own sake on something that they've already mastered, what they also often mean is that they don't think it's important for someone to work repeatedly at a foundational skill to really ingrain it in their long-term memory.

On the other side, you'll get the people who just say, no project-based learning. I don't want students learning projects, just direct instruction. None of this inquiry-based learning or anything like that. And what I think they mean is that there has to be something substantive in the learning. It can't just be a whiz-bang project masking as learning. They really also need to learn the knowledge underlying something and automate these things. But what they're also saying is that why you're learning something, its relevance, I'm not sure it matters, is what they're saying. That putting these things into larger context, not that important.

And to think about how absurd these two poles are, all you gotta do is think about music. Learning piano, for example. Like, do you think that it's not important to learn scales? (music playing)

Maybe it's not important to practice, say, your octaves? (music playing)

You get the idea, right? But what about practicing some different patterns for jazz or something like that? (music playing)

Is that not important? I mean, you know, yes, it's meat and potato stuff, but it's critical for foundations. And yeah, it's kind of drill and kill. And yet it turns out that it's pretty important to commit your times table to long-term memory for more advanced math and science and engineering.

But now here's the thing, if you told most people, hey, the only thing that you're gonna learn this year is scales, because trust me, scales, like those are really important, they're not gonna do that. They want a project, they want a performance, they wanted the scales to be a part of a whole. And like, I'm willing to do the work, but most kids, not all, but most, they want it to be for a reason. They want that relevance. And that's the performance. They want to work on those patterns and scales and octaves so that they can play something like this. (music playing)

Or so that they can play something like this. (music playing)

You get the idea, right?

And look, they don't want that performance or that project to be the dessert. No, they want it to be the main course. It's the purpose. The repetitive practice, the drill and kill—that's also so I can build the muscle memory and the muscles and automate my skill set so that I can then play those pieces and express myself.

But it isn't one thing or the other.

As with so much in education, rather than an “or,” we need to move to a both-and. And see that at some points, look for a novice, like one set of exercises to build a foundation, that's going to be critical. Like the performance for a novice isn't going to be one of those pieces I just played, but maybe something simpler like this.

And look, maybe if, you know, I'm not an expert, maybe I'm, you know, or if I am an expert, maybe I'm not doing sort of simple exercises like this. (music playing)

But maybe I am—even in the beginning just to warm up—because both the drill and kill and the projects are important.

And let's be real. Tell me that LeBron James is not spending time drilling his free throws and working on his mechanics, but he's also scrimmaging and playing games.

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