[quoting Foshay, 3 Mar 97.b] I once tried to "reverse engineer" the stereotypical "traditional school" to discover what principles of teaching and learning which would have to be true if school as we know it were in fact the optimum solution. Try it some time--it's an interesting exercise!
I am reminded of Van Lehn's reverse engineering of arithmetic text books and of Mehan's analysis of interactions in an elementary school classrooms. Both of these present convincing evidence that the mechanisms of instruction and learning in classrooms depend on implicit agreements (given the charming name of "felicity conditions" by Van Lehn) between students and teachers or students and textbook writers. The origin of these agreements is itself interesting to ponder. Certainly, a failure to recognize their existence would lead one to some bizarre conclusions about teaching and learning.
So I am wondering, what then did you find interesting in the exercise? Did any of it get written down.