All Hail Explicit Instruction – But Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

Education loves a holy grail. The current one? Explicit instruction. You can’t swing a lanyard in a staff meeting without hitting someone proclaiming the virtues of teacher-led, step-by-step lessons. According to the new orthodoxy, if your lesson isn’t drenched in learning objectives, success criteria, worked examples, and the sacred “I do, we do, you do,” you’re basically committing pedagogical sin. To be fair, it’s backed by research. Hattie’s meta-analysis gives explicit instruction a juicy effect size of 0.59. That’s nothing to sneeze at. It works. But here’s the thing: we’ve taken a good thing, something teachers were already doing, and turned it into a cult. We’re now in the age of explicit instruction absolutism. It’s kale all over again—yes, it’s good for you, but that doesn’t mean you eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while burning your spice rack. Balance, people.

You’ve heard the sermons: structure is salvation, inquiry is anarchy, and if your lesson plan deviates from the holy sequence, the learning gods will smite your NAPLAN scores. Learning must be teacher-led, outcomes must be on the board, and God help you if you let students talk before the plenary slide. But here’s the problem: we’ve mistaken clarity for completeness. Structure is essential, especially for novice learners, but it’s not everything. And it’s definitely not the only thing. There’s a tendency to caricature anything vaguely student-centred as dangerous fluff. “If you’re not modelling the steps, you must be letting kids discover photosynthesis by licking leaves.” Come on. We can do better than false dichotomies.

Even the most carefully structured, crystal-clear, explicit lesson will crash and burn if your class is disengaged. You can model the perfect math problem. You can align it with curriculum outcomes. You can even laminate your learning intentions. But if Johnny in the back row is more invested in attaching his phone to the underside of the desk with chewing gum than in quadratic equations, you’re preaching to the void.

Explicit instruction works only when students are mentally and emotionally present. If they’re not, you’re just narrating PowerPoints into the abyss.

So, what do we do? Ditch explicit instruction? Of course not. We use it like every other tool we have. So, how do we move beyond this false idol of one-strategy-to-rule-them-all? We marry the best of all models: a blended approach that pulls together pieces from multiple frameworks, even those that sound contrarian, to create something more powerful. It’s time to play mix-and-match with the best ideas out there. Here are some of my favourites:

Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction

The classic playbook for structuring a lesson. Gagné gives us a structured cognitive sequence: grab attention, activate prior knowledge, guide learning, check understanding, give feedback. It’s explicit instruction with a psychological backbone. You still teach clearly, but with a sense of how brains actually learn. Use it to design lessons, not just deliver them. In plain terms, Gagné gives you a solid skeleton for your lesson – a beginning, middle, and end that actually helps stuff stick.

Canter’s Assertive Discipline

A stalwart from the 1970s, this model reminds us that students need boundaries and teachers have the right (and responsibility) to set them. Assertive discipline isn’t about yelling or being a tyrant; it’s about being clear, firm, and consistent in your expectations. Teaching is hard enough without sword fights in the back row.

You can’t do high-impact instruction in a low-trust environment. Assertive discipline isn’t about control for its own sake; it’s about protecting the space where learning happens. In our blended model, Canter’s approach ensures that all the fancy instructional strategies in the world aren’t derailed by chaos.

Glasser’s Choice Theory

Now we add a dash of student autonomy and psychology. Glasser’s work basically says people (including kids) don’t want to be controlled by others, and the truth is you can’t control them anyway. We can only control our own behaviours. Trying to control others is a fool’s errand. You can entice, encourage, even threaten, but not control. Glasser says behaviour is driven by internal needs—power, freedom, belonging. So instead of trying to dominate behaviour, let’s design classrooms where students choose to behave and learn because they feel it’s their education. Give choices. Involve students in goal-setting. Treat them like humans, not data points. When students feel agency, you’ll get more effort and fewer battles.

