Category: Learning

Discussions of learning… by children and adults.

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Standards, Political Rhetoric, and Underestimating Children

Embedded in the discourse of the Common Core and pretty much all of the political and corporate discussion of education is a negative view of children (teachers, too, but that’s a separate discussion). In fact, our entire institution of schooling is based on the deficits of being a child. Such a view is fundamentally poisonous. We don’t trust children. We underestimate their abilities and capabilities. We set up schools as prison factories to control every part of a child’s life. We have “manage” children as if they are a herd of cattle. We talk about building responsibility in children, as if such an idea is completely foreign to a child.

We have a tendency propagated by the politicians, corporations, media, and the institution of schooling to grossly under-estimate students in all respects. Such views are a carry-over from behaviorism and related early theories (although certainly not from John Dewey or George Herbert Mead), where children were viewed as “primitive” and as “empty vessels.” Children are very capable… way more than we think. Here’s an excerpt of observations from a teacher’s classroom in an east coast metropolitan public school. It takes place in March, in a grade 4 classroom. Although this is a specific day in one classroom, the teacher did the same thing in grades 1 through 3. This was her first year at grade 4.

EXAMPLE 9.2: OBSERVATIONS OF A DAY IN A CLASSROOM COMMUNITY

The following observations took place during a one-day visit to a public school classroom in a major urban area. The classroom (depicted in Example 9.4) consisted of 25 grade 4 students of mixed ethnic backgrounds, including a range of abilities in speaking English. This visit took place in mid-April, well into the school year, and after six or seven months of work on establishing the classroom community.

The day started with children wandering into the classroom during the 15 to 20 minutes before school started. As the children settled into the room, they talked with each other, examined some of their ongoing experiments with plant growth, played with blocks, or played with one of the two birds in a cage near the teacher’s desk in the corner. Some students engaged in short conversations with the teacher, whom they addressed her by her first name (we will call her Jane). (The teacher said that in her first teaching position, the principal told her that the children would not respect her if they called her by her first name. She replied, “I’ll keep that in mind. And if that happens, I’ll change.” She never has.) Everyone was very relaxed as the beginning of the school day approached.

With only a quiet indication by the teacher (I was not aware of any overt signal), the students gathered in the small carpeted area set aside for group gatherings. The teacher had been absent the day before. She had arranged for a substitute so that she could make her appointment with a doctor; however, the substitute was canceled due to an administrative mistake.
Jane started, “I hear you didn’t have a substitute yesterday?”
The children in near unison asked, “Yeah, where were you?”
After explaining, Jane asked, “So, what did you do?”
One girl said, “I took the attendance, then took it to the office. When I got back, we all decided that we’d continue reading [a book they were reading]. So, we all took turns reading and then we discussed it.”
Jane, half laughing, said, “Well, what do you need me for? The office was impressed that you really didn’t need a teacher.”

Following this interaction, another girl took the attendance with their bird mascot sitting on her shoulder. When she was ready to take the attendance to the office, she started to return the bird to the cage, but Jane said, “Why don’t you take him with you. Everyone likes to see him.”

Then, almost seamlessly, the first instructional activity of the day began. Jane briefly explained that she was going to pass around a sealed plastic sandwich bag with very moldy bread inside. As the bag was passed around, each child made one observation. Throughout the entire activity, the only sound besides the one child talking was the screeching of a bird from across the room. All of the children were listening intently to what each child had to say:

“It’s green.”

“It feels like clay.”

“Looks like moss.”

“Some of it feels hard.”

“Some of it looks like fried pistachio nuts.”

After this session, the children went off to work in groups on several of their plant study activities and experiments. They started examining a number of plastic baggies of different kinds of mold, which they had grown by placing fruit, bread, sandwiches, and so forth, in different locations around the room. As they finished this activity, they took measurements of their plant growth experiments and sketched and made observations of various kinds of stems.

Throughout this time, I wandered around the room talking to and observing the children. I noticed after one circuit of the room that a group I had spoken with was no longer the same. The group members had changed. Then I began to notice that all of the groups changed from time to time, as children got up and joined different groups. I also noticed that all of the talk taking place among the students was about the work in which they were engaged. They shared observations, argued about results, and negotiated explanations. As some children finished with all of their plant activities, they began other activities. A group of boys started playing on the computer. A group of girls took out a box of geo-blocks and began making different kinds of patterns. Another group of boys constructed buildings out of blocks. When all of the students were finished with the plant activities, they gathered on the carpet and shared the results from their plant experiments and activities.

