We Teach How, Never Why

I recently watched a video teaching ICT, specifically web development and PHP. It was lesson 10 from the A/L examination syllabus here in Sri Lanka.

People explain PHP itself. This is PHP, do this, connect it like that, and so on. But I rarely see anyone explain why PHP, and how PHP actually connects. Someone built PHP for a reason, and that reason never gets mentioned.

The thing is, a student's capacity is very different from what people assume. Teachers often do not like students questioning things, and many of them do not actually know why PHP was built. Learning the syntax is easy for these students, they have sharper minds than we give them credit for. We just have to connect the dots for them, and then everything clicks.

I think this needs to be fixed soon, otherwise we are heading for real trouble in the industry. Without that kind of understanding, it is very hard to keep up with new tools. People keep playing around with tools, but they do not understand what those tools really are.