The Three Columns and Three Kinds of Knowledge
Adler: The Three Columns
The three columns
Teaching, learning, and understanding. Each represents a different kind of learning by the student and a different kind of instruction by the teacher.
Column 1: Teaching (acquiring organised knowledge)
Three subject areas:
- Language, literature, and fine arts.
- Mathematics and natural science.
- History, geography, and social studies.
Column 2: Learning (intellectual skills)
Skills include language, reading, writing, speaking, listening, mathematical and scientific skills, observation, measurement, estimation, and calculation. They make it possible to think clearly and critically.
Column 3: Understanding (enlarging the grasp of ideas and values)
Developed through serious books (not textbooks) and through other products of human artistry. The student experiences human excellence in music, poetry, visual art, and dramatic productions, and develops an appreciation of that excellence.
Three kinds of knowledge
- Organised knowledge.
- Intellectual skills.
- Understanding of ideas and values.
The Paideia Proposal turns into a working curriculum through Adler’s three columns. The three columns are the three kinds of instruction that the school provides, the three kinds of learning the student does, and the three kinds of knowledge the education produces. The article works through what each column contains and how they fit together.
| Column | What students do | What teachers do | What is produced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teaching | Acquire information in three subject groups | Use textbooks and didactic instruction | Organised knowledge |
| Learning | Develop intellectual skills through practice | Coach repeatedly until skills are habitual | Intellectual skills |
| Understanding | Engage with great books and works of art | Lead Socratic discussion | Understanding of ideas and values |
The three columns named
Adler proposes three columns of instruction, each devoted to a different kind of learning by the student and requiring a different kind of teaching by the educator. The columns are not separate subjects; they cut across the whole curriculum.
The first column is teaching in the narrow sense: instruction devoted to acquiring knowledge in specific subject areas. The student is being given information they did not previously have. The teacher’s job is to deliver that information clearly and to make sure the student can hold it.
The second column is learning in the sense of skill development. The student is being trained in the basic intellectual skills that make thinking possible. The teacher’s job is coaching: repeated practice with feedback until the skills become habitual.
The third column is understanding in the sense of grasping ideas and values. The student is being introduced to the great ideas and the highest products of human artistry and is developing the ability to appreciate them. The teacher’s job is to lead discussion, to ask questions, and to help the student see what they would not have seen on their own.
The three columns are not optional add-ons. Every student needs all three. A school that delivers only the first column produces students who know facts but cannot think with them. A school that delivers only the second column produces students who can manipulate symbols but have nothing important to manipulate them about. A school that delivers only the third column produces students who can have deep conversations but lack the knowledge and skills to act on what they understand. The three together produce educated people. None of them alone is sufficient.
Teaching, learning, and understanding
Teaching delivers information in specific subject areas. Learning develops the intellectual skills that make thinking possible. Understanding enlarges the grasp of ideas and values through engagement with great works. Each column requires a different teaching method and produces a different kind of educational result. Every student needs all three; none alone is sufficient.
Column 1: Teaching and organised knowledge
The first column is devoted to acquiring knowledge in three subject areas. The areas are language, literature, and the fine arts; mathematics and the natural sciences; history, geography, and the social studies. The three areas between them cover the major fields of human inquiry, and the student should have substantive content in all of them.
The kind of knowledge produced in this column is organised knowledge. The student is taught how to acquire information and organised knowledge about nature, about humans, and about human society. The word organised matters. Adler is not satisfied with the student carrying around a bag of unconnected facts. The information needs to be organised into structured understanding, so that the student can locate any piece in relation to the whole.
The teaching method appropriate to this column is the didactic method: instruction delivered by a teacher who knows the material and presents it clearly to students who are taking it in. The teacher uses textbooks and manuals as supports. The student listens, reads, takes notes, and works through exercises designed to fix the material.
A modern educator may push back on this. Direct instruction is sometimes treated in modern educational theory as a discredited method, replaced by inquiry-based approaches. Adler holds that direct instruction is appropriate for this column and would be the wrong choice for the other two. The didactic method is the right method for delivering organised information efficiently. It is the wrong method for developing skills or for cultivating understanding. The educator’s job is to use each method in the column it fits.
Three subject areas (language/literature/arts, mathematics/science, history/geography/social studies), taught by the didactic method
Students acquire information and organised knowledge about nature, humans, and human society. The teacher delivers the material clearly using textbooks and manuals. The knowledge is organised, not a bag of unconnected facts. The didactic method is appropriate for this column; it is the wrong method for the other two columns.