The schedule for the day was written on the chalkboard:

8:20 Plants
9:20 Social Studies
9:45 Gym
10:30 Science Talk
11:00 Quiet Time
11:30–12:15 Lunch
12:30 Math
1:15 Cleanup
1:30 Meeting

However, social studies never happened. I overheard one child say to others at the table as 9:30 approached, “Aren’t we supposed to be doing social studies?” Another boy said very quietly, “It doesn’t matter. We’ll do it another time.”
After gym, the students and Jane gathered together on the carpet. Everyone sat on the floor in a big circle with a small tape recorder in the center of the circle. Jane began by saying, “Well, we haven’t done this for a while, so we’ll see how it goes (referring to doing science talks). We’ve been studying plants for a while and I thought it might be a good time to try to answer this question: How did plants begin?” Almost all of the children started talking at the same time. But as soon as one child established that he or she had the “floor”, everyone else immediately stopped and listened intently. Only occasionally did Jane speak, and usually to ask a clarifying question. Throughout the science talk session, she took notes and listened carefully to every point made by the students. The content of the science talk turned very quickly to the issue of how plants moved onto the land. One boy brought up the notion of increasing complexity (“algae doesn’t have that many parts”). Before long, a disagreement emerged about the dispersion and origin of plants on different continents. As different students stated their point and supporting rationale, everyone else listened very carefully. Finally, one girl reminded the others that all of the continents were “smushed together” a long time ago. From start to finish, all of the children were very supportive and encouraging of one another. Those who did not talk as much were supported with cheers and comments by the others, showing their interest in what the quieter individuals had to say. At one point, Jane added that one quiet girl’s comments were “very important and could have fit in after earlier comments.” She continued by explaining this girl’s comments could have led to a new theme to be followed.

Two of the ESL (English as a second language) students were almost always sitting together. One could speak and understand virtually no English, while the other was capable of functioning in English. Apparently, from the beginning of the year, these two boys paired up on their own, one acting as the translator for the other. Through the entire science talk, the two boys sat next to each other, whispering translations and comments.

At the end of the day, the children conducted a classroom meeting. One child acted as the moderator, while others brought up points or added to others’ comments. One child brought up a concern that after quiet time “it gets too noisy. And, some of us still want to read.” Other children suggested ways of accommodating the needs of those who wanted to play and those who wanted to read. Another child brought up an issue: “[A girl in another class] is always picked last when we play kick ball at recess. And now she’s crying a lot. And I don’t think it’s fair.” Both boys and girls added comments about how it feels to be picked last and generated some options for picking teams so that the same person would not always be picked last.

This day in the classroom was characterized by the teacher’s and students’ genuineness. Although energetic, the environment had a quality of being very laid back. Smiles and laughs were frequent on the faces of the teacher and children. Jane cared deeply about her students. She treated them each as respected citizens of the community — each with something important to offer. Her dealings with the children were marked by gentleness, as she prodded, guided, and supported the children. At one point, a group of children was making fun of someone, and with an almost lighthearted but obviously serious approach, Jane said very gently, “Thank you, I don’t need imitators over here.”

Her gentleness and caring seemed to be adopted by the children. The children treated everyone with respect. They cared how others felt and celebrated in each other’s successes. Jane admits that the year did not start off this way. It was only in the last month or so that the children had settled into a stable and functional community.

From: Bloom, J. W. (2008). Creating a classroom community of young scientists (Chapter 6). New York: Routledge. Purchase from: Publisher or Amazon.

Such an example from a classroom is not all that unusual. Yes, “Jane” was an exceptional teacher, but there are many exceptional teachers. But, she worked hard at creating such communities that valued children’s inherent abilities and humanity. I’ve seen many classrooms where the same sort of atmosphere and community had been established.

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Learning, Testing, and the Messes We’ve Created

Gregory Bateson used to write metalogs that explored the “muddles” we create for ourselves. These metalogs were written as conversations between father and daughter. They examined the nature of a variety of issues involved in the way we understand the world. The first of his metalogs in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, in fact, focused on how things get in a muddle. We always seem to get ourselves in muddles at all levels of scale. We get in personal muddles, then muddles within our closest relationships, all the way up to the grand muddles of global ecological disasters and the degradation of international relations.

However, in this blog entry, I want to explore briefly the muddles we’ve created around learning, testing, and education. For the better part of a century we have talked about learning as if it were some discrete, measurable “thing.” We use tests to measure a person’s intelligence or learning. We see learning as the result of a specific series of steps taken by a teacher or adult to transmit some content to be learned. These ideas are part of what has created our current muddle about education.

During the 17th Century, Rene Descartes turned the world upside-down. In a time, when myths and superstitions reigned as the frameworks for making sense of the world in the west, Descartes, followed shortly thereafter by Isaac Newton, changed the way people saw and made sense of the world. Descartes and Newton introduced the explanatory metaphor of the mechanical clock or machines, in general. They maintained that everything could be understood as a machine. Nature was just a biological machine. Furthermore, we could understand the wholes (the things in our world) by understanding all of their parts. In addition to seeing things as machines with discrete parts, we also came to a point where we assumed that there was one true way of understanding everything. The whole package gave certainty and comfort to the masses. Intriguingly, this scientific revolution permeated all aspects of life with its basic assumptions about reality. Even people who were not informed about science, began to see and work with the world from the sets of assumptions that comprised this mechanistic, reductionist, and positivist worldview. One of these assumptions involves linearity (or lineality). Everything has a simple linear cause and effect. Another global assumption referred to duality or the separation of mind and body (also referred to as Cartesian dualism). The mental world had no connection to the physical world. They were separate phenomena. This dualism also built on the Christian separation of humans and nature. Human beings were seen as separate from the natural world. And, because we could understand the natural world as a mechanical system, we had even more control over how we used the resources of land and water. We could control everything.

