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This issue is written by Bruce Hammonds and is based on Thomas Armstrong's new book 'The Best Schools - How Human Development Should Inform Educational Practice.' ASCD 2006 (www.ascd.org)
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Theme: Time to Return to a Developmental Approach?
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Now and again along comes a book that makes the reader take a fresh look at what we all take for granted - the differences between areas of schooling. The past decades educational bureaucrats have focused on imposing 'seamless' standardized curriculums from early childhood to senior secondary schools. As a result, schools have struggled to implement and assess technocratic curriculums that are 'a mile wide and an inch deep'.
In New Zealand our own Ministry bureaucrats have realized the error of their ways and their draft Curricum2006 is a breath of fresh air with its focus on the attributes ( they use the technocratic phrase 'key competencies') that students will need to thrive in the future. Particularly pleasing is its image of students as, 'active seekers, users, and creators of knowledge'. As well our current Minister of Education has picked up on the concept of 'personalized learning' as an 'antidote' to the 'one size fits all' mass education of the past century. Change is in the air.
New Zealand creative teachers now have an opportunity add their 'voice' to the educational debate too long captured by technocrats. It is not so simple in the United States, according to Thomas Armstrong well known for his previous writing on multiple intelligences. For too long in the Unites States schools have been dominated by, what he calls, an 'Academic Discourse'. This 'discourse' has resulted in inappropriate educational practices and, as a result, schools are becoming increasingly dysfunctional. This is resulting in an unacceptable number of disengaged and disorientated students. We would recognize his 'Academic Discourse' as the traditional transmission approach combined with a focus on literary and numeracy. We also have our long tail of failing students - the so called 'achievement gap.'
Armstrong believes it is time to rethink the purpose of education for the 21stC and to focus on helping all students develops their inborn talents, gifts and interests. He calls this the 'Human Development discourse'. The thesis that Armstrong outlines in his book is there are special developmental needs for each level of schooling and that these needs determines the focus for developmentally appropriate pedagogical approaches. Such developmental teaching ideas are something sensitive teachers have always known, particularly teachers in junior classes, but the pressure of complying, 'delivering' and assessing of top down curriculum requirements and achievement 'targets' has distracted our attention from our student centred philosophy.
The worst effects of an 'Academic Achievement Discourse' are to be seen in our secondary schools with their fragmented specialist teaching but the pressure to demonstrate 'achievement' reaches to the lowest levels of schooling distorting education in the process.
Armstrong reminds us that the 'one size fits all' curriculum approach simply does not fit all students. Armstrong reminds us also that each level has very different needs his book is based on the idea that each level has its own central focus - and that they all build on each other.
Armstrong has defined four level of schooling each with their own special emphasis to inform teaching and learning. Early Education from, ages 3 to 6, which should evolve out of a child's play; Elementary or Primary Education, from ages 7-11, focusing on helping students actively engage in real life activities; Middle Schools, ages 12- 15, with a focus on social, emotional and meta-cognitive growth; and High Schools, ages 16 -18, devoted to preparing students to live independently in the real world.
Nothing controversial in this but Armstrong is concerned that the implications of this 'developmental discourse' is being ignored in the Unites States and as a result inappropriate teaching practices are being implemented. It is interesting to note that there is little mention of the implications of developmental stages included in the NZ Draft Curriculum.
The 'Academic Achievement Discourse' can be recognized by the use of such words as: 'accountability', 'standards', 'added -value', 'closing the achievement gap', 'literacy and numeracy targets' and 'evidence based practice'. All of which, Armstrong writes, leads to a narrow definition of learning. The pressure that this discourse is placing on students and teachers (and parents) has compelled Armstrong to write his book.
His advice is for teachers to return to the great thinkers that have informed education practice the past 100 years: Montessori, Steiner, Piaget, Vygotsky, Erickson, Dewey, Gardner and Bruner; and also the newest research on how the brain develops and functions. I would add to this the insights of creative teachers who have put innovative idea into practice, often intuitively. From such influences, Armstrong believes, we might fashion a renewed Human Development discourse more appropriate for the 21stC
If this were the case teachers would have to pay close attention to the vast qualitative differences that exist in the physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual world of each developmental age. Armstrong strongly believes in the, 'adventure of learning, the wonder of nature and culture, the richness of human experience, and the delight in acquiring new abilities to learn'. He believes that there are growing pressures for these to abandoned, or curtailed, in classrooms increasingly driven by the needs of accountability, 'target's and 'evidence based' achievement.
