How did the New York Times get suckered into running an op-ed piece that recycles standard ed school constructivist orthodoxies, presenting them as a bold, new curriculum initiative? In her curious essay titled ”Playing to Learn,” Williams College professor Susan Engel calls on elementary schools to “overhaul the curriculum itself.” By the time children leave elementary school they
“…should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.
“Imagine,” Engel writes, ”a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.” Even the Gates Foundation, with its “fewer, deeper, clearer” standards mantra would agree. But it’s the how-do-we-get-there piece where this leaves the rails. Engel says children should:
“…spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.”
Translation: goodbye curriculum, goodbye content, so long rigor. Hello “lifelong love of reading” and whole language. (Notice that phonics and decoding is neither the first or even the second “step to literacy.”) Curiouser and curiouser.
Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.
Translation: It’s our old friend “authentic learning,” a bold and new idea when Dewey suggested it one hundred years ago. Another set piece of any constructivist ed diatribe is a complaint about trivia and rote learning and Engel doesn’t disappoint. What children shouldn’t do, she writes, is spend
tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it.
In short, Professor Engel is offering not one new idea here, but rather a steaming gumbo of fads, failed ed school homilies and constructivist ideology. It’s a vision that has lost none of its ability to charm and inspire–Engel’s piece has been among the most forwarded at the New York Times website since it appeared Monday–yet remains as ineffective and doomed to fail as ever. At Kitchen Table Math, Katharine Beals has Engel’s number:
Clearly Engel not only knows her cognitive science, but has spent countless hours observing what happens in today’s classrooms: all that futile phonics instruction; all those tedious math and science drills; all that dearth of collaborative learning, game playing, letter writing, and cartooning. But I must reserve my greatest appreciation for the New York Times for deeming it fit to publish this courageous piece, with its original criticisms of today’s classrooms, its revolutionary proposals for reform, and its pioneering attempts to bring science into classroom teaching.
At least a few ed reformers recognize Engels piece for the nonsense it is, but let’s not kid ourselves, they’re not innocent bystanders. By pushing a punitive form of accountability, demonizing teachers, and remaining on the sidelines during critical discussions of pedagogy and curriculum–what children actually do all day–they tacitly encourage the joyless prep-and-test environments Engel’s piece rightly decries. Yes, yes, I know. There’s nothing in strict accountability standards and aggressive testing that precludes a rich, engaging curriculum and a spirited classroom environment. It’s just funny how it rarely ever seems to work out that way.
I have no doubt that you’ll get a dozen or more comments confirming your assertion that Engel’s piece is a big, steaming bowl of… something–but there is evidence (and not just from cognitive science) that constructivism is a valid learning model.
This evidence often comes from our international competitors, whose educational systems do indeed focus on a limited range of deep standards and competencies, as well as (gasp) project-based learning, application of knowledge to, yes, constructivist experiences. Creating a system where development of inquiring minds is the goal, and test results are the byproduct, rather than the reverse.
Engels goes over the top. But so does the other side–the crowd which believes that “content” and only content matters, and true constructivism is not a real thing. Here are some doumented and researched examples:
http://www.edutopia.org/international-teaching-learning-assessment-video
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — February 4, 2010 @ 2:43 pm
I keep hearing about these people who believe only content matters. I also keep hearing about these dark, satanic mills where children sit in rows and spend their time memorizing long lists of disconnected facts and figures. I don’t actually know of any, of course. But I keep hearing about them.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 4, 2010 @ 2:54 pm
@ Robert–Bingo! you have correctly identified the “over the top” characterization in Engel’s piece (and gave me a good laugh). But just as Engels portrays schools as drill factories, there are plenty on the right who assume that schools are now rife with mush-brain, useless “ed school orthodoxies”– including the extremely useful idea that kids learn more when they’re applying knowledge, testing and checking, rather than memorizing the right stuff. From the dark satanic mill to the aimless playground. Neither is accurate. And if you find yourself strongly in one camp or another, it might have more to say about your value system than what research or practice indicate.
Notice the noun-verb combo: Applying. Knowledge. kids do have to know something to apply it. But there’s much to recommend about the projects in the Edutopia link I posted: testing formulas, collecting and analyzing data, figuring out how things operate, tossing out ideas for discussion, all using constructive inquiry.