The Cartesian (Descartes’) view of the world was a huge transition for western and other cultures over the next 300 years or so. In some ways, it was viewed as an enlightenment. However, over time, this worldview has brought us to the brink of self-destruction on many fronts. Our disregard for the natural world is straining our ability to survive as our population continues to grow and our resources continue to shrink. Our hopes that technology will fix our situation are met with even greater demands on resources. Our whole world seems transfixed by hope and wishful thinking.

Our views of teaching, learning, and education are embedded in such Cartesian assumptions and wishful thinking. We see the whole of education as a linear process. Even the debunked “Tabula Rasa” assumption, where students enter the classroom as blank slates and where teachers transmit knowledge to students, dominates much of the way in which we view education. On the other hand, we know that even the youngest children enter classrooms with a great deal of knowledge. Yet, we continue to assume they enter as blank slates and that we can use step-by-step approaches to “teach” them some discrete knowledge. The approaches to teaching, as passed down from teacher to student, are based on assumptions of mechanism (everything works like a machine), reductionism (where parts are all that are necessary to understand the whole), positivism (where there’s one right answer), and dualism (where the mental world of “learning” is completely separate from emotions, from the body, and from the social world and the environment). We continue to operate as if these assumptions are really descriptive of the way learning occurs.

Although certain rote memory operations may manifest in these linear, fragmented, and disconnected ways, the whole of learning is quite different. Learning is hard-wired into our biological nature. Learning occurs with or without schools. In fact, much of learning (unfortunately) occurs outside of school, where children are playing or getting into trouble. We can’t help but learn. The problem is how do we guide that learning in ways that are going to be useful for a child’s growth, development, and present and future well-being (the specific purposes or goals of schooling is another issue).

Learning is complex. We as a species have always learned so that we can survive and thrive. In fact, all animals learn in order to survive. Bateson even went so far as to suggest that genetic adaptation was a form of learning. However, no matter what level of scale (from the molecular to the social) we examine, learning focuses on our ability to survive and thrive in different contexts. Such learning is not really about retaining discrete bits of disconnected information. Rather, at the very core, learning is about creating multiple frameworks of connected information that serve to explain and help us make sense of our world. Learning provides us with the cognitive and emotional tools to pose and solve problems, to find ways to understand diverse and different physical and social phenomena, to imagine and create, to build and repair, to be empathetic and compassionate, to be reflective, to be responsible and respectful, and to be a participant in whatever communities one is a part. Learning occurs not just in the head, but also occurs in the heart, the body, socially, and in relation to our worlds. Learning is not a static and linear phenomenon. It morphs and changes. Learning involves the meanings we create, which also includes ideas, emotions, values, aesthetics, beliefs, metaphors, imagery, models, humor, and so forth. Learning is not just about “text.” Learning also is about how to be. (Such a view of learning is certainly a major problem for those who maintain that on-line courses are valuable!)

Yet, we continue to view learning as a simple rote memory and computational phenomena. Think about your own experiences. What do you really understand in depth? Can someone really know the extent of your understandings of this area? What areas of your life, of your very being are permeated by these understandings? How do you express your understandings? Can you ever express all of your understandings of this area? These questions are difficult. And, testing doesn’t begin to address possible answers.

Learning can’t be “measured,” because it has no substance. We can measure the dimensions of objects. We can measure density. We can measure sound and light frequencies. We can count numbers of things. We can measure the quantity of water in a container. But, we can’t measure things without substance. We can’t measure emotions. We can’t measure happiness. We can’t measure anger. We can’t measure a relationship between two people. And, we can’t measure learning. However, we can describe emotions, happiness, anger, relationships between two people, and learning. In describing learning and understandings, we can look at some of the ideas or concepts involved. We can examine the nature of the relationships that someone understands. We can look at how complicated the interconnections are between ideas. We can describe the tendencies for how one uses these understandings in dealing with various problems and situations. We can describe the tendencies one has for thinking in depth about these understandings. We can see where some misconceptions come into play and where more accurate understanding are involved. However, we can never understand the complete nature of someone’s learning and understandings. We can just pick up on certain aspects and tendencies. However, these aspects and tendencies are quite apparent to the informed teacher or observer. A teacher knows when a child understands something. A teacher knows when a student is passionate and creative. A teacher knows when a child is having difficulties and where she or he is making silly mistakes.

