That's from The Great Didactic , a book written by John Comenius and published in 1632, but it could just as easily have come from today's newspaper. The most effective instructional practices available are seldom to be found in schools, and when they do appear they are soon dropped. For some time I have been trying to understand why this occurs. How well a person teaches has little to do with how well he or she fares in a school system. In fact, superior performance is more likely to result in the teacher being assigned larger classes, more difficult students, or additional administrative work.
Teaching effectively is more work.
Research shows, for example, that students learn more when teachers are on their feet, asking questions, providing feedback, and moving about the class providing assistance. At the end of five hours of this, most people are exhausted. It's much easier for the teacher to give the students an assignment and sit at a desk marking papers. The movers and shakers move on. Change comes into a system because of the work of change agents.