Leading Edge Education

The Hidden Life of Learners — Graham Nuthall
Professor Nuthall researched learning and teaching for forty years. Internationally published and recognised, he was based at Canterbury University until a few years before his death in 2004. Using meticulous and innovative techniques Graham and his team collated and analysed what happens for students inside and outside the classroom. This book presents those findings.

“The three worlds of the classroom
First, there is the public world that the teacher sees and manages. This is the world structured by the learning activities and routines the teacher designs and manages.

Second, there is the semiprivate world of ongoing peer relationships. This is the world in which students establish and maintain their social roles and status. It has its own rules and customs…

Finally, there is the private world of the child’s own mind. This is where children’s knowledge and beliefs change and grow; where self beliefs and attitudes have their effects; where individual thinking and learning takes place.

The standard view of the classroom is that the teacher provides students with a set of activities. … The assumption seems to be that all students experience essentially the same activities, and perform them according to their motivation or ability. … And it is also assumed that learning is the more or less automatic result of engaging in classroom activities. … However, our research shows that almost none of this is true. Because of substantial differences in background knowledge and skill, because of differences in motivation and interest, and because of different peer relationships and status each student engages in set tasks in different ways.

When we look at what students remember of their classroom experiences, we find the curriculum content wrapped up in the nature of the experience, which means that how students experience an activity is as much a part of what they learn as is the intended curriculum content.”

The implications for teaching which are suggested by Graham Nuthall’s research are:

That learning:

• is highly individual
  
• usually involves a progressive change in what a student knows or can do
  
• involves extracting information from, and making sense of, experiences
  
• frequently comes from student self-selected or self generated experiences
  
• of curriculum content inextricably interweaves with the experiences
  
• and activities in which the content is encountered, and with the pervasive peer culture
• is multi-layered

That teachers should:

• design learning activities with students’ memories in mind
  
• engage students in activities that enable them to revisit concepts
  
• monitor individual students’ evolving understanding of concepts
  
• focus on “big questions”
  
• capitalise on the peer culture to foster learning
  
• over time, encourage students to manage their own learning activities

 

Teach Your Children Well — Choon Tan
Based in Christchurch, Choon and Rosemary Tan’s oldest two children achieved University Bursary level maths at the age of 11, their youngest at 7. In this highly readable book, Chon Tan outlines the teaching philosophy which supported his children’s remarkable academic success.

“Many of my students have showed me clearly that there doesn’t need to be a talent or gift to achieve above-average or very high standards. Even motivation or the lack of it is not a real problem because most people are keen to move on and continue adding to their knowledge and experience as long as they find a learning environment which allows them to do it without having to waste time on comparison and competition with others, or constant efforts to maintain their feeling of self worth.

Many children seem to be held back because they are unable to find the trust in their own abilities, confidence that they will be able to achieve whatever their goal is, and an ongoing supply of encouragement and support.

Often they will give you an insight into many other aspects of their life which could well influence their performance, too. They might mention that they feel inferior because somebody in class has been bullying them; that their teacher seems to think they can’t do maths anyway; that their best friend thinks maths is not an important subject; or that they have difficulty hearing the teacher properly or reading the blackboard.

Self esteem and confidence are rather fragile qualities, and it doesn’t take much to convince young children that they will fail. It is also easy make them believe there is nothing to strive for.

Personally, I wish children never had to go through demotivating experiences and could keep and even develop their natural curiosity without being held back or frustrated.

Many people described as geniuses have told us that the mind is capable of achieving much more if a person is provided with the freedom to focus and concentrate on a particular task and the opportunity, encouragement and support to give one’s full energy to it.

Any form of assessment will make children feel under pressure, and the focus of their learning will shift from taking in as much as they can want to know, to learning everything superficially for the short term to pass the examination.Your focus should always be on encouraging children to get involved in their work and subject and to enjoy their progress, rather than learning the material to please you or to pass some test.

Children who are bribed and rewarded don’t have much of a chance to grow into independent and self-assured young people. They will always need to please somebody; they will need somebody’s approval for their ideas and for their well-being they will need an unbroken supply of love and admiration. Children who are punished or threatened with punishment will experience humiliation and intimidation. … It is likely they will not understand why a certain behaviour is appropriate, but only act in a way which avoids the punishment.

Instead we tried to encourage our children and to give them the feeling that we believed they could achieve whatever they had in mind, within reason. Encouragement is very inspiring and strengthening. It helps children to feel assured; to develop a sense of self-worth and independence in decision-making. If children feel loved, cared for, encouraged and supported, usually self-discipline comes with it without any extra effort.