In the following discussion, I’ll use a metaphor of an iceberg to represent learning and understandings. Within the context of assessment, tests may show little indentations on the above water surface of an iceberg, but they really don’ tell us much more than whether they get answers right or wrong. Many very bright students, second guess test questions, see too many possible correct answers, or see errors in all of the possible test answers. Describing student learning through a wide variety of approaches (e.g., observations, interviews, all sorts of written and visual representation tasks, etc.) allow us to see much more of what lies beneath the extruding surface of the iceberg and some of what extends below the water. However, we can never see the entire iceberg.

So, we are currently in a massive muddle. We want to think that there is a simple solution to the mistaken belief that we are not educating our students very well. Between the irresponsibility of politicians and the media and the greed of publishers and testing companies, we have politicized and corporatized education to the point of a total muddle. We continue to think that test scores mean something significant. We think that we can control teachers and make teaching a linear and predictable process. We think that we can dissect out the parts in ways that will create viable wholes. We continue to think that there is one right answer and one right way to get to that answer. But, none of these ideas hold any viability.

Teachers are incredibly better than they were 100 years ago. I’m not so sure there’s any difference in the quality of teachers between 1960 and now. In discussions with principals, teacher educators, and experienced, expert teachers, the shared feeling is that the vast majority of teachers are competent or better. There are very few duds, but they do exist, as duds exist in all professions. And, there are quite a few teachers who are truly exceptional. At present, teachers certainly know much more about how children learn and think, know more about various techniques and approaches to teaching, and know more about the social and political contexts of their profession than they did 50 years ago. However, Teach For America and similar watered-down approaches to professional development of teachers are diminishing the depth and extent of this knowledge. The Common Core proponents and the entire testing industry are reducing teaching and learning to completely muddled, disconnected, and fragmented pieces of mostly irrelevant and meaningless information. The situation is further muddled by people, who have no background of study, experience, and research in education, making decisions about education. Our secretaries of education have no background in the field. School board members are dominated by people who have no background. Many state superintendents of education have no background. And, of course, as with the old Peter Principle, a number of people who were failed teachers have worked their way up the ranks into positions of leadership.

As in Finland, we could just trust teachers and save money by not testing, At the same time, we could make schools engaging, exciting, and creative places for children to grow, create, and blossom.

Resources and References:

If you’re interested, the following is a short list of some interesting readings that elaborate on some of the ideas discussed in this blog entry. Some are from my own research and others are from the work of some of the major scholars in education and related fields.

Bateson, G. (2000). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bateson, M. C. (1995). Peripheral visions. New York: Harper Paperbacks.

Berliner, D. C., & Biddle, B. J. (1995). The manufactured crisis. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Block, A. A. (1997). I’m Only Bleeding. New York: Peter Lang.

Bloom, J. W. (1990). Contexts of meaning: Young children’s understanding of biological phe-nom¬ena. International Journal of Science Education, 12(5), 549-561.

Bloom, J. W. (1992). Contexts of meaning and conceptual integration: How children understand and learn. In R. A. Duschl and R. Hamilton (Eds.), Philosophy of science, cognitive science in educational theory and practice (pp. 177-194). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Bloom, J. W. (1992). The development of scientific knowledge in elementary school children: A context of meaning perspective. Science Education, 76(4), 399-413.

Bloom, J. W. (1995). Assessing and extending the scope of children’s contexts of meaning: Context maps as a methodological perspective. International Journal of Science Education, 17(2), 167-187.

Bloom, J. W. (2001). Discourse, cognition, and chaotic systems: An examination of students’ argument about density. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10(4), 447-492.

Bloom, J. W. (2004). Patterns that connect: Rethinking our approach to learning, teaching, and curriculum. Curriculum and Teaching, 19(1), 5-26.

Bloom, J. W. (2005). The application of chaos, complexity, and emergent (meta)patterns to research in teacher education. Proceedings of the 2004 Complexity Science and Educational Research Conference (pp. 155-191), Sep 30–Oct 3 • Chaffey’s Locks, Canada (http://www.complexityandeducation.ca).

Bloom, J. W. (2006). Creating a classroom community of young scientists (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Bloom, J. W. (2011). Investigating relationships: Thoughts on the pitfalls and directions. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 8(1), 38—43. (Available at: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/complicity/issue/archive)

Bloom, J. W. (2011). The really useful elementary science book. New York: Routledge.

Bloom, J. W. (2012). Ecology of mind: A Batesonian systems thinking approach to curriculum enactment. Curriculum and Teaching, 27(1), 81—100.

Bloom, J. W. (2012). The nature and dynamics of relationships in learning and teaching. In D. J. Loveless & B. Griffith (eds.), The interdependence of teaching and learning. Charlotte, NC: IAP.

Bloom, J. W. (accepted). An ecology of mind: Teaching—learning recursive systems. Kybenetes.

Bloom, J. W., & Volk, T. (2007). The use of metapatterns for research into complex systems of teaching, learning, and schooling. Part II: Applications. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 4(1), 45—68 (Available at: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/complicity/issue/archive).