More than a decade ago (when I was still ripping articles out of magazines, rather than bookmarking links) E.D. Hirsch and Ted Sizer were featured in a major article in a newsmagazine–Time, or perhaps Newsweek–contrasting two visions of what a high-quality education looked like. Hirsch, of course, took the “what your child should know in 2nd grade” approach and Sizer advocated project-based inquiry. The article concluded that both approaches were essential.
I seldom see people taking that nuanced approach. While I agree that Engels shaded the truth to make a point, you have made the teeter-totter go in the other direction here.
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — February 4, 2010 @ 3:48 pm
Nancy,
Project-based inquiry (e.g. discovering knowledge based upon student interests and hands on work as advocated by Susan Engle et al.) is not synonymous with applying knowledge to projects (your terminology). The latter is used quite extensively internationally, the former not at all.
While Linda Darling-Hammond highlights the process skills used by the international students, what is not captured in her interview is the in-depth, carefully sequenced content that is expected to be learned in the top performing school systems (Finland, Singapore, etc..). Students in these school systems are expected to apply their content knowledge to new and interesting projects, not discover content knowledge from projects.
In the top performing school systems the content knowledge comes first, the process skills second.
Comment by Erin Johnson — February 4, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
I think certain students would do very well in a school like the one described by Ms. (Dr?) Engel. My oldest is one. She’s also the one of my kids who reads encyclopedias and does workbooks “for fun” (seriously). The problem comes when well-meaning educrats think *ALL* students would be like that if only they were freed from the drudgery of explicit instruction. Nope, sorry. My 2nd is perfectly bright, but I’ve discovered he needs to be explicitly taught much of the stuff that his big sister just picked up on her own through osmosis.
I’d like to see an overhaul of the K-12 system to allow parents the freedom to choose the school that is the best “fit” for their child. There should be constructivist schools, and “back-to-basics” schools, and everything in between.
Comment by Crimson Wife — February 4, 2010 @ 6:03 pm
Nancy,
Is anyone faulting Engel for advocating a “limited range of deep standards and competencies”? Not me.
It’s, rather, suggestions like “inventing games” and “lots of time” on collaborative learning that I find both unoriginal (plenty of schools already practice these things) and problematic.
Project based learning, with proper rigor, guidelines, and mastery of background knowledge–as we see in the Finland and Singapore clips from Darling-Hammond’s video) is something few people would argue against.
But “project-based learning” as practiced in this country (and as Engel would notice were she to visit actual classrooms), involves such nonsense as these things (from my education blog), which you will NOT find in high performing countries:
http://oilf.blogspot.com/2009/08/summer-math-projects-grade-5.html
http://oilf.blogspot.com/2009/12/6th-grade-holiday-math-project-just.html
Katharine Beals
Comment by Katharine Beals — February 4, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
Nancy and Robert,
I think the challenge is not so much that Engel exaggerates (whether for effect or becuase she’s a “true believer’) It is that general media outlets like the TImes or CNN seek out sharply delineated and simplified stories to tell in the 750 to 1,000 words (or 2-3 mins in TV)available to them.
So there is little room (or interest) in an op-ed or opinion column that says “Hey, this is a complex topic which requires a nuanced solution.” As an example your readers will recall David Brooks’ May 2009 op-ed “The Harlem Miracle” which relied on a grossly-simplified analysis to declare that Geoffrey Canada has closed the achievement gap.
Philip Tetlock (another psychologist) at UC Berkley looks at this phenomena in his book “Expert Political Judgment: How Good is it? How Can we Know?” While it is not the central theme of his book, he points out that the more extreme and simplified an experts’ view, the more easily media outlets fit them in to a slot in their “fair and balanced” approach to reporting. And this creates a self-reinforcing, negative feedback loop that doesn’t elp broader society understand the issues.
Comment by Matthew — February 4, 2010 @ 7:04 pm
The timing of the story seems to be an issue. Almost simultaneously with this op-ed everything coming out of USDOE and the federal ed budgets and Race to the Top seems to be moving toward Project Based Learning, away from “scientifically based” reading instruction, redesigning American history and civics in high school to something called “Well Rounded” education and other constructivist philosophies.
We seem to be moving toward a single national curriculum that is not about content knowledge and academic skills.
