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Reading @mdthib and @ethan_iverson on chord-scale theory in jazz education, how it's pedagogically useful, but only to a point. You have to start somewhere with improvisation, and scales are a place to start. But they are not enough. Case in point: the blues.
How does chord/scale theory account for the blues? Well, it lists the blues scale as one of the scales you can use. But the blues scale doesn't work like other scales.
If you haven't done chord/scale theory, the basic idea is simple: in jazz, chords and scales are two different aspects of the same thing. Dorian mode is a minor seventh chord plus its extensions played sequentially; a minor seventh chord is Dorian mode played simultaneously.
Dorian mode "works" over minor seventh chords because Dorian mode *is* the minor seventh chord, so of course they match well. If you learn your chord/scale relationships, then it's effortless to play a certain version of "jazz," basically a watered-down version of Bill Evans.
However, if you want to play actual jazz, you will also need the blues, and the blues is inexplicable in terms of chord/scale theory.
The blues scale (or scales) fit over just about any chord, or combination of chords. I've heard BB King playing the blues scale on top of atonal orchestral music. It fits over everything! If you want everything to sound like the blues.
I have seen a few attempts to reconcile the blues scale with chord/scale theory. Maybe it's related to the seventh sharp nine chord, or the flat seventh on top of the IV chord, or the diminished scale, or something? None of these are adequate explanations.
So how are you supposed to make sense of the blues well enough to play it? No systematic explanation exists, and I doubt that one is even possible. You have to listen to the music, pick up the patterns, invent your own.
Chord/scale theory is like learning a language by studying its grammar and then systematically applying it. Learning the blues is more like learning a language through immersion.
A story for you: in high school Spanish, I consistently got better grades than my friend Elbert, who grew up in a Spanish-speaking Dominican household. I could systematically apply Spanish grammar better than him, but no one would ever think I spoke "better" Spanish.
The blues is a problem for jazz pedagogy the same way that idiomatic expressions are for language pedagogy. You just have to be close to the culture for a long period of time and pick things up by osmosis. That is impractical in a one-semester class.
Bottom line: learn chord-scale theory! It's useful, it makes sense out of a lot of different aspects of jazz. But also live in the reality that the blues (the most important aspect of jazz) is not amenable to systematic learning.