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Bruner, Jerome. (1987). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Harvard University Press.

Bruner, Jerome. (1992). Acts of Meaning: Four Lectures on Mind and Culture. Harvard University Press.

Bruner, JS, & Haste, H. (1987). Making sense: The child’s construction of the world. New York: Methuen & Co.

Cazden, C. B. (1988). Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Dewey, J. (1997). Experience and education. New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster.

Doll, W. E. (2002). Curriculum visions. New York : Peter Lang.

Doll, W. E. J., Fleener, M. J., Trueit, D., & St Julien, J. (Eds.). (2005). Chaos, complexity, curriculum, and culture. New York: Peter Lang.

Donaldson, M. (1992). Human minds. New York: Allen Lane/Penguin.

Donaldson, M. C. (1978). Children’s Minds. Harper Perennial,

Donella H. Meadows. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing.

Duckworth, E. (1987). The “Having of Wonderful Ideas” and Other Essays on Teaching and Learning. Teachers College Press.

Duckworth, E. R. (2001). Tell Me More: Listening to Learners Explain. New York: Teachers College Press.

Duckworth, E., Easley, J. A., Hawkins, D., & Henriques, A. (1990). Science Education: A Minds-on Approach for the Elementary Years.. New York: Routledge.

Edwards, D., & Mercer, N. (1987). Common Knowledge: The Development of Understanding in the Classroom. New York: Routledge.

Edwards, P. D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive Psychology. Sage Publications Ltd.

Egan, K. (1986). Teaching as Story Telling. London, Ontario: University of Western Ontario Press.

Egan, K. (1990). Romantic Understanding: The Development of Rationality and Imagination, Ages 8-15. New York: Routledge.

Eisner, E. W. (1998). The Kind of Schools We Need. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Eisner, E. W. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Fleener, M. J. (2002). Curriculum Dynamics. New York: Peter Lang.

Gallas, K. (1994). The languages of learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

Gallas, K. (1995). Talking Their Way into Science. New York: Teachers College Press.

Gallas, K. (1997). Sometimes I Can Be Anything: Power, Gender, and Identity in a Primary Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.

Garvey, C. (1984). Children’s Talk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Gatto, J. (1991). Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers.

Hawkins, D. (2002). The informed vision. New York: Algora Publishing.

Illeris, K. (2009). Contemporary theories of learning: learning theorists … in their own words. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Jarvis, P. S. (2007). Human Learning: An Holistic Approach. New York: Routledge.

Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Jones, M., & Jones, B. (2003). The unintended consequences of high-stakes testing. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Kirshner, D., & Whitson, J. A. (1997). Situated cognition. New York: Routledge.

Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics, and culture in everyday life. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lave, Jean, & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press

Marton, F., Booth, S., & Booth, S. A. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Marton, F., & Tsui, A. (2004). Classroom discourse and the space of learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Maturana, H. R., & G, F. J. V. (1998). The tree of knowledge. Boston: Shambhala.

Palmer, P. J. (1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rogoff, B., Turkanis, C. G., & Bartlett, L. (2001). Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community. New York: Oxford University Press.

Singer, D. G., & Singer, J. L. (1992). The house of make-believe: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Singer, Dorothy G., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (Eds.). (2006). Play = Learning. New York: Oxford University Press.

Swope, K. (2000). Failing our kids: Why the testing craze won’t fix our schools. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools Ltd.

Tharp, R. G., & Gallimore, R. (1988). Rousing minds to life. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Volk, T., & Bloom, J. W. (2007). The use of metapatterns for research into complex systems of teaching, learning, and schooling. Part I: Metapatterns in nature and culture. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 4(1), 25—43 (Available at: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/complicity/issue/archive).

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More on the Common Core: Who Benefits?

Who is going to benefit from the Common Core Standards?

Children are not going to benefit. In fact, they are likely to suffer from the effects of severe psychological violence. Children’s inherent creativity, curiosity, love of learning, and complex and complicated ways of thinking are going to suffer the most. Children are not going to experience what it is like to learn something in depth. They are not going to learn about issues and topics that will be critically important to them as adults. They are not going to develop emotionally and socially, because teachers will not be able to take the time to help them develop in these areas.

Teachers and the profession of teaching are not going to benefit. Competent to excellent teachers (note: the vast majority of our teachers probably fall within this range of expertise) are going to leave in droves. Those good teachers who remain are going to face the effects of psychological violence, as well. Their creativity about how to teach in ways that engage and stimulate children and their insightfulness about how to best help children grow and learn are going to be suppressed by the pressures inflicted by the Common Core Standards and by increased high-stakes testing.

Schools are not going to benefit. They will continue on a downward spiral as they trip over their own feet… caught between good intensions and mindless political forces.

Communities are not going to benefit. Students will continue to hate going to school. They will not be engaged. They will not feel connected to learning, to one another, to schools, or to their communities. In some neighborhoods, such disconnections may manifest in a variety of anti-social actions. Children’s desire to learn and find the limits of what is possible, which can serve as positive attribute within school classrooms, may manifest as criminal and other anti-social behaviors in local communities.