How can it be “voluntary” to tell insolvent states and school districts that there’s money available if you mandate what we want?
Comment by Student of History — February 4, 2010 @ 8:43 pm
@ Erin: If you re-read my message, I think you will see that you and I are saying precisely the same thing–once you have knowledge, you can apply that knowledge to a variety of tasks. What bothers me is the blanket condemnation of “project-based” or “inquiry” learning. Just as there is, actually, mindless drill–there’s also empty, content-free, just-do-it “project learning.” While Engel did not, in my opinion, make the case for constructivist learning, there is merit in constructivism–which is clearly evident in the LDH video clip.
When we reduce the discussion to black/white, for/against–as Matthew notes– we end up with these heated but pointless battles followed by retreating to our own virtual camps. Engels drew a huge response in Teacher World, nearly all of it positive. Not because teachers prefer project learning (done well, it’s not easy to manage), but because they hate the loss of autonomy and narrowing of focus to test scores. We need to start looking at making the right changes to improve teaching–and those changes involve a range of competencies, to meet all kids’ needs. Crimson Wife said that best.
@Katherine: I would argue that inventing games can be a challenging intellectual exercise, if the disciplinary content involved was worthwhile. Constructing an original game is hard–even a simple Q & A game involves selection and review of content, and once you get past Jeopardy, game theory is very rigorous. I’m not saying teachers know how to do this well–but let’s not throw out games as intellectual fluff.
@Student of History–I think you’ve got it backwards. There is nothing in RTTT that supports project learning or constructivism. In fact, if you look at the comments under the Edutopia video clip referenced above, you’ll notice that most people are bemoaning the fact that Linda Darling-Hammond was passed over as Secretary of Ed, in favor of Arne Duncan, who’s maintained the USDOE focus on market-based incentives, alternative teacher prep, connecting teacher evaluation to test scores, etc.
The current work on Common Core standards is still in draft. It’s not a curriculum at all, and certainly does not prescribe teaching methods.
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — February 4, 2010 @ 9:32 pm
I agree that this is a strange essay, but I had to think about it a bit to realize that. I first scanned through it with my usual expectation that it would be the usual “ed school” view of education, which is to say short, shallow, and consisting of platitudes to and straw men to knock down. I think it is that, but perhaps it is also worth some more careful consideration, at least as food for thought and points of departure.
I find it of interest that Engel says “developmental precursors don’t always resemble the skill to which they are leading . . .” That might be an idea worth thinking very seriously about. I’m not sure where it might lead. Everyday I struggle with my students in my college algebra classes that I teach. (I mean that as a “with” of accompaniment and mutual effort, not as a “with” of engagement or opposition.) And I wonder why many students have such a difficult time. What are the precursors of success in college math? I think I have some idea, but perhaps there are precursors that are important, but that I have no inkling of. Who knows. I’m going to keep that idea in mind.
But I don’t think Engel has much to offer in this direction. Her example, that “saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learn to read.” just doesn’t sound too convincing. Indeed Engel seems to think that having a rich and stimulating environment in early years is a sufficient precursor for everything. I can accept that having a rich and stimulating environment is a contributing, perhaps even necessary, precursor for latter academic success, but not sufficient. I would think that another necessary precursor to later academic success is being exposed to the demands and rigors of assignments, practice, worksheets, critical feedback, memorization, etc, that comes only by direct instruction by a competent teacher who expects learners to apply themselves seriously. That is a “rich and stimulating environment” in its own way, but I don’t get the sense that that’s what Engel has in mind. I think she has something more like whole language in mind.
She says, “children would also spend a short period of time each day practicing computation — adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.” That’s a strange way of talking about math education. And “counting things, whether they be words, events or people”, she says, is one of the things children naturally love. Strange.
For platitudes I can list the following:
“People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade”
“Scientists know that children learn best . . .”
“Research has shown . . .”
There’s several straw men, implied at least, in this article (“straw men” in the sense that you set them up in order to knock them down). Her phrase, “the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students,” is an example. That evokes a picture and a perspective of current practice that I don’t think is realistic, but makes a nice target for her to tilt with. And she mentions, “a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.” Good sound bite. Knock that straw man down! And then there’s “learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts . . .”
