I wonder what the difference is between a classroom with a single teacher tasked with educating a room of people who might not be interested...and apprentice with one person who likely is interested.
To me it seems that of course that an apprenticeship works better for that task....but also not a fair comparison considering the classroom goals and structure for all sorts of reasons.
I also wonder about how well apprenticeships put forth new ideas or ways of doing things.
> classroom with a single teacher tasked with educating a room of people who might not be interested...and apprentice with one person who likely is interested
In my experience, the "should be apprentice" in a class is the one ends up being frustrated by the class environment because they care.
I see classes like commercial farms - everyone gets the same amount of water, nutrients, sunlight... An apprentice's master is like an expert gardener who notice when one plant needs less sunlight and provides shade. And provides calcium when one plant needs it.
That's why small time farmers are usually the ones who create freakishly big tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins... These freakish farm produces created through painstaking personalized education would be called geniuses if they were humans.
In small classes, students often get this personalized treatment. But majority of classes aren't small.
One big difference is that a classroom has 30 or 50 or 100 students, and an in apprenticeship environment you can have probably up to 5 students. The classroom is much cheaper.
Another difference is that in an apprenticeship you can "fire" the students. In a classroom there is a big pressure to keep the students there.
Also there is a different psychological dynamic in small groups... The teacher naturally knows and cares more about the student, and the student feels socially accountable (ie. "I want to make (so-and-so) proud."
And, in a real sense, the master and apprentices are a team.
And this isn't the "we need more money and teachers" argument I'm making, just that the large-group lecture format only works well for certain stages of learning and types of learners.
> I wonder what the difference is between a classroom with a single teacher tasked with educating a room of people who might not be interested...and apprentice with one person who likely is interested.
The teacher's job is to teach and frequently teachers rate those that just finished a class as more capable then those that have a bunch of experience. Whereas in an apprenticeship the teachers are doers and are training doers. I think every first time intern I've ever hosted is always astonished at how much quicker they are learning then they were in college.
To me it seems that of course that an apprenticeship works better for that task....but also not a fair comparison considering the classroom goals and structure for all sorts of reasons.
I also wonder about how well apprenticeships put forth new ideas or ways of doing things.