Student-Centred Learning

This is a broad umbrella, but at its heart, it means shifting some focus from the teacher delivering content to students actively engaging with content. Explicit instruction says, “Here’s how it’s done.” Student-centred learning says, “Now you try – your way.” This isn’t chaos; it’s structured exploration. Think group projects, inquiry, peer teaching. Students apply what you taught—creatively, collaboratively, and often with surprising insight. Student-centred learning injects creativity, critical thinking, and relevance into the mix. It’s where students often find that spark of enjoyment because they’re doing something, not just watching or listening

Soft Skills Development

Ah, the beloved 21st-century skills – communication, teamwork, problem-solving, empathy. Call them what you want, but they certainly aren’t 21^st-century inventions, and they’re more important than learning the quadratic formula. Employers crave them, and our students need them. If we churn out kids who can ace standardised tests but can’t work in a team, manage their time, or communicate their ideas, we’ve failed. No one ever got fired for not knowing the periodic table, but plenty of people have lost jobs due to poor communication and zero teamwork. Our students need to do school, but live life. Build soft skills into your day-to-day routines. Group tasks, peer feedback, and classroom discussions.

Community Building:

Last, but not least, a focus on relationships and classroom community underpins everything. Research (and common sense) tell us that students learn better when they feel they belong in a supportive community of learners. And remember: a classroom is a community, not a production line. In the words of the late Rita Pierson, kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. Relationships matter! Belonging matters! In classrooms where students feel safe and known, they learn more and misbehave less. Shocking, I know.

At this point, someone’s realising this shit is hard. Yes, it is. Teach explicitly, manage behaviour, personalise learning, teach soft skills, and build trust. Yes. Yes. And, well, yes. Welcome to teaching. But here’s the thing: you’re likely doing most of it already. This isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing it on purpose.

The best teachers are already blending approaches. They just don’t call it a model. They call it Tuesday.

Engagement: The Secret Sauce

Let’s be real: explicit instruction only thrives in an engaged classroom. You can be the clearest, cleverest content-deliverer on Earth—but if no one’s listening, you might as well be reading the syllabus into a fan. Gagné’s first step is “gain attention.” So start there: with a hook, a story, a bit of showmanship. Know what your students care about. Don’t be afraid to make them laugh, or think, or both.

Engagement is the secret sauce that brings out the flavour of every other ingredient. It isn’t something you get by telling students, “Pay attention, this is important” – it’s earned by designing learning that is interesting and by showing students you care about their success. It’s earned by mixing that structure with some choice, that seriousness with some fun, that discipline with some compassion.

And when you’re modelling? Don’t drone. Ask for input. Invite students to rephrase, debate, and reflect. Guided practice? Do it in pairs. Group it. Move it. Make it social.

Even assessment can be flexible. Let students choose how to show you what they know. Want to write an essay? Great. Prefer a podcast? Even better. As long as the learning outcomes are hit, the path can vary. That’s Glasser meets Gagné with a sprinkle of relevance. And feedback? Make it explicit and human. “You missed this step” + “You’ve got the right idea, keep pushing.” Precision and encouragement, hand in hand.

Explicit Teaching ≠ Empty Teaching

Explicit instruction isn’t the enemy. It’s the map. But without fuel, engagement, motivation, and connection, it’s just an empty promise. The best classrooms hum because they’re alive. Students are thinking, laughing, collaborating, and struggling. But they’re in it. They care. And when they care, the lesson works. So no, you don’t have to pick a side in the great pedagogical war. You just have to teach like a professional.

And maybe, just maybe, let Johnny keep his gum, as long as he’s not sticking it under the desk…  again.

Before the education purists start sharpening their red pens, let me be clear: this isn’t the holy grail of teaching. It’s not the one true gospel. It’s not the way. It’s a way—my way. A blend that works for me, in my context, with my students, backed by some research, tempered by a few years of getting it wrong, and shaped by the bruises of actual classroom experience. What I’ve offered here is a model. It might work for you. It might not. But I’ll guarantee this: doubling down on any one thing, be it explicit teaching, inquiry, or project-based learning, as the universal answer? That’s not nuance. That’s dogma. And classrooms don’t need dogma. They need teachers who can think.

Nuance is not weakness. It’s wisdom.