"Novices learn best from explicit instruction" is a robust (though far from universal) finding. But what is a novice? In American educational discourse, students are often considered perpetual novices, because each math class, for instance, introduces a new fact or procedure. That student=novice appears so obvious it is rarely questioned. But this is less a fact than a perspective, a choice. Japanese and Singaporean math classes do not treat children at perpetual novices. Neither do Socratic seminars. Neither do basketball practices for 10 year olds. In fact, rarely is a child a true novice at whatever you're doing with them. My daughter is 9 years old and was asking me this weekend about exchange rates, and we got into a conversation about international monetary policy. Even there, she had background knowledge to build on! And that's before you start talking about something like literary analysis, a field in which she already has maybe 100 hours of experience (what is a discussion of a Disney movie from the perspective of the villain, if not a form of literary analysis?) which itself builds on maybe 1000 hours of reading. Again, not a novice. Knowledge matters. But students rarely have no knowledge of a subject, just as teachers rarely have perfect knowledge of it. That fact provides opportunities for unscripted discussion and mutual learning that are the foundation of meaningful human relationships.