Thursday, October 30, 2008

Response to Smith, Ch. 7, "Fabricating a Theory of Learning"

A few thoughts, less lengthy than below...

A lovely idea: "Anything that makes sense to us is integrated into our continually growing knowledge of ourselves and of the world, and it is never lost. It becomes part of us" (54). I see this idea as along the lines of respecting one's elders for their experiential life knowledge, for not wasting time on regrets, as related to learning from your mistakes, and as learning being a life-long journey.

Smith also discusses briefly the corporatization of education, with "experts", politicians, and publishers involved, not just the expected participants of students and teachers. I have seen this first-hand at universities, where students seem to have a customer type of approach to their educations, and think of me as someone who is there to give them a service or help them attain a product. Scary stuff, because it leads to a mentality of "I paid my tuition and have attended classes, so where is my A?" I have also felt this corporatization with parenthood, where parenting magazines are really more about product placement and fear mongering ("buy *this* stroller", or "these are the shoes your child needs to learn to walk properly") than about support and information for new parents. And again, the "experts" and politicians are involved. It is certainly not just about the children and parents.

And finally, a common sense tidbit that I've seen at home: Smith writes that "People who have a great interest in a topic or activity, and who have had a greater experience of it, are bound to learn more" (about that topic, I assume). My 3-year- and-9 month old cannot read in general. But he can read every single one of Thomas the Tank Engine's friends names, to the tune of about 40 words. That means he has word recognition of names like "Caroline, "Bulgy", "Percy" and "Henry." That is what interests him (obsesses, him) and therefore that is the locus of his early reading skills. And the learning branches out from there; he will tell 10-min. long stories about these characters, do artwork involving these characters, and has grown a vocabulary that includes such phrases as "you have caused confusion and delay."

Confusion and delay... a catch phrase that could apply to many aspects of education?

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Response to Smith, Part III, Ch. 6 "Undermining Traditional Wisdom"

Smith begins this part of his book with a discussion of how the offical theory of learning was something that was consciously invented. By contrast, the traditional theory of learning is something organic and natural, that many of us would call common sense or conventional wisdom. He states: "Learning can be effortless, continual, permanent--and also pleasant--though it won't take place in the absense of comprehension, interest or confidence" (p. 43). This is probably something we have all experienced: learning something without explicitly trying, but just by picking it up because we were interested. I know, for example, that personally, the breadth of my vocabulary was acquired simply by reading pretty extensively, and reading glorious words used by the likes of Austen or Eliot or Atwood. Sure, I studied vocab for the GRE back in '96, but there are just a couple words from that endeavor that I learned for good ("loquatious" or "ascetic") rather than from good ol' books.

One concern I have with this section of Smith's work is the idealization of a time when children were laborers with no choice in intellectual activity or profession. He writes "if you wanted the child to become a farmer, or a farm laborer, you put the child on the land as soon as possible. If you wanted your child to fish for a living, you sent them to sea. If you wanted them to have religious vocations you sent them to a convent or monastery...." (44). This is not a learning of freedom, but a learning of innate boundaries and confines. You became a butcher because your father was a butcher and his father was before him. Does Smith actually think that those were better times? Don't we now believe that children should have the freedom of childhood play and a lack of responsibility and protection under the law from laboring to earn wages? While I save every month for my very young sons' possible futures as college students, they will have the freedom to forgo college (hopefully they won't call me on it, because of course I would prefer them to go on with a post-secondary education) where they may study what they please. And they certainly are not expected to become teacher/professors like their mom and dad. (Though I've noticed that professions do tend to run in families, as my sister-in-law has become a 3rd generation lawyer).

An issue that I experienced firsthand relates to the "Prussion Connection" section, where Smith expounds against the separation of children by age into grades, contrary to the one-room schoolhouse approach. It is true that separating by age can be unnatural. At the beginning of gr. 2, I was 6 years old, having not had my birthday yet, since it's Nov. 30. Because my school board's cut-off ages were based on the calendar year, January birthdays were the oldest in classrooms and December the youngest. So I was always almost the youngest in my classroom. Well, at the beginning of gr. 2 it became obvious to my teacher and principal that I already knew all the curriculum for the year. What to do with me? The principal suggested moving me up to gr. 3. My mother was unsure; I was already on the young side. Would this have negative effects on my social abilities? But she didn't want me to be bored, a bigger risk in her opinion. So, up I went to gr. 3 at the age of 6, where most of the other kids were 8. My smart teacher paired me up at a desk with the tiniest girl in the class, also very high functioning, and we became fast friends. In fact, I am still good friends with this girl, after all these years. (But, there were issues in high school when I was 12...)

