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Posted on 08/08/2025 11:44:28 AM PDT by karpov
“In most college classrooms,” wrote Alison King in a seminal 1993 article, “the professor lectures and the students listen and take notes. The professor is the central figure, the ‘sage on the stage,’ the one who has the knowledge and transmits that knowledge to the students. […] In this view of teaching and learning,” King argued, “students are passive learners rather than active ones.” And, she continued, “such a view is outdated and will not be effective for the twenty-first century.”
Instead of the transmittal theory described above, King championed a constructivist theory of learning according to which “knowledge [is] constructed—or reconstructed—by each individual knower through the process of trying to make sense of new information in terms of what that individual already knows”—a process called “active learning.” What students need, according to this view, is not a “sage on the stage” but a “guide on the side.” “Essentially,” King explained, “the professor’s role [as a ‘guide on the side’] is to facilitate students’ interaction with the material and with each other in their knowledge-producing endeavor.”
King’s article is a somewhat more modest proposal than contemporary readers familiar with the terminology might expect. But reformation efforts often trigger more revolutionary impulses in others. By 2014, Charles D. Morrison of Wilfred Laurier University was not only referring to “the now-clichéd shift from ‘sage on the stage’ to ‘guide on the side’” but was also declaring that it was only “a good start.” Four years later, Ted Dintersmith even approvingly described a school that “has no teachers, just a few adult ‘guides’ who aren’t expected to be subject-matter experts or allowed to answer questions.”
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
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We have a ringside seat for civilization collapse.
The idiots of modern education don’t care if the students actually learn anything. Furthermore, they permit complaints from those who don’t want to learn to frustrate the learning of the students who do. The “experts” with the education degrees are largely educated idiots.
There is huge variation in quality of the sage on the stage. Go watch a few Richard Feynman Physics lectures for an example of what a high quality teacher looks like.
What is needed is a reversal of the classroom / homework schema.
For homework, the student watches high quality lectures a la Feynman.
In class, you have a lesser sage able to answer questions about the material and help students through the rough parts / areas where the student is having trouble.
What you describe is exactly what the author says is wrong.
And I am disagreeing with the author. I see a need for the live SME, just playing a different role than currently.
Realize that I am coming at this from a strong STEM background. Not everybody is cut out for that, and not everybody who is an SME is cut out for deliver their knowledge via a lecture.
Do the students actually listen? I think a lot of it depends on the subject matter too. I certainly wouldn’t want my mechanic to learn entirely via lecture, guide on the side is definitely the way to teach a lot of stuff. The problem is, as always, trying to go one size fits all, it’s a great Zappa album but a crappy way to do pretty much everything.
We went on to have a good discussion about income distribution and policies. Thinking that students can self-direct a classroom is stupid and just an extension of the participation trophy mentality that is designed to fool students that they are learning something via a classroom free-for-all. You need teachers who draws students into the conversation, not put them in charge of it.
What’s even better is on-line learning sourced from Europe to teach the basics of the trades. /s
not a “sage on the stage” but a “guide on the side.”
Does everything have to rhyme all the time? Guess it’s the only way to glean what you mean.
“For homework, the student watches high quality lectures a la Feynman.”
I am not impressed with his lecture videos. Outdated and of poor quality. His presentation is distracting obscure and reeks of entertainment rather than knowledge transfer.
If a college put me on your course of study I would transfer.
Also, a student needs to learn by getting their hands dirty by actually working problems to their solutions, not by circle-jerking with a guide.
University prof here with decades of experience. Sage on a stage works great in my classroom. No tech except chalk and a blackboard, or occasionally if I can’t find a new room, a marker and eraserboard.
“This is a crock of crap. I have 40+ years of university teaching at both the undergrad and grad level. The “sage on the stage” works fine...if done correctly.”
I don’t understand why you think “Don’t Yank the Sage From His Stage” is a crock of crap.
No, I was arguing against pulling the sage. He stated that some argue that the sage is no longer needed, which is what I was arguing against.
I think we’re from the same school...
Are there any sages left?
Perhaps the most under-utilized vocational training institution in the US is the military. I had a HS friend who went into the military when I went into college. He ended up fixing jet engines. He got out after 8 years and probably made twice what I did as university professor for the rest of his life. So many teens would be better off today if they had opted for the military after HS graduation.
“No, I was arguing against pulling the sage. He stated that some argue that the sage is no longer needed, which is what I was arguing against.”
Your “This” referred back to the article which supported the sage an th sage. He, the author, was NOT arguing that the sage is no longer needed, as you imply.
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