Punishment…inevitably destroys a child’s dignity and prompts the to start building a protective wall. Even minor punishment will make it impossible for a child to regain full and unconditional trust.

Children’s natural motivation is like a huge pool of energy, which we all too often waste or fail to make the best use of. If children felt more involved in the decision-making, if they knew that they would find support for their interests, they would find it a lot easier to accept having to spend some time with subjects they might not find particularly interesting. I believe school would be a lot more fun for both teacher and pupils if we relaxed some of the rules and goals and let each child move through at their own pace, with a focus on core subjects like maths, language and learning skills, and with their own choice of additional subjects. School could and should be the best place in town for children to spend their time.

The Ideal School
In my ideal school, children would be free to move between subjects and difficulty levels at their own pace. There would be no homework and no tests. Age would be used only as an initial guideline, but children would move through schooling at their own pace, so age differences become largely irrelevant. Without exams and with a flexible age structure, the learning environment would be much less competitive.”

The only structured requirement would be that projects in specific subjects would have to be completed by a certain date. Teachers would be very approachable and children encouraged to develop learning techniques which would gradually make them autonomous in their learning. Mistakes would be regarded as an important part of learning and there would be no punishment or telling off. Children would be in charge of of their own learning, they would get a lot of pleasure from learning and develop a sense of achievement and competence.

They would know that it is not a waste of time to help somebody who still struggles to understand. They would help because they knew that they learned a new skill and experienced a new sense of pride whenever they explained something to another child. They would know that gaining all these other skills would be acknowledged as well.

 

Maria Montessori — The Secret of Childhood
A trained anthropologist, Maria Montessori was also the first woman in Italy to graduate in medicine. However she chose education as her career and using her scientific and spiritual genius, created a humanist model of education that is only now becoming recognised in standard education circles.

“A child learns to adjust himself and make acquisitions in his sensitive period. These are like a beam that lights interiorly or a battery that furnishes energy. It is this sensibility, which enables a child to come into contact with the external world in a particularly intense manner. At such a time, everything is easy, ; all is life and enthusiasm. Every effort marks an increase in power.

Only when the goal has been achieved do fatigue and the weight of indifference come on. When one of these psychic periods is exhausted, another is enkindled. Childhood thus passes from conquest to conquest in a constant rhythm that constitutes its joy and happiness. It is within this fair fire of the soul, which burns without consuming, that the creative work of man’s spiritual world is brought to completion. On the other hand, when the sensitive period has disappeared, intellectual victories are reported through the reasoning processes, voluntary efforts and the toil of research. And from the torpor of indifference is born the weariness of labour.

This then, is the essential difference between the psychology of a child, and that of an adult. A child has a special interior vitality which accounts for the miraculous manner in which he makes his natural conquests; but if during the sensitive stage a child is confronted with an obstacle to his toil, he suffers a disturbance or even warping of his being, a spiritual martyrdom that is still too little known, but whose scars are borne unconsciously by most adults.

…it now seems likely that the study of the “sensitive periods” may constitute one of the most important sciences dealing with man. Growth and development depend upon a continued narrowing of the relationships between a child and his environment. The reason for this is that the development of his personality, or what is called his “freedom,” cannot take place unless he becomes progressively independent of adults. And this growth is affected by means of a suitable environment, in which a child can find the necessary means for the development of his own proper functions.

…movement is of great importance for a child. It is the functional incarnation of the creative energy which brings man to the perfection of his species. Through movement, he acts upon his external environment and thus carries out his own personal mission in the world. Movement is not only an impression of the ego but it is an indispensable factor in the development of consciousness, since it is the only real means which places the ego on a clearly defined relationship with external reality. Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside.

Through movement we come into contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas. Physical activity connects the spirit with the world, but the spirit has need of action in a twofold sense, to acquire concepts and to express itself exteriorly.

To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely. A child is passing through a period of self-realisation, and it is enough simply to open up the door for him. And, as a matter of fact, a being that is creating itself, that is passing from non-being to being, from potency to act, cannot at this stage of its existence be complicated. Since it is in the possession of an expanding energy it has no great difficulty in manifesting itself.

In an open environment, that is in one that is suitable to his age, a child’s psychic life should develop naturally and reveal its inner secret. Unless this principle is maintained, all later attempts at education will only lead one more deeply into an endless maze.