Column 2: Learning and intellectual skills
The second column is devoted to developing intellectual skills. The list Adler gives includes language skills, reading, writing, speaking, listening, mathematical and scientific skills, and the skills of observation, measurement, estimation, and calculation. These skills make it possible to think clearly and critically. Without them, the student cannot use the knowledge acquired in the first column.
The kind of knowledge produced by this column is intellectual skills themselves. Adler describes a skill as a cultivated habitual ability to do a certain kind of thing well. Art, skill, or technique is nothing more than this: a habit of performance that lets you do something reliably and at a high level. Skills are acquired through repeated practice with feedback. They cannot be installed by a single lecture; they have to be built up over time.
Adler distinguishes the know-that of organised knowledge from the know-how of intellectual skills. Knowing that the Battle of Waterloo took place in 1815 is know-that. Knowing how to write a clear paragraph about the battle is know-how. The two are different kinds of mental possession and require different kinds of instruction. The student needs both.
The teaching method appropriate to this column is coaching. The teacher watches the student attempt the skill, sees what they are doing right and wrong, gives feedback, has them try again. The relationship between coach and student is closer than the relationship between lecturer and audience because coaching requires repeated individual contact. The coach also models the skill so the student can see what good performance looks like.
The skills produced in this column include the ones that let the student keep learning after they leave the school. A student who has been drilled in facts but who cannot read carefully, write clearly, or follow a chain of reasoning will struggle as an adult learner. A student who has the skills can keep extending their knowledge for the rest of their life. This is the practical bridge between schooling and the lifelong learning that Adler’s whole system is built on.
Intellectual skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening, mathematics, science, observation), taught by coaching
Skills are cultivated habitual abilities to do something well. They are acquired through repeated practice with feedback, not through lectures. The teaching method is coaching: the teacher watches, gives feedback, has the student try again, models the skill. Adler distinguishes the know-that of Column 1 from the know-how of Column 2; both are needed.
Column 3: Understanding through ideas and values
The third column is devoted to enlarging the student’s understanding of ideas and values. This is the deepest and the most distinctively Adlerian column.
The materials of this column are not textbooks. They are serious books (philosophy, literature, history written by serious writers) and other products of human artistry. The student experiences human excellence directly by reading the great works, listening to great music, watching great drama, looking at great visual art. The experience produces an appreciation of excellence that no textbook description can replace.
The kind of knowledge produced is understanding of ideas and values. The student engages in a process of enlightenment, gradually developing a deeper understanding of the basic and controlling ideas in all fields of subject matter, and coming to appreciate human values. The work is slow. The student moves from progressively understanding less to understanding more about what they already have experienced.
That last phrase is precise. The student has already experienced human life: love, fear, conflict, joy, justice, beauty. They have experienced these things without yet understanding them. The third column’s work is to bring the experience and the understanding together. A student reads King Lear and finds in it a depth of grief and rage they have felt themselves but had never fully understood. The reading does not give them a new experience; it gives them the conceptual and emotional tools to understand the experience they already had.
The teaching method appropriate to this column is the Socratic method: questioning and discussion. The teacher does not deliver the meaning of the great work. The teacher asks questions that lead the students to discover the meaning together, by talking and arguing through the text. This is the method Adler himself learned philosophy by, in the 1921 discussion groups. The Paideia Proposal puts it at the centre of K-12 schooling.
A teacher trained to deliver content has to learn a new way of teaching for this column. Many teachers find the shift hard. Holding back from giving answers and letting students arrive at understanding through their own working is a different discipline from delivering material clearly. The discipline is worth learning because the kind of understanding produced this way is deeper and longer-lasting than the kind produced by being told.
Engagement with great books and works of art, taught by the Socratic method
Materials are serious books and other products of human artistry, not textbooks. The student experiences human excellence directly through the works and develops an appreciation of excellence. The kind of knowledge is understanding of ideas and values, produced through a slow process of enlightenment. The teaching method is Socratic questioning and discussion, not direct instruction. The student moves from less to more understanding of experience they already have.
Organised knowledge, intellectual skills, and understanding of ideas and values
(1) Organised knowledge: information about nature, humans, and society, organised into structured understanding. (2) Intellectual skills: cultivated habitual abilities to think, read, write, speak, listen, calculate, observe. (3) Understanding of ideas and values: appreciation of the great ideas and human excellence, developed through engagement with serious works. The three correspond to the three columns of instruction.
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