When was this written? I presume in 2010, or possibly 2009. But from the content it could have been written in 1910, or 1930, or 1950, or 1980. The phrase, “they construct knowledge”, I think would not come out of 1910, or perhaps even 1980. But what else in the article could not have been written in very much the same way a hundred years ago?
I am a constructivist, by the way, but not in the way the ed school crowd uses the term. I have given thought to the basic idea that learners construct knowledge in their minds, about what this might mean, or should mean, or could mean. I’ve put my thoughts in an article on my website. http://www.brianrude.com/constv.htm
How did the New York Times get suckered into running this piece? Pretty easily apparently. There is a market for this kind of thing. There has been for hundreds of years, dating back at least to when Rousseau and Pestalozzi were sounding like this.
Once again I feel like a grinch for being so negative. But I continue to think Engel’s article is what I said, short, shallow, and clichéd. “Short“ is the only part I like.
I think we can do better.
Comment by Brian Rude — February 5, 2010 @ 12:36 am
Nancy,
The commonly held concept of “project-based-inquiry” is absolutely not equivalent to your stated definition of “applying learned knowledge to solving complex problems”. So while we may completely agree with each other about the need to integrate knowledge and problem solving in addressing complex problems, Susan Engels offers no support nor ethusiasm for the “applying knowledge to solving compelex problem” approach in her essay. In fact she discounts the need for knowledge in her subtext.
She states, “the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling”. This perspective underestimates the complexity of subject matter competency.
Reading a story is *completely* unlike reading a textbook. Her view of learning to read undersells/misunderstands the need to develop both subject matter knowledge and the ability to learn from complex domain-specific material.
Reading a “chapter book” (as she advocates) as a goal for the end of elementary school has almost no similiarities (in comprehension) to being able to read a chemistry textbook. Reading a chemistry book to learn new information requires 1) extensive prior knowledge, 2)an in-depth understanding of how technical texts are written and 3) the persistence in extracting complex information from extremely complex dense sentence structures. Not skills usually practiced in story books, especially chapter books.
“Inquiry” as an edu-term has come to mean more hands-one work with substantially less literary-intense instruction (e.g. students do not have to read a textbook since they are doing experiments). But this approach has a critical error in understanding what it takes to be a competent scientist/historian (or any subject matter field). The ability to read complex, difficult material is essential for compentency in any field.
Playing with experiments (that students don’t really understand) does not equate to expert level analysis/abilities. Solving problems does. The “inquiry” approach advocated by Susan Engels et al., is more akin to play that solving.
However, once a student has mastered the fundamental concepts embedded in the complex texts, applying that knowledge to concrete problems can further deepen their understanding of the subject matter material.
So what do you mean by championing the “inquiry” based approach to learning? Do you mean “no textbooks, only hands-on learning” as promoted by Susan Engel et al. or do you mean “learn the domain-specicic concepts, read the difficult texts and use that information to solving complex problems”?
To do the latter, domain-specific subject matter needs to be primary in any educational endeavor.
Comment by Erin Johnson — February 5, 2010 @ 3:17 am
Nancy-
My comments are based on having watched Gene Wilhoit and Dane Linn’s December presentation on CCSI and actually reading the final RTT regulations and the accompanying comments. Between what they said and how they treated questioners advocating different types of instructional practices, they each made their preferences and planned agenda quite clear.
USDOE is clearly and expressly moving away from any requirement that instructional methods in reading and math be held to any minimum standards on effectiveness. You only do that to get away from the findings of the National Reading Panel and the many well designed studies that show poor results from using inquiry learning in math with ESL and “at risk” kids. The Access Center and others have documented the need for direct instruction using worked examples and a sequential approach to teach math effectively to certain groups of students.
The RTT comments expressly reject any requirement that a state’s instructional programs be evidence based at all. That means that an efficacy standard is constraining to the educational practices the feds want to see implemented. Efficacy requirements are only a burden if you want to implement Whole Language practices for reading and problem based or discovery learning in math.
John Sweller and David Geary have written some wonderful peer reviewed articles on how students acquire new knowledge and how this reflects the brain’s architecture and the evolved nature of working memory. None of that is relevant in this new utopian world that rejects any requirement of efficacy for mandated ed programs.