Such demands for teachers to perform, he believes, have restricted teachers making use of the, 'teachable moment' and following up on children's emergent interests. This has resulted in the control of the curriculum being taken away from the teacher and an associated loss of intrinsic motivation of students. Put simply, he says, we are at tragic risk of killing the joy of teaching and the love of learning. Students who do not gain success are likely to engage in a variety of misbehaviors and, in turn, add to a growing list of personal and societal problems.
Early Childhood programmes (3-6). Focus: Based on child's play.
Armstrong is concerned with the growth of 'academic pre-schools' where children are involved in developmentally inappropriate practices; phonics, a focus on reading and maths skills and coloring in of endless worksheets. He sees such schools as 'learning factories for the very young' in their attempt to 'hurry' children to achieve.
Armstrong reminds us that stage of life is a world of 'animism' (young children see inanimate things as alive). A world that is mythological in character where children mix reality and imagination happily. We seem to have forgotten Piaget's 'Pre-operational concept. Chukovsky, the Russian children's writer, regarded children aged 2-to 5 as 'linguistic geniuses'. Armstrong quotes one five year old girl, walking in the rain during dusk with her mother who said, 'I can't see anything, it's so foggy. Everything is like whispering'. This poetic language, and other forms of expression, was once common place in creative junior rooms. This is a time when 'inner images are seen as clearly as outer perception' but today's teachers are not much interested in a child inner thought.
These developments are in line with what is going on in child's brain at the neurological level. According to Diamond (98) the young persons brain is a, 'crackling, bristling, sparking and glowing of brain cells that remain at double the adult role until about aged 9 or 10; at that time metabolism begins dropping reaching adult level at age 18.'
The young brain need to be exposed to dynamic multi sensory stimulation and, Armstrong writes, that play the simplest best way developmental requirements can be met. Young children need to, 'run, jump, dig, act, draw, and paint, and in this way has direct contact with the living earth and culture around them', promoting social and intellectual life in the process.
Sadly, according to word wide expert on play Zealander Brian Sutton Smith, 'the typical image of play is a single child sitting in front of a television set or video game'. This is not play - play is an open ended experience initiated by children that involves pretence and spontaneous creative activity. It is a time of wonder and sensory exploration.
The best early childhood programmes place a premium on play, provide stimulating experiences to attract their students' curiosity, and utilize the 'emergent' interests of the children, as in the Reggio Emilia schools, and value their thoughts rather than focusing on one dimensional literacy and numeracy programs.
Primary Schooling (7-11/12) Focus: learning how the world works.
Armstrong is concerned that an obsession on literacy and numeracy ('closing the achievement gap') at this level is replacing the more important developmental need for children to explore their world and on making classrooms, 'exciting places for the birthing of ideas'.
The central developmental focus for children at this level is an overwhelming desire to find out how the world works. Learning about their world is,' a driving force in their lives', they will, 'bend their curious minds' towards anything that attracts their attention.
The magical world of early childhood is left behind them .Growth spurts in the brain now connect regions that are specialized for languages and understanding spatial relationships. This is an age of growing reality, of Piaget's, 'concrete operational thinking'. A world of active participation, when the young persons power of thinking, makes them, 'hungry to know what the world is all about'. It is a time of questioning: How? What? Why? When? And What for?
These children need to focus on constructing and comprehend their world - 'to discover, invent, create and explore.' There is an incredible world to experience and express their ideas about. Many students, says Armstrong, have, 'crystallizing experiences' that stay with them for the rest of their lives. Research on creative individuals conforms this.
This is an appropriate time to teach symbol systems like reading, writing and maths in the service of their learning but an over emphasis on basic skills can easily lead to, 'a narrowing the lens about the big wide world out there'. A focus on teacher imposed agendas, Armstrong believes, leads to a suppression of child natural learning excitement. Worse still, 'failing' students may cease to wonder about things and begin to develop a less than positive learning identity for themselves. It is these children that create the so called 'achievement tail' of 'turned off' learners.
