For much of our modern era, our culture thought of the human heart as a machine that would wear out after a given number of heart beats. People with heart disease were put in bed to prolong their lives.
That is a quote from
this op-ed in the Ogden Utah Standard-Examiner, which I am going to urge you to read. The author is Lynn Stoddard, a retired educator from Utah now in his 80s, who is perhaps best known for his development some 25 years ago of an approach called
Educating for Human Greatness (and which is now promoted in the revised book he co-wrote with Anthony Dallman-Jones).
Lynn's approach is very different than what we are seeing in the current version of the standards movement. The best way to grasp is to take the time to read the relatively brief op ed (from which I am not allowed to quote further - again, you can read it here
Below the fold I want to place it in the larger context of the current thrust in educational policy.
The current heavy thrust in educational policy, backed by the Obama administration (although they are careful to point out that they did not initiate it), is the Common Core State Standards. If one goes to this site, one will encounter the following mission statement:
The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.
While in theory that may seem like a good thing, many in education see problems. The direction of CCSS is highly prescriptive, attempting to determine what should be accomplished at specific grade levels. The original development of the standards in language and in math were done with almost no input by either teachers or the professional organizations in the fields (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of English, and The International Reading Association) but lots of input from pro-testing organizations. And as surely as day follows night we are also seeing the development of common examinations tied to the CCSS.
If you look again at the opening paragraph, Stoddard reminds us of the mechanized approach we used to have to human anatomy. We have a mindset, he would argue, that takes a similar approach to the human mind, based on a belief that there is " a minimal amount of specified knowledge" necessary for success (which is primarily viewed as economic) in our modern world. This is seen as a common sense assertion, except Stoddard argues that it is wrong.
If you are either a parent, or if you had a sibling, you already have the evidence that our children are not the same, that they vary greatly in when they are able to learn how to read or certain aspects of mathematics, and so on. Primary level educators can tell you that attempting to force all children to learn the same thing at the same time - characteristic of our age cohort based approach to education - frustrates many children, turning them off to school even though they originally arrive eager to learn.
Our current approach to attempt to cram ever more into the K-12 schooling: what used to be in 1st grade gets moves to kindergarten, as Stoddard notes.
We are over-emphasizing how early - and even how well - children learn to do things.
We are reducing too much of education to what can easily be measured, rather than emphasizing the curiosity that encourages independent learning, the creativity that leads to real progress (including economic progress), the character that understands that economics is far from the sole or even the most important accomplishment of humankind.
Stoddard argues clearly for a different approach, both in this op ed and in his life-long work.
My own thinking on education is very much in sympathy with that of Lynn Stoddard. I try within the frameworks imposed within public school to provide for as much variety among my students as I can, to provoke their curiousity, to challenge them to do far more than merely memorize and regurgitate.
I am not alone.
If you read what Lynn has to say about education and teaching, you might find things that overlap with the work of others:
Jerome Bruner, who believes that every child is capable of some degree of mastery in every domain, although mastery will be different. We should acknowledge the difference and honor the mastery achieved
Alfie Kohn, who argues that our emphasis on homework and our resorting to extrinsic levers of motivation both serve to lessen real learning and the desire to learn, suppressing the natural instrinsic motivation that leads to deepest learning
Howard Gardner, who since the mid-1980s has argued that we have different ways of approaching the word (which he has chosen to label as multiple intelligences) and that of the possible ways of making sense of the world (originally 7, now 8 or more) our structure of school tends to rely heavily on only two - what he calls verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical
Much of what teachers encounter as disciplinary problems in school are the direct result of students being disengaged from what they are required to do. Even some of our brightest students get turned off. Students whose experience is of struggle and of failure because of how we do education, because we do not recognize their individual needs, because we too often insist they be doing things for which their brains are not yet ready are not only disciplinary problems - they are being cheated of the real education to which they should be entitled.
Common Core is a doubling - or tripling - down on much of what is wrong in our approach to education.
Lynn Stoddard offers a different vision, one we should consider.
Please, go and read, and pass on to others, both his op ed and the link for his work.
Start by reading his op ed, An alternative to Common Core from the Ogden Standard-Register.
You will be glad you did.