Comment by Student of History — February 5, 2010 @ 8:11 am
I’m not sure “the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students,” is quite the strawman you think it is. My daughter has teachers who introduce the standards they are teaching by number, as in “Today we’re covering standard 2.1, how to…”
Comment by Rachel — February 5, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
I recognize that one. In NYC, we had to have the aim and standard written on the board at all times for the lesson taking place at that moment. Why? God knows. Supposedly supervisors should be able to come in, ask a child at random what she is doing and why. If the child didn’t cite the aim — and the learning goal from the standard in his or her own words — it’s evidence of shoddy teaching. (I used to lampoon the ELA standard which says that the student should be able to “produce a response to literature.” Open a book, read a few lines, then gasp and take your face in your hands like the figure in Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Congratulations, you’ve met the standard).
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 5, 2010 @ 12:17 pm
@Erin: I agree with all of your descriptors and caveats about effective inquiry and project-based learning–and have already said that Engels did not do a good job of making a case for constructivism (which is why I posted the video link).
But–let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is great value in well-done project-based/inquiry learning. I am curious about where you teach–and why you say that the “commonly held concept” of project-based learning is shallow: hands-on, no-textbooks, etc. rather than a robust, applied-knowledge model.
In my school (where test scores are in the top 10% of the state) there is very little project-based or inquiry learning. Direct instruction is much easier to manage–it’s all right there in the complex text, after all–so teachers (even our science folks) rarely stray from the teacher-tells, test-for-reading-recall model. One exception is a science teacher whose inquiry units on pond life and water quality have won national awards. The lounge chatter on him is that he’s an overachiever and glutton for punishment. Kids, of course, kill to get into his classes–last year, most of his students were there by parent request. So maybe that’s why his test scores were so strong.
@ Student of History. Unfortunately, I have read the RTTT regulations, thoroughly–but I concur with Gene Wilhoit about the importance of the DOE remaining agnostic about teaching methods, when Common Core standards and assessments become our de facto national not-really-a-curriculum.
Some things work well in Forest Hills High–and other methods yield better results at P.S. 113–and most schools need to offer a mix. One size has never fit all. Besides, there are actually teachers who have had great results with inquiry learning in high-needs schools. The lessons have to be well-designed, of course–and that’s more difficult than reading a script–and will take a different kind of teacher.
As for the National Political Reading Panel and the ugly ethical underbelly of prescribing “best” reading programs (and skimming off a few bucks while we’re at it), the less said, the better.
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — February 5, 2010 @ 12:36 pm
I haven’t been able to follow all the details of project based learning and inquiry based learning on this thread, but I have developed a few ideas about the teaching of math that I think relate to all this. Should the teaching of math be led by problems, or by the math itself? My thoughts on this are at http://www.brianrude.com/modelm.htm .
Comment by Brian Rude — February 5, 2010 @ 5:48 pm
A recent survey of university professors in California revealed that the skill they desired most among incoming students was the ability to write a well-organized and well-reasoned essay, supported by evidence. Yes, we need to challenge our students, but the long list of standards we have now make school difficult without making learning rich. The richness, my 18 years of teaching science tells me, comes from allowing students to dive deeply into original research, challenging them to come up with their own questions to investigate, design their own investigations, and report and defend their results. By its very nature this produces divergent content knowledge, because students don’t think alike, and are not necessarily interested in the same things. But they should all learn to think, to question, to investigate, and to explain their discoveries.
Of course they must also learn some background knowledge, because every class is not going to rediscover Boyle’s Law or reinvent the Periodic Table. But when they acquire that knowledge in connection with their own investigations, it has much more meaning to them.
Comment by Anthony Cody — February 5, 2010 @ 7:39 pm
Re: the California professors’ complaint…Ha! Writing essays is done ad nauseum in California schools! Teachers have blithely discarded content to make way for the vastly more meaningful Writer’s Workshop. The result: ignorant graduates who cannot write! If this doesn’t prove the futility of incessant practice of “writing skills”, what does? Perhaps Dan Willingham can target writing skills as the next educational myth to debunk. If kids aren’t exposed to rich vocabulary and great writers’ writing, and don’t have lots of life/world knowledge stored in their noggins, they’re not going to produce articulate, smart essays, regardless of how many five-paragraph essays on random topics they’ve done. I’m not saying it’s pointless to teach a few mini-lessons on essay organization and transition words, but I suspect this writing skills instruction is, as Willingham has shown, is a lot like reading skills instruction: a one shot treatment is enough. The writing process should not be the meat and potatoes of the language arts/lit. curriculum as it is now.