Creative teachers have long appreciated that the children's strengths are the key to their learning and make use of such ideas as multiple intelligence's to develop their students' talents. They also involving students in their own learning; inquiry based approaches; thematic learning; interdisciplinary studies and other developmentally appropriate practices.
Wise teachers understand the need to do 'fewer things in depth', appreciating that their students need to feel the power of real accomplishment, in contrast to trying to cover everything.
Middle Schools (11-15). Focus: Social, Emotional and Meta-cognitive Growth.
Young adolescents have special needs. They are not simply older primary or younger high school students. All too often they end up as the, 'the muddle in the middle'.
Armstrong reminds us that the biologic events of puberty disrupts the relatively smooth primary years and have a profound impact on the cognitive, social and emotional lives of young teens. Students at this age need an environment that can help them negotiate the impact of puberty. Biologically puberty is all about procreation - hormonal changes getting the brain and body ready for this task! These changes often result in aggression (testosterone affects the limbic system in boys) and depression (estrogen in girls) and, to counter this, schools need to introduce intriguing creative projects. These changes in early adolescence go along with a relatively undeveloped prefrontal cortex which controls function such as inhibition of impulses, refection and planning. To put it another way, Armstrong writes, 'Young teens have their accelerator pressed all the way down to the floor while their brakes have yet to be installed.'
The biggest need for young adolescents is learning is learning how to direct their, 'surging emotional impulses into productive channels, learning how to transmit the desire to mate into positive social relationships, and learning how to mobilize and use wisely their developing meta-cognitive and physical abilities'.
Adolescence is the time for identity formation (Erickson 93). 'Adolescents are struggling to find out who they really are by bouncing ideas off significant others - groups, gangs, cliques, girlfriends, boyfriend, heroes and villains.' Consequently this identity building is an intensely social time with the risk that they may make the wrong choices and develop a negative identity. Traditional cultures developed 'rites of passages' to assist their young; today many adolescents try to create their own through experimentation. Education at this level ought to keep these developmental thoughts in mind.
To cater for their students special needs Middle Schools need to develop an emotionally safe personalized learning environment based on developing such values as, responsibity, respect, tolerance, compassion and honesty. All too often this is not possible for students in large impersonal schools with their specialized fragmented timetables. Such schools deprive young teens of the opportunity to engage in, 'focused learning adventures that can help them develop their identities, sharpen their meta-cognitive minds, and channel their burgeoning energies.'
Many successful schools have their teachers working in team, sharing their collective expertise with groups of students, to develop collaboratively challenging programmes to engage their students. Teachers in such school act as: role models, learning advisers and mentors, counselors and guides, providing their students with sense of safety, confidence and purpose so they are able to take learning risks. Teachers wisely involve their students in the planning and assessing of their own learning experiences. Students at this level ought to play an important part in the affairs of the school - running assemblies, school councils, sports, and providing feedback to teachers.
The best learning experiences are 'messy' and real - all about asking questions and developing their own approaches to studying planning, reflecting and working with others. Studies need to be selected to relate to the emotional changes and issues the students are growing through. They need to learn to stay healthy and safe. The expressive arts should be considered as a core component, says Armstrong, as they provide young teens an opportunity to express themselves in an atmosphere that is non- judgmental and, in the process of creation, deepens their sense of identity.
Developing students develop an authentic 'voice' may be the most important thing that Middle School educators can do for their students. It all too easy for students to identify with negative elements at this age if this is not achieved.
Teachers need to assist students develop their ability to make wise choices and to 'think about thinking' (meta-cognition). Teachers need to help them train their minds, to observe carefully and to consider choices and consequences - to 'put on their brakes before they get into trouble'!
Young adolescents have rich intensive lives. Teachers need to, 'embrace this passion and use the energy to revitalize their classrooms' so as to ensure that all students can develop their person talents to be able to make a full contribution to their class, the school and the wider society. This can only happen in Middle Schools with developmentally appropriate programmes.
High Schools (15-to 18).Focus: Preparing students to live independently in the real world.
