Nancy Flanagan asked in response to a comment on one of her posts about a month ago, if anyone really thinks teachers restrict learning. She’s a thoughtful writer, an experienced teacher, and an education policy wonk (that’s a kudo). Jane, a parent, admonishes teachers, in response to a considered post by Mathew Needleman, for not offering enough learning for her daughter.
I’ve thought about Nancy’s question frequently, both before and after her post, but wanted to formulate a more complete description than a simple Yes or No. Her question reminded me of Ogdan Nash’s Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man.
It is common knowledge to every schoolboy …
That all sin (consists of) a sin of commission and … a sin of omission …
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.
In that spirit, no neutral or middle ground exists. I must answer either yes or no. Reluctantly I and likely most teachers, answer, “Yes, teachers restrict as well as foster some learning.”
A question remains open about how to assess whether teachers net more learning than we restrict. On step toward a response consists of describing the context in which learning and restricted learning occur.
Perhaps this outline will assist parents like Jane to formulate their demand to their school boards for learning for their children. I also hope teachers will consider these points when arranging for students to exceed minimum state learning requirements.
Context of Teachers Restricting Learning
The Open Learning Paradigm identifies several factors that indicate restricted learning in schools. Someone can probably formulate these points into indices of validity of school programs.
1. An emerging mass market of independent learners.
An emergence of a mass market of independent learners (EMMIL) helps me to understand how advanced technologies confound conventional thinking about learning, schooling, their public funding, and public school efforts to attract and hold personnel. Mobile PCs and other advanced communication technologies have inspired what I call EMMIL. It competes for time, attention and control with schooling practices to fulfill their personal learning interests that overlap irregularly with conventional academic expectations.
By choice, individual teachers may include open learning as part of lessons in order to assist students to go beyond required minimum state learning standards. Some teachers may call it “extra credit,” while others set it as a classroom standard for earning a “B” or higher grade.
2. Incomplete curricula and instruction.
Every educator knows that a relatively few schools offer more advanced curricula and instruction than most schools. Some, like the Boston Latin School, are public; others, like Phillips Exeter Academy, are private. Curricula and instruction in any school that do not include similarly advanced content for the fastest learning student limit what might be learned in that school and classroom by any student, irrespective of why boards of education made their choices explicitly or by default.
For example, Peddie School has built its reputation on academic rigor, a friendly culture, and a focus on the whole student: mind, body and spirit. Our academic program continues to transform itself and grow in meeting the demands of an ever-changing world … including new courses in forensics, DNA, neurobiology, robotics, physiology, evolution, genetics, quantitative chemical analysis, and organic chemistry. We have also added course offerings in arts, history and mathematics.
These schools offer content that exceeds AP and IB public school programs. Schools that omit comparable classes limit student learning. Teachers may incorporate such top tier school content into their lessons, probably without school board approval, in order to assist all students to stretch beyond their comfortable learning patterns.
3. Inefficient instruction.
Every educator and student knows that some lessons by some teachers take less time for students to reach learning criterion than by other teachers.
For example, one public school district found that students took 25 percent less time to reach learning criteria and scored better on standardized exams when they used the districts online independent learning programs over the same content that followed teacher directed daily classroom instruction. (The district has not yet reported these data for public review, but these data appear valid, reliable, and consistent with anecdotes from other schools, including my fifth grade students who completed through self paced independent learning all of their assignments and almost half of the sixth grade requirements at Azusa Public Schools in California decades ago.)
This report challenges three commonly asserted assumptions used by educators to justify schooling as it exists: (i) that students necessarily learn most when guided by classroom teachers; (ii) that teachers need more not less time for students to exceed minimum state standards; and (iii) that cooperative learning should replace competitive independent learning.
More
There’s more, later. I’m especially interested in figuring out how to measure the net balance of gained and limited school learning. I wonder what others think of the idea that educators limit student learning?