Comment by Ben F — February 5, 2010 @ 11:22 pm
Rachel’s comment above (Feb 5 at 12:10pm) gives me reason to reconsider a bit. When I first read “the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students,” I took it as a slam against conventional practice, the whole class instruction, homework, “going over the lesson”, quizzes and tests, and so on, that has long been the mainstay of most teachers’ everyday routine. But if Engel has in mind what is described by Rachel and Robert, that sounds like quite a different matter. That may not be a straw man at all.
This brings up the subject of teacher autonomy. I’m getting the impression that in recent decades American education have moved far in the direction of expecting teachers to be implementers of programs laid down from above, as opposed to expecting teachers to be given, and to take, a high degree of autonomy in what they do and how they do it. I can see how a high degree of autonomy can be used by teachers in quite divergent ways. One teacher may use autonomy to give effective no-nonsense, serious instruction that results in learning of real substance. Another teacher may use autonomy to engage in what I would consider fluff. My interpretation of Engel’s article is she is heavily on the fluff side.
Call it the “fluff-substance continuum”. (We could call it the “fluff-substance” divide, but I think it’s more of a continuum.) Over the years I have become very sensitized to what I consider fluff. I don’t like it. I think it does a serious disservice to students. I think one of the greatest gifts we can give the young is a good education, an education of substance, an education as wide and deep as the students can handle. I think the ideal of “collaborative learning”, “inquiry learning”, “activities based learning”, and so on, does not lead to substantial learning. So I call it fluff. And I rail against it as best I can whenever the opportunity arises. But I also realize there must be something quite appealing to many teachers in the educational ideas that we might put under the umbrella title of “progressive”, a term I use almost synonymously with “fluff”. So does all this argue for or against autonomy for teachers?
I think most teachers will use autonomy to deliver a reasonably high degree of substance to their students. Teachers are complex, of course. If we give teachers a lot of autonomy the results will not be totally to my liking. But based on what I remember of the teachers I had as a child, and based on the rather extensive descriptions my wife has given me of her teachers, and based on the dealings we had with our children’s teachers, and based on what I know of the teachers with whom I have worked, I think we do best, in the long run, by letting teachers use their own good judgment. Teaching is like parenting in some important ways. Not all parents are good parents, but within broad limits we leave them alone. I think the best thing school boards and administrators can do is give the teachers the space and tools to do their job, and get out of the way.
The ideas of progressive education should be subject to close scrutiny, as should all ideas of education. There should be a battle of ideas until good ideas win. And I think this battle should be in an open market of ideas, where teachers have a high degree of freedom to do what their common sense, intuition, and experience tell them is best. The battle should be for teachers’ minds, not legislators’ votes, in my humble opinion.
It is with this perspective that I decided a year or so ago that I do not favor NCLB, or expect much benefit from any form of national standards. And the situation that Robert describes (above, Feb 5, 12:17 pm) makes me shudder. So maybe I’m at least a little bit in Susan Engel’s camp. I’m not there heart and soul, but maybe I have one foot there, or maybe a big toe. Maybe.
Comment by Brian Rude — February 6, 2010 @ 4:00 am
Dan Willingham has written a response to Engel’s Op_Ed that is in today’s Wash Post.
Here’s the link http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/willingham.html .
Does anyone have a response to his point that there’s nothing new about this view of education and the places where it works well are quite rare and inevitably populated with affluent kids with involved, well educated parents who compliment instruction at home.
Progressive education is simply not a scaleable idea.
Comment by Student of History — February 6, 2010 @ 2:39 pm
If you haven’t read Diane Ravitch’s Left Back you should, SOH. It reinforces Dan’s point convincingly. I’m inclined to agree with Dan. I tend to think it’s less a matter of affluent parents supplementing instruction than the fact that children who are more affluent tend to accumulate more out-of-school experience, discussion and background knowledge — in short, more cultural capital.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 6, 2010 @ 9:57 pm
I think that’s what I was saying as well but I will get the book.