Society will not benefit. As with communities, many children will be disconnected from society as a whole. They will not have learned how to participate thoughtfully in a democratic society. Many others who may have been encouraged to follow their passions in the arts will find no support in schools. The heart of our culture and society will crumble. Even children who are interested in math and the sciences will be “turned off” by teaching approaches that are meaningless and irrelevant.

Corporations, much to their surprise, will not benefit. They may think they will benefit by highly controlled and dumbed down approaches to schooling, but they will only get employees who are unable to think creatively and critically and who lack any sense of inspiration.

Power-hungry politicians and business people may benefit. They will have a population that will be easy to control. The power-elite will continue to sell our citizens a bill of goods and take advantage of them. Even now, those in power have already been able to brainwash a significant proportion of society, including school leaders, teachers, researchers, and well-meaning state and local politicians. The power-elite, which in the case of the Common Core involves David Coleman, repeat the same misinformed ideas over and over again to the point where people actually begin to think these statements are true. Such approaches are brainwashing. And, as a society, we seemed to have fallen for these very dangerous ideas.

We’ve been duped. And, we’re bending over asking for more.

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The “Common Core” of Ignorance

For decades, but actually for centuries, educational scholars have been pushing for ways of teaching that engage children and contribute to their growth and development as thoughtful participants in society. However, corporate and political forces always seem to win out in the battles between thoughtful and thoughtless schooling.

Thoughtless schooling has been empowered from the positivist and mechanist thrusts developed and propagated by Descartes and Newton. Although positivism and mechanism may have removed a veil of ignorance and introduced revolutionary ways of thinking and of relating to the world, they have had their negative effects over the last few centuries. In a way, these Cartesian ways of thinking have led to the development of their own veil of ignorance. (By “ignorance” I mean “being in a state of ignoring” rather than a sense of stupidity. In fact, ignorance may be quite smart, as we actively avoid seeing “something,” that is usually something we don’t want to see or take into account. Ignorance usually involves being stuck in a set of assumptions.)

Just as the pre-Cartesian peoples of the West were guided by superstitions and myths of various kinds, we post-Cartesianists have our own set of superstitions and myths that guide our thinking, actions, and decision-making. We think that everything can be reduced to a number and that numbers are truth. We think that all people are equal (or the same…), rather than as different. From this view we think that all children can conform to the same ways of learning and thinking. We believe that there is a linear and sequential pattern of cause and effect and that thinking and learning should occur in linear and sequential ways. We also continue to see learning as something static. We think of learning as the acquisition of a body of unchanging knowledge.

At the same time, researchers and scholars have been suggesting very different approaches to understanding the world and to thinking and learning. Such alternatives are closely aligned to more recent understandings of the complexity sciences, as well as the psychology of social constructivism and distributed learning. From such perspectives, learning is not viewed as linear and sequential or as static. Instead, learning is viewed as recursive (looping around in complex interconnections) and ever-changing. Learning is seen as a social process, where ideas are shared, negotiated, and argued. Even though each individual may put his or her own “spin” on particular ideas, the ideas have been a product of the social dynamic.

Now, we have returned to yet another veil of ignorance under the guise of the Common Core standards. All students are supposed to learn the same material from a list of concepts. Science learning in the early grades, where children’s curiosity is at its peak, is relegated to reading about science rather than exploring, testing, and playing with “stuff” and ideas. We’re yet again returning to a system of schooling that kills children – kills their inquisitiveness—curiosity, playfulness, creativity, and deeper intelligence. They are pounded into a state of ignorance by an adult world steeped in ignorance. The designers of the Common Core, bless their hearts, are so deeply embedded in our cultural state of ignorance, they actually think they are doing some good for the children.

Children desperately need to experience deep, meaningful, and relevant learning. But, all of schooling is based on shallow, meaningless, irrelevant, and fragmented “learning,” all of which seems to be reduced to “memorization.” It really doesn’t much matter what children learn as long as they can learn something in great depth. Once they experience learning of this sort, where they not only learn a set of interconnected concepts, but learn how to evaluate that knowledge and how that knowledge works and relates to a variety of contexts (e.g., how the concept of energy relates to ecological, social, political, and economic contexts). This level of learning is what Gregory Bateson referred to as Learning III (Bateson, 1972/2000). Learning at this level of complexity is what children need to experience and practice. In fact, this type of learning is what is going to be necessary for our children’s survival in a very uncertain future.

In addition, the idea that children need to continue to learn a broad spectrum of ideas is silly. We have such easy access to information that it makes more sense to have children experience real in-depth learning, so they know what this kind of learning “feels like” and then learn how to find and evaluate knowledge claims in relevant contexts.

We’ve also lost all sense of children as being “producers” of knowledge rather than just “consumers” of knowledge (Marshall, 1992). They need to be engaged in constructing and evaluating their own knowledge claims. They do this informally in their everyday lives, but we fail to take advantage of this pattern of learning to help them hone these skills.

