one must also submit to the discipline provided by imitationand practice.

they weresensible enough to recognize that one does not acquire a skill simply bystudying rules; one must also submit to the discipline provided by imitationand practice. And they recognized too that in order to derive the maximumbenefit from precept, imitation, and practice, the student had to be firedwith a desire to learn as much as his natural endowments permitted.

Cognitive-science research shows that people improve learning efficiency by practicing the set of specific cognitive tasks required for their area of expertise.11. K. A. Ericsson, R. T. Krampe, C. Tesch-Römer, Psych. Rev. 100, 363 (1993); https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.3.363A. Ericsson, R. Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, HarperOne (2017). Although that approach is based on learning research, it is uncoincidentally quite similar to the ideal master–apprentice method for traditionally teaching a craft (see figure 1).

instructors and experts must also become more legible models. This can beaccomplished through what philosopher Karsten Stueber calls “re-enactiveempathy”: an appreciation of the challenges confronting the novice that isproduced by reenacting what it was like to have once been a beginner oneself.

As Smith notes, the emulation of model texts was once a standard feature ofinstruction in legal writing; it fell out of favor because of concern that thepractice would fail to foster a capacity for independent thinking. The carefulobservation of how students actually learn, informed by research on the role ofcognitive load, may be bringing models back into fashion.

This act of imitation relieves students of some of theirmental burden, Robinson notes, allowing them to devote the bulk of theircognitive bandwidth to the content of the assignment

In studies comparing European American children withMayan children from Guatemala, psychologists Maricela Correa-Chávez andBarbara Rogoff asked children from each culture to wait while an adultperformed a demonstration—folding an origami shape—for another childnearby. The Mayan youth paid far more sustained attention to the demonstration—and therefore learned more—than the American kids, who were oftendistracted or inattentive. Correa-Chávez and Rogoff note that in Mayan homes,children are encouraged to carefully observe older family members so that theycan learn how to carry out the tasks of the household, even at very young ages.