Well traveled kids who watch news with their parents who point out similar crises from the past are much easier to teach. They are less likely to be harmed by Project Based, inquiry learning because they bring in so much content knowledge from the home.
Are we coming back again to the problem of the heterogeneous classroom? For some students to move forward they need background that leaves other students quite bored. If you’re trying to provide scaffolding for the stronger students, others become frustrated and tune out.
Comment by Student of History — February 6, 2010 @ 10:12 pm
@Nancy, It sounds like you have luckily been spared some of the worse effects of the “inquiry” approach to learning.
If it is of interest, the recent events in Washington state with a judge ruling against the “inquiry” based math adopted by the Seattle school district because those programs significantly increased the achievement gap might help to clarify why “inquiry based project learning” is commonly perceived in our country as being rather shallow and detrimental to education. (See Robert’s post on “Suing over Curriculum” and related links.)
Constructivism on the surface seems to makes sense and in the context of extensive in-depth domain specific subject matter could possibly contribute to student learning. But the commonly held belief (even espoused by Linda Darling-Hammond in the interview you linked us to) does not promote the essential need for subject matter competency *prior* to inquiry based projects.
Finland and Singapore (among other quality school systems) are only able to use inquiry techiques because those school systems *insist* upon extensive student learning of content domain specific knowledge prior to inquiry applications. So why doesn’t Prof. Darling-Hammond first start with the necessity of content knowledge? Why does she focus on a minor feature of these international schools systems as opposed to the in-depth complex content learning that is expected of each and every student?
Cherry picking those few techniques that seem at first blush to match with progressive education ideals will not enable our students to match the quality learning experienced by students in the top school systems in the world.
It would be a mistake to glorify current teaching practice in America(chalk and talk) as our student learning results are rather poor when compared to our international peers.
But substituing these very mistaken practices of project/inquiry based learning will not improve the situation, and the initial results of “inquiry” without content seen in our country suggest an even worse proposition: a substantial erosion of student abilities/learning even compared to our rather meager school learning tradition. A more critical/thorough view of the international scene would reveal the essential need for subject matter compentency as the primary driver of school improvements in curricula, with “inquiry” learning as a minor secondary aspect of schooling.
So on the content – process balance, which aspect do you think should be foremost? We both know how limited time is in school. If “inquiry” learning is rather time inefficient, how much time should we use for the process of “inquiry” at the expense of domain specific knowledge? What would be your ideal ratio of knowledge learning vs. the time needed for “inquiry”?
Comment by Erin Johnson — February 7, 2010 @ 3:27 am
Thanks to Student of History for that link to Dan Willingham’s response to Susan Engel’s article. It’s not too often that I disagree with Dan Willingham, but this time I think I do, at least about one point. Speaking of progressive ideas in general he says,
“There is a reason these ideas have perennial appeal. They are good ideas. . . . .”
I don’t think they are good ideas, at least not in general. Dan says they are simply hard to implement effectively. It seems to me that is probably true. But surely they are hard to implement just because they are not very good ideas.
A lot of progressive ideas want the teacher to get out of the way and let students take over. I think that’s a bad idea because students, especially the young, cannot possibly have much more than a very limited idea of what they should be learning and why, or how.
Progressive ideas often are based on the idea that we learn by doing. I would argue that of course we learn by doing, but we do not learn X by doing Y. We learn X by doing X. We learn to manipulate mental concepts by manipulating mental concepts, not by anything else. That’s why we assign homework, homework that is carefully chosen so that students do X, and not some Y only loosely related. Dan gives the example of learning about ecosystems by planting tomatoes, and points out the limitations to that. I would argue that even under the best of circumstances, with intelligent and civilized kids, planting tomatoes is not learning about ecosystems. In some situations it may be well worthwhile to plant tomatoes. Indeed it may be that planting tomatoes somehow supports the learning of ecosystems. But if you want kids to learn about ecosystems then the first requirement is that you teach about ecosystems. Expecting to learn X by doing Y is a bad idea.
Progressive ideas tend to extoll the virtues of collaborative learning. Strange that progressivists call themselves constructivists. Surely the first corollary of constructivism is that all learning is individual. It has to be, because learners construct meaning in their minds. Progressivists seem blind to group dynamics. They seem to think that groups always combine the strengths of individual members. This can happen, but group effort can also be very frustrating, and often is, simply because groups can also combine the weakness of the individual members, and often do. This is not to say that collaborative learning is always bad. Indeed, I am quite aware that among my college algebra students those who form study groups reap substantial benefits. But the degree of group work advocated by progressivists seems to me a very bad idea.