At present, we are facing the dire ecological consequences of our previous states of Cartesian ignorance. We are not only in a state of “peak” oil, but also in a state of peak everything… water, soil, and resources of all kinds. Our children are going to be confronted with collapse on many fronts, yet we continue to teach them material that is irrelevant to their futures. We continue to emphasize approaches and knowledge that don’t provide them with the knowledge and skills to survive or thrive in the future.

For whatever reasons, but probably those that come from the pressures of corporate greed and its consequent ideas of economic growth, global competition, mass conformity, and keeping the populace in a state of shared ignorance, we continue to push a variation of the a same approach to education that has gotten nowhere. The approaches that seem to have always taken over are deeply embedded in what Bateson would call Level 0 or proto—learning, otherwise known as rote learning. As long as we try to quantify learning, which is not quantifiable (there is no “quantity” of learning), along with high stakes tests and corporatized curriculum, our children will not learn at the levels of which they are so capable.

So, what are we to do?

NOTE:

For those of you interested in a more in-depth analysis of the problems with the Common Core, download the following paper: Common Core State Standards: An Example of Data-less Decision Making by Christopher H. Tienken (2011), in the Journal of Scholarship and Practice

References

Bateson, G. (1972/2000). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Marshall, H. H. (1992). Seeing, redefining, and supporting student learning. In H. H. Marshall (Ed.), Redefining student learning: Roots of educational change (pp. 1—32). Ablex

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Thoughts on Adopting Curriculum from Other Countries

The trouble with adopting a curriculum from another country (or even from any different setting in this country or state, etc.) is that the contexts of what is relevant, meaningful, etc. change. However, it all depends on what assumptions we’re basing our ideas of education. If we see education as merely taking in fragmented pieces of knowledge and spitting it back out again, then that could be implemented anywhere. At the other end of the spectrum, if we see education as a personal and social process of developing understandings of highly interconnected and complex “knowledges” that are, in turn, connected to the betterment of society and to personal growth as human beings with a wide range of potentialities, then there is no way we can use one set curriculum across contexts of any kind. The other aspect to this is that the role and view of the teacher varies. At one end of the spectrum (same end at the first end in the last statement), the teacher is viewed as a technician who can mindlessly implement a scripted or other highly structured curriculum document. At the other end of the continuum, teaching is viewed as a personal process of engaging with diverse students in a process of producing knowledge and taking social action. If we view the teacher as a technician, we really could hire anyone off the streets (we’re doing this with “Teach for America” already). In fact, most ideas of online classes take the positions that are first mentioned on these two ends of the continuums.

 

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My Banned Word List for Teacher Education OR Questioning our Assumptions About Learning, Teaching, and Schooling

Since 2009, I have been “banning” the use of certain words in my classroom. I’ve come to this point because of my intense irritation when I hear them used. I’m irritated because these words carry an incredible amount of baggage loaded with faulty assumptions and meanings that are rooted in problematic theoretical and philosophical frameworks. In fact, most of these words are used within the frames of positivism and mechanism. Both “positivism” and “mechanism” describe a worldview that is based on the notion that everything fits into nice little categorical cubby-holes, that we can quantify everything, that everything works like a well-oiled machines, and that our world works in very linear and predictable ways. If we’re honest enough about our own experiences, we realize that such a worldview is more of wishful thinking than a description of what actually occurs. Yet, our society and especially our schools are deeply embedded in this positivistic and mechanistic worldview – complete with the highly questionable outcomes of testing as a measure of learning or intelligence, repetitive practice as the way of learning, working with children as a process of “management,” and schooling as a technical enterprise.

My banned word list arose not as an edict to stop using these words, but rather as a reminder to examine the assumptions that underlie these words. These assumptions tend to be consistent with positivistic and mechanistic views. At the same time, the use of these words perpetuates a dysfunctional status quo of schooling and undermines our attempts to engage students in systems thinking and its holistic and organic worldview.

a. What are the assumptions underlying these words?

b. What is problematic about each of these words?

c. How are they inconsistent with the following notions?

  • classrooms as communities;
  • children as producers of knowledge;
  • the complexity sciences (chaos and complexity theories) as explanatory frameworks for biosphere, psychological, and cultural systems;
  • learning as constructive, non-linear, and recursive;
  • democracy in education and education for democracy;
  • children as inquirers;
  • teachers as mentors, facilitators, orchestrators, models, etc.