Long story short, my parents made the right decision in moving me up a grade. And it just goes to show that putting a child in a group with children all the same age does not necessarily make for a good fit. How should we make our classes? By ability? But wouldn't that be a problem for streaming children into "gifted" or "average" or "learning difficulties" paths with the attached stigmas and/or privileges? I know that Montessori schools have children 3-5 together at the beginning, but then do they move to traditionally organized grades by age (e.g. Gr. 1is 6 year olds, gr. 2 is 7 year olds, etc)?

Monday, October 27, 2008

Response to Frank Smith, The Book of Learning and Forgetting Part I and II


I am going to reproduce Smith's chart here, so we can all remember the paradigm as he sees it:

The classic view says that learning is:
continual
effortless
inconspicuous
boundless
unpremeditated
independent of rewards and punishment
based on self-image
vicarious
never forgotten
inhibited by testing
a social activity
growth

The official view of learning is:
occasional
hard work
obvious
limited
intentional
dependent on rewards and punishment
based on effort
individualistic
easily forgotten
assured by testing
an intellectual activity
memorization

Again, as I felt with Gatto, there are some fundemental themes that I agree with here. The idea that you often learn while you are not really thinking about learning is one of them. This is a more traditional approach. Who has learned something from a grandparent, say, where just making pies a few times with your grandmother "taught" you how to do it? Would it have been a better way to learn by sitting down and reading through several cookbooks' sections on "How to Make Pies?" No. Especially at the age of 7. The experiential, the tactile, the emotional, the atmospheric, the edible, all roll into the best way to learn, in this example. Grandma's apron, her rolling pin, her dated kitchen that was a bit shabby but super clean, the berries from her own garden, the radio on all the while, the noise of uncles coming and going, and the end result eaten for dessert all become the lesson. (All that being the case, I still don't know how to make pies very well, and probably will need to do some more classic research if I ever want to make a proper pastry).

Another example from my childhood, where I prove Smith's point about offical learning. I moved in the May of my gr. 7 year. So I was brand new, and arrived on a day where the class had a history test. The teacher gave me her notes and I think a notebook from a decent student, I "studied" on my own, took the test a week later and got the highest grade in the class on it (I think I actually got perfect). Now clearly, this is a case of excellent memorization. I had no context for what I was studying. I remember even realizing at the time that I had sort of fooled my new teachers. I hadn't really learned the history. I had memorized and scored. I knew even then that it wasn't real learning. I was proud of myself for showing my sharpness, but even at that time I felt a sense of regret at not having truly learned the material. At the end of the year, we had a "graduation ceremony" because gr. 8 was at a new school in the fall. I was held up as a big success because of this test grade and it was a sign of my future success. Were they wrong to celebrate my achievement by focusing on my test score? It might have been more authentic to congratulate me on acclimating to my new school and social group.

The above examples would show me as on board with Smith's dichotomy of classic vs. official learning. And yet. And yet.

What about the contexts where memorization is really important? I am no scientist or doctor, but aren't there a ton of facts in those fields that simply just must be memorized and absorbed and just plain KNOWN? Of course these then need to be put into practical use, especially for the doctor. Smith addresses this on p. 37 and suggests that rather than empty memorization, we put such facts to music and mneumoics. As a musician, I find this interesting and true some of the time but not always appropriate. Do we really want our doctor singing through the list of symptoms for our illness? Do we really want our church leader to sing her way through the books of the bible to remember the order?

Here's a mneumonic I've never forgotten: "Kim plus Chris or Freddy goes steady." That involved my friend Kim and her crush Chris, in gr. 8 and applied to "Kingdom, Phylom, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species." I swear that is all I remember from gr. 8 science. Correct me if I am misremembering, but I think I've got it right.