No idea should be rejected just because it has the label of “progressive”. And no idea should be rejected just because someone brands it with the label “traditional”. Every idea should be judged by a careful analysis, and by the results it produces. Perhaps Dan says these are good ideas in order to be polite. If that is the case then I think Dan is a little too polite. I think these are bad ideas.
Comment by Brian Rude — February 7, 2010 @ 11:00 am
Plenty of kids with upper-middle class, educated parents would not do well in a constructivist school either. Just because the child could acquire the background knowledge from his/her environment by osmosis, does not mean that he/she will actually do so. One of my kids does, and one does not. The one who doesn’t is quick to pick things up when they are explicitly taught. But for whatever reason, he needs that explicit instruction while his sister often does not.
Comment by Crimson Wife — February 8, 2010 @ 3:32 am
First of all, if direct instruction could fix the problems we have been seeing for the past dozens of years in urban schools, they would have been fixed long ago. The idea that progressives have held sway for the past forty years and are thus responsible for our troubles is wrong. Direct instruction focused on core content was the norm in the school in which I taught, and most of the students I got were accustomed to it. And bored and alienated. I did not take a constructivist approach because somebody in Ed School told me it was the way to go. I took that approach because I was tired of my students getting little or nothing out of the textbook we were supposed to be using, which wanted them to know the difference between batholith and lacolith.
Crimson Wife makes an interesting point. Some students thrive with direct, explicit instruction. I do not think it is necessary to demonize this approach. But if it is all we do, then our students tend to sit waiting for the next lesson from on high, and do not learn how to think for themselves. In my experience we need a balance — just as we need both some lessons in phonics, and some whole language where those skills are applied. We need to learn to swing the hammer, and we need to build something with our tools. We need to learn some science background AND we need to design some experiments of our own and learn from our mistakes and discoveries.
Comment by Anthony Cody — February 8, 2010 @ 10:10 am
Anthony,
You remind me that there’s a difference between good direct instruction, which can be funny, fun, vivid and exciting, and bad direct instruction, which can be confusing, dull and alienating. It seems to me that teachers who really know their subject are more likely to produce the former rather than the latter. It also seems to me that significant prep time is required for top-notch direct instruction.
And even if the direct instruction is boring, that doesn’t mean it’s not benefitting the student. Conversely, an engaging lesson might not impart much important knowledge or skill. Furthermore, many cooperative learning and project activities can be boring and alienating.
Comment by Ben F — February 8, 2010 @ 10:40 am
Progressive education, 21st Century Skills, and authentic learning are the primary reasons our schools fell into a state of despair during the past century.
Between John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Dr. Spock, A. S. Neill’s Summerhill, Antioch University, open education, etc., etc., progressive education realized an almost perfect storm of educational malpractice.
The problem with the demise of these ideologies; while they have essentially been abandoned and their programs expired from “intellectual exhaustion” (Diane Ravitch, 2000), they’ve laced our schools of education, teacher colleges, and public schools with their useless ideologies for unsuspecting educators to grasp and replicate without full knowledge of their historical downfall.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 8, 2010 @ 11:01 am
The first experiment I designed was in college. It went well because of all the content and lab skills I learned in high school. Without those, it would have been a joke.
Comment by Jane — February 8, 2010 @ 11:31 am
I have a copy of Cremin’s 1961 book The Transformation of the School where he explains the history of Progressive education and how the economic needs demonstrated by World War II and then Sputnik finally killed it.
What’s the line about reports of my death have been greatly exagerated?
Comment by Student of History — February 8, 2010 @ 12:11 pm
“Everything dies, baby that’s a fact, but maybe everything that dies some day comes back.”
Bruce Springsteen – “Atlantic City”
I think the Boss may have, in fact, been singing about the cycles of education, and that if you wait long enough a fad/trend will reappear.
Somehow, I’d have trouble rooting for any of the progressive ed foolishness to return but the crowd supporting this stuff under the label of 21st century skills is doing their best.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 8, 2010 @ 4:47 pm