Banned Words

• Lesson Plans and Lessons

Whenever I hear “lesson,” I can’t help but think about some serious adult saying sternly or worse to some child, “I’ll teach you a lesson!” In addition to such a negative connotation of “lesson,” the underlying assumptions of lessons and lesson plans undermine authentic inquiry, complex and meaningful learning, and classrooms as communities. Lessons are discrete packages of teacher controlled and directed sequences of instruction. They occur during predetermined periods of time, which are generally quite short and inflexible. The content of such lessons is almost always delivered to various degrees of fragmentation and tends to be disconnected from other subject matter areas. Predetermined lessons disallow authentic inquiry that arises from the curiosity and questions of students. And, the entire approach tends to reject the power of spontaneity, the importance of emergent curriculum, and the worthiness of children as thoughtful decision-makers and contributors to classroom communities. Even though “lessons” and “lesson plans” are problematic, teachers do need to plan. Planning for inquiry and planning in ways that support the dignity of children needs to be done in very different ways and in conjunction with the children themselves.

• Closure

Why in the world do we want to close down any learning? In fact, as Gregory Bateson suggested, students should leave school with more questions than “answers.”

• Objectives

This term arose from behaviorist approaches to schooling. They were called “behavioral objectives” at that time. Even though the name has been changed, the approach hasn’t.

• Classroom Management

Based on the notion of control and the preparation of children for factory work, this term undermines approaches to classrooms as communities, where children share in the control of the classroom.

• Test

Testing and the quantification of “learning” is rooted in positivist traditions, but really don’t tell us anything about what children do and don’t understand or the depth and extent of such understandings and misunderstandings.

• Worksheets

Just drill and “kill.” They may allow for very superficial learning, but the learning is usually what is not intended: that is, “going through the motions can be enough.”

• Scientific Method (as a singular and linear process of knowledge production)

There are many scientific methods. The linear and dogmatic one used in schooling tends to kill curiosity and misrepresent the nature of science.

• Direct Instruction

If used more than 20% of the time and at the expense of engaging children in inquiry, communication, and the production of knowledge, then children’s real learning is minimized.

• Anticipatory Set

An over-used and out-dated approach to setting up direct instruction. As it is presented, it tends to narrow the possibilities and make teaching and learning a linear and lifeless process.

• Accountability (unless we hold banks, corporations, CEOs, politicians, et al. accountable)

Misplaced approach to assessing teachers. Typically accountability is based on student achievement, but it only perpetuates bad teaching and superficial learning.

• Piagetian stages of development

Way out-dated. It has been disproven by Margaret Donaldson. Her account is available in her book, Children’s Minds.

• Behaviorism – including:

  • rewards,
  • reinforcement or reinforce
  • behavior modification, etc.)

Demeaning to children, not to mention a superficial, positivistic, and simplistic view of learning.

• Prescriptive Learning

Just down right scary that we can view learning as something that is imposed upon others.

• E-Learning (& related terms)

At best, online learning is superficial. It focused almost entirely on content learning, which is only one part of learning and a decreasingly important part at that.

• On-Task

Another term related to “control” over children. How often are adults “on-task?”

• Efficiency (in teaching and learning)

Real learning isn’t about efficiency. It’s about taking the time to go into depth and extent, to play with ideas, and to question and test ideas.

• SWBAT (Students Will Be Able To)

This is a meaningless phrase embedded in positivistic views of teaching and learning, especially behaviorism.

• Age appropriate

More often than not this well-intended idea leads to underestimating the capabilities of children.

• Standards

Content standards are always questionable. Who decides what is and is not important to learn? What is the agenda behind such decisions?

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Confusion – Double Bind or Connection in the Classroom

Recently, I was reading part of A Letter to My Students that I had sent them a few days earlier. Among the ideas that I mentioned were ideas of learning as non-linear and of learning as pattern thinking. After I finished a student asked the question, “… but how do patterns fit?” She went on, “they seem to be linear.” I started to respond, then I asked her to explain and she said, “oh, never mind.”

It would have been easy to just continue on with what I had in mind for the rest of class, but I insisted that she explain. As it turned out, she was thinking of patterns as the way in which we might create more rigid, linear, and repetitive approaches to our everyday lives. (Pattern thinking on the other hand is a recursive approach to understanding our world.)

The point here is that we often avoid confusion by solidifying our views or by side-stepping the point of confusion, as the student above was about to do. This event was a classic double bind. The typical situation for a student is that she if she asks a seemingly stupid question, she will look like a fool, especially if she exposes her confusion. On the other hand, she doesn’t ask the question and appear like a fool, she may end up getting a lower grade on an exam or other form of assessment. It’s a no win situation. However, as both Gregory Bateson and his daughter, Catherine Bateson, have suggested, double binds are not necessarily bad events. Avoiding or side-stepping the double bind event is generally problematic since it perpetuates a pathology in relationship. However, if one engages the double bind as a point of potentiality, all kinds of possibilities can emerge. They can be points at which one can connect in ways not possible when immersed in the pathology of a double bind. They also can stimulate creativity, new insights, and novel ways of seeing and relating.

The teaching – learning situation is full of double binds. We see the results of double binds in student dropout rates, in students’ “playing the game” of going-through-the-motions with no real connection, in student passivity, in student resistance, in student “pleasing the teacher” actions, and in the full array of schooling pathologies.

(originally published January 23, 2010)