Bill Gates and Alvin Toffler ('Future Shock') have both expressed the idea that high schools as they are currently structured on an industrial aged mentality are obsolete. Gates recommends smaller more personal schools that provide 'relevant, rigorous and real' programmes. Gates himself is one of a long list of school drop outs that have gone on to be successful - too many others have not been so lucky. Conversely many 'school successful' students have not gone on to fulfill their 'school' promise.
The current Academic Discourse, Armstrong reminds us, may be fine for 'academic' students to many other students leave with a sense of frustration, alienation and a debilitating sense of failure that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.
Students in late adolescence are on the threshold of becoming independent adults but ironically at school they are still obliged to conform and to raise their hands to go to the bathroom. Secondary schools have change the least over the decades and reflect the mass production industrial factory era that their were created in with their emphasis on: obedience, control ,uniformity, subservience, their segregated and streamed aged cohorts, and their bells and timetables. This emphasis leaves little time for present developmental needs or future requirements.
Young adults, at this level, have passed through the initial hormonal 'shock waves' of puberty and are beginning to settle down neurologically. Their brains now work more effectively as they are able to develop coherent plans and are able to focus on long term goals. They have the ablity to ask question about moral, ethical and religious issuers, to develop new talents and skills and, in the process develop, a more stable sense of self.
Ahead of them, writes Armstrong, are issues of intimacy, their first real jobs (relating one would hope to the talents they have developed), marriage and the raising of families. Unfortunately few high schools reflect an awareness of the need to prepare their students for these future developmental tasks.
As Meier (2002) writes, 'All too often many of the features of traditional schools fail to engage students in genuine dialogue that challenges them to create their own questions, ideas, and solutions to life's problems.' As a result too many students fail to engage in 'their' learning, leave with negative altitudes, to add to a growing range of personal and societal disorders that all too often we blame all the blame on the students the students themselves. This is all too simplistic.
The best schools at this level engage students in ambiguous and complex ('messy') real world challenges where students can call upon knowledge from subject disciplines to solve. Some schools have developed special programmes based on career related themes, others have developed 'academies' where students can learn traditional knowledge through an interest area such as sport or media studies; some schools involve their students in community service work experience; some release their students to gain credits in the workplace; while other get involved in entrepreneurial enterprises.
Such developmentally appropriate programmes help students develop a sense of where they might go before they have to decide on the kind of post secondary education or workplace training they will commit to.
Conclusion.
Armstrong's book is a timely reminder of the developmental differences that schools ought to be aware of if they are to avoid inappropriate activities. It is a challenge for us all to for the need to challenge unquestioned assumptions about teaching and learning.
All too often these developmental differences are sidelined by 'seamless' curriculums, a 'one size fits all' mentality, and an obsession with narrowly base achievement requirements. Rather than focusing on the 'achievement gap', all too often narrowly defined, Armstrong believes, we need to put in place appropriate developmental practices. He believes that inappropriate current practices at all levels are excluding too many students from the success that is their right. He asks for teaching practices that reflect the changing developmental needs of students so as to meet their personal and unique needs.
Armstrong is taking about a truly 'personalized' approach to learning that, 'values each individual student as a unique human being with his or her own way of negotiating the developmental challenges of life'. Such a 'discourse' is concerned with, 'tailoring the curriculum around the specific needs of the students', to enable them to make informed choices.
As for the issue of assessment Armstrong writes that it is about 'measuring learning growth in the midst of the learning experience itself; and not by standardized testing'. This includes, 'what they have drawn, felt, written, sung, experimented with, through actions, demonstrations or other wise expressed…The assessment itself serves the learning experience'.
Education, Armstrong believes, is ultimately about achieving happiness, which he sees, 'comes from deeds not words, and from living life to the fullest' for all students to gain the deep satisfaction from whatever is undertaken.
Ultimately the challenge Armstrong put to us is to consider the purpose of education in an age that will increasingly value the creativity and innovation of all its citizens. It will be a challenge for schools to equip all students with the attributes for them to thrive in the future and to live a healthy and creative, hopefully able to deal with the problems our society is facing.
The book is well worth a full read.
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Editors:
Bruce Hammonds
Wayne Morris
Website: www.leading-learning.co.nz
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