Within the child lies the fate of the future. Whoever wishes to confer some benefit on society must preserve him from deviations and observe his natural ways of acting. A child is mysterious and powerful and contains within himself the secret of human nature.”

 

Educating for Human Greatness — Lynn Stoddard
Elementary teacher and Principal for 36 years in USA. He now writes and lectures on the urgent need to modernise public education.

Six principles
1. Value Positive Human Diversity
  — cherish every person as a unique individual
2. Draw Forth Potential
  — help learners discover & develop their latent talents
3. Respect Autonomy
  — restore freedom and responsibility to every learner
4. Invite Inquiry
  — help students develop an insatiable curiosity and hunger for knowledge
5. Support Professionalism
  — encourage teachers who live by these principles
6. Unite for Greatness
  — parents and teachers join to help children grow into their greatness

The Resiliency Wheel
Resiliency is the ability to spring back from and successfully adapt to adversity. An increasing body of research from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology is showing that most people (including young people) can bounce back from risks, stress, crises, and trauma and experience life success.

To build resiliency, families and schools need to provide the following:

The Resiliency Training Program 1997 Nan Henderson & Associates

Toward a Psychology of Positive Youth Development
Reed W. Larson, University of Illinois — American Psychologist Jan 2000

We found that 15 year-olds reported lower levels of concentration and intrinsic motivation during schoolwork than 10 year-olds, both on an absolute scale and in comparison with other domains of their daily experience. (Larson, Ham, & Raffaelli, 1989; Larson & Kleiber, 1993b).

Other studies confirm the reduction in intrinsic motivation between the elementary and junior high school grades (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998) and provide behavioural evidence of reduced effort, showing a decline in school grades across this period. (Eccles & Midgley, 1991; Simmons & Zhou, 1994).

In observational research, Eccles and Midgley (1991) found that high school classrooms provided fewer opportunities for student decision making than [primary] schools. Although students are older and more capable of making decisions, the high school environment appears to provide fewer, not more, opportunities for the exercise of initiative.

High rates of boredom, alienation, and disconnection from meaningful challenge are not signs of psychopathology, at least not in most cases, but rather signs of a deficiency in positive development. The same might be said for many cases of problem behaviour, such as drug use, premature sexual involvement, and minor delinquency—that they are more parsimoniously described, not as responses to family stress, emotional disturbance, or maladaptive cognitions, but rather to the absence of engagement in a positive life trajectory.

Many youth do their schoolwork, comply with their parents, hang out with their friends, and get through the day, but are not invested in paths into the future that excite them or feel like they originate from within. A central question of youth development is how to get adolescents' fires lit, how to have them develop the complex of dispositions and skills needed to take charge of their lives.

 

Mediated Learning Experience — Dr. Reuven Feuerstein
Dr. Feuerstein a psychologist is currently the director of the Center for Development of Human Potential in Jerusalem. From 1970 until the present Dr. Feuerstein has served as Professor in the School of Education at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel.

“Intelligence is not a static structure, but an open, dynamic system that can continue to develop throughout life” Feuerstein believed that cognitive deficiencies could be corrected and that intelligence is modifiable, not fixed. Once cognitive skills are taught and cultural experiences are enriched, even "retarded" individuals can extend their intellectual powers dramatically.

Instrumental Enrichment (IE) is an intervention program designed by Feuerstein to enhance the cognitive skills necessary for independent thinking. The goal of the IE program is to shape the cognitive structure of the individual and to produce and set in motion his further development. The aim is to modify the student by changing his/her passive and dependent cognitive style into one characteristic of an autonomous and independent thinker.

IE seeks to sharpen critical thinking with the concepts, skills, strategies, operations, and attitudes necessary for independent learning; to diagnose and correct deficiencies in thinking skills; and to help individuals learn how to learn.

Mastery of the tasks in Instrumental Enrichment is never a matter of rote learning or mere reproduction of a learned skill. It always involves the application of rules, principles, or strategies in a variety of tasks. Thus, IE systematically reinforces the cognitive functions that enable learners to define problems, make connections and see relationships, motivate themselves, and improve their work habits. Through IE, students develop the ability to apply their cognitive functions to any problem or thinking situation.

There are currently under way more than 1,000 research projects on his work throughout the world involving all age groups from infancy to old age, in every setting from jungles to board rooms, and with every ability level from the profoundly retarded to the highly gifted. In 1990 the President of France decorated Dr. Feuerstein for his work in training French workers, managers, and executives in the skills of intelligence.