What about the idea of "clubs" and that those you surround yourself with are those you will learn from, for better or for worse? Again, I agree to a certain extent. It's commone sense that your behavior and knowledge are rubbed off from those you are with and will rub off in turn. But I think it's important to recognize that one's learning capacities are not bound by the "clubs", that the capacity for learning is infinite and as open as an individual's desire to learn. I get uncomfortable with the thought that parents will only want to surround their children by other like-minded parents' like-minded children. For what happens to diversity in that context? I actually want my children to know children who are NOT like-minded. Children with different interests, learning styles, behaviors, and so forth. (As long as my children don't come home cursing and behaving like hooligans) :)

What are your thoughts...?

And what about "intellectual engagement" just for its own sake? I get a certain high from "hitting the books" so to speak and getting thoroughly ready for an exam. I don't believe I forget everything, not if it feels like what I am studying matters.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Response to John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down

After the first four chapters, I decided to exercise my own student rights, and stop reading Gatto. I had absorbed his points, and I realized that I was feeling a sense of despair. If schools are "jail," then why do I want to become a "jailer?" I cannot accept that view; rather, I hold a deep-seated belief that schools are NOT jail, and that rather than a wanna-be jailer, I am a key holder. I believe that as a teacher I will hold a set of metaphorical keys to help students unlock their minds. The processes of awakening, of understanding, of enlightenment, of growth, of burgeoning interest, are all processes that I hope to nurture in my classroom, all of which involve opening, not locking. These are also processes that I hope will happen to me as well as I go about my role as teacher.

But what had me feeling dispair in Gatto? The 7 Lessons: confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem and that one can't hide. It is not that there are not grains of unfortunate truth in what he says; yes we teach students that they must stay where they "belong" in a group of students that they didn't choose to be with, that they must learn on a fairly superficial level and to turn it off like a switch when it is "time," that a report cards often pose as official declarations deeming worth, that surveillance is pervasive in school. But there is a cynicism informing all that Gatto says, a purposeful negative stance, that he voices in each observation. I feel that as a beginning high school teacher, I need to hold on to a postivie outlook, an idealistic belief, if you will, that will allow me to foster the good, even in the "bad" of what we do.

For example, within the "jail cell" of the classroom, where a student is surrounded by peers that he or she had no say in being with, is there not still a positive outlook on that situation? That by being with those that one would not normally choose to associate with, one must learn to accept those person's differences and somehow learn to work literally alongside them? That the lack of choice, unfortunately, prepares students for a college dorm, for an office workplace, for a social club where all types of people are present and need to co-mingle?

Despite my unease with accepting the 7 Lessons as truth, Gatto asserts some general fundamental points that I agree with: that children need to spend time with their families, that they need to be integrated in society across its citizens old and young, that they need privacy, that they need to be left to learn on their own time and in their own way (i.e. over-programming kids with curricula both inside and outside the classroom is not a good idea), that learning can happen in the most surprising of places from the most surprising of teachers, that our goal as educators is to model and nourish critical thinking, and that we inevitably bump against the system from within, as we try to do the workings of a school district and board while also trying to teach in a way that frees our students.

A paragraph that I want to hold on to and roll around in my mind on my journey to becoming a high school teacher:

"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important: how to live and how to die." (67-68)

In saying goodbye to Gatto, I am led by my prof to Frank Smith, whom I'll respond to next. But the feeling of despair has been good for me, in that I am now wondering about the role of the subversive in teaching, and have begun to read bell hooks, "Teaching as Transgression." What I am searching for I think, is someone who somehow still believes in the profound good of schools and teaching, even as the need for subversion and trangression is blatantly clear. Because, so far, that is where I believe my own stance lies.

So it begins

This morning dawned with an idea. I want to write responses to the literature I am reading about pedagogy, and I need a fulfilling and meaningful project for my Foundations of Education Class at Western Oregon University (MAT program, class of 2010). And so it begins, because I want to put my thoughts out there into the world, as we do as teachers. Welcome, and thanks in advance for your comments and feedback.