Note: Clayton Christensen’s book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns follows the same general logic for bringing about changes in schooling. I have known about the formalized idea of disruptive innovation for over a decade. It supported rather than guided my thinking about social change. His latest book scooped me!
Hi Bob.You may be crossing learning and instruction here–two very different things, of course. Teachers can enhance learning through good instruction, but a teacher who intentionally tried to restrict student learning (and intent was what I was referring to in my post) would have a very difficult time in a world where the Library of Congress is accessible in most living rooms. The question is not whether teachers restrict learning–it’s whether teachers are providing the instruction that leads to learning, and, just as important, whether the students are choosing to take some responsibility for their own learning (something kids can do from a very early age–and, not coincidentally, something gifted children tend to do earlier and more proficiently). I very much like Mathew Needleman’s blog, BTW–I’m fond of practitioner blogs with so many good, concrete suggestions. I completely agreed with him that instruction can be differentiated to meet a wide range of learning preferences and levels, because I’ve done it. It takes a little practice–idea-sharing helps–but people who believe differentiated learning is impossible usually have another axe to grind. Teachers have been differentiating since the one-room school house, when students were not expecting the teacher’s constant undivided attention, were expected to learn to work independently and seek help from more advanced students. Somehow, this rather natural arrangement has gotten a bad rap from those who believe their child should not have to be in a classroom with diverse learners. This is a shame, and a disservice to bright children, who quickly pick up on their parents’ desire to set them apart from other children. Gifted children are seldom bored–they are independent learners, endlessly curious and often generous about sharing their creative ideas. Figuring out how to work with others is also an important 21st century learning.Re: your three paradigms of learning– Open learning is inevitable in an age when the population has access to all the tools and information needed. The great advantage of mobile technology is its flexible access. Teachers can differentiate much more effectively when each child has his/her own learning system in hand.It is “special programs” that try to restrict accelerated content, not teachers. And, frankly, some acceleration is done for the wrong reasons. My daughter read at the 8th grade level when she was seven. Although she was an excellent decoder and had great comprehension skills, the 8th grade language arts curriculum was all wrong for her emotional maturity. It did not harm my child to read books at her social level, even though her skill level was superior–and it especially did not restrict her learning to be part of a reading group with other 2nd graders. She got pleasure out of reading then, and still does. She also got pleasure out of listening to younger and less experienced readers–pleasure, service and humility, in fact.Third–“efficient” learning via machine (as measured, I’m sure, by machine as well). There’s learning for regurgitation, and there’s learning for application, and there’s learning that is embedded in the mind and quick-access skill set for life. I’m perfectly willing to believe that one child memorizing facts or skills, alone, will produce facts or skills more efficiently on a subsequent low-level test. But I don’t care about that, particularly. I care more about the ability to recombine, evaluate, synthesize, apply and use knowledge, over the long haul.Hey–I know that there are less effective teachers out there whose instructional techniques could use work (or who need to leave the profession). But there are very few teachers who would deliberately restrict student learning, even if they could.
Thanks, Nancy, for your thoughtful post. We hold similar ideas about programs enhancing as well as restricting learning, sometimes through focus and sometimes through incomplete or inadequate use. I extend the idea of restriction a step further. If someone else offers it successfully, and I do not, then I, as teacher, restrict students in my instruction from learning what others learn.Yes, I use the idea of efficient learning in ways that machines as well as people can measure through observation. You may have noticed I offered earlier drafts of a learning efficiency scale and rating system. I especially appreciate your distinction between learning to recite and to use to solve a problem. It’s a classic difference with formal origins by Terman in the 1920s, and used since in psych and ed used by test builders and learning assessors. The first measurses vocabulary; the latter logically extends vocabulary to solve problems. As you know, teachers call the first achievement tests; the second, intelligence tests. That is, first I learned to put my fingers on the right place to make the violin string sound a 440 A, then I learned to assemble that and other notes into a song I played or composed. Do these ideas make sense? Thanks again for your comments.