Taking Educational Theory to the Woodshed

It is not always politically correct to admit in education that you have a problem with certain aspects of what I call “educational theory.”  By that term I mean those first principles which drive the methods and principles that education colleges provide to prospective teachers across the country.  Of course if you take a quick look at my book list, you will find that I have indeed have questions about some of those first principles.  E.D. Hirsch, Jr. and Daniel Willingham, who between them have four of the titles on my list, are not fans of many of the ideas that come out of education schools today.  In a previous post I detailed how an education professor told me to burn Hirsch’s The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them.  So, the feelings are obviously mutual.  Knowing that this tension exists, both within the academic world of teacher education and within my own experience, makes it all the more remarkable to hear about the research review conducted by Harold Pashler (UC-San Diego), Mark McDaniel (Washington University of St. Louis), Doug Rorher (University of South Florida), and Robert Bjork (UCLA).

Originally published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest in 2009, this review looks at studies concerning the effectiveness of teaching to various learning styles in the literature.  Specifically, they were looking for evidence from formal studies that would indicate whether or not there was evidence as to whether or not teaching to various learning styles was actually effective.  Their conclusions, frankly, are stunning.

“We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general education practice.  Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number.”

Wow!

For those who are not education professionals, allow me to explain why this is so important.  There are several very prominent theories of education as well as teaching methods that pre-suppose that different learning styles exist.  One of the more prominent theories is Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, which states that people are predisposed to learning under one of several intelligences including verbal, visual, musical, kinesthetic (bodily motion), among others.  There is differentiated instruction, which is championed by Carol Ann Tomlinson (ironically from the same university as Hirsch and Willingham, the University of Virginia).  Differentiation is a teaching method by which content is delivered to students in various forms in an attempt to reach students in their various learning styles.  These ideas are often relied upon when developing individualized education plans (IEPs) for students with special needs.  IEPs are required for students covered under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and failure to provide services under an IEP can potentially lead to a federal civil rights lawsuit.  The review also notes that a sizable industry has arisen to sell schools tools with which teachers can determine what learning styles their students have and what methods they can use.  This research takes a lot of these ideas, long accepted and promoted in education, to the proverbial woodshed for good old fashioned whipping.

When ideas have such a long history of acceptance, and have been championed by professionals who are this widely respected (and largely built their careers on them), it is natural to have some criticism come forth.  Given that the research review is already two years old, such criticism has likely already happened behind the scenes.  As long as the discussion simply stayed in the halls of academia the immediate effect would likely be minimal to a classroom teacher like me.  However, on Monday Professor Rorher was interviewed about the review on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.  Now the results are not only in the public view, but also accessible to me a teacher on the front lines.  I was able to download the full article from Professor Rorher’s website at the University of South Florida.  (The full title is “Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence”.)

My own personal interest in the topic other than the obvious professional implications has to do with the doubts I have had all along concerning the theories surrounding learning styles and differentiation.  During my education courses I have several projects on these topics in several different classes.  Even after my initial teacher training was over, I took more continuing education courses on these topics in order to become eligible for tenure.  With that much training one would think I was an expert on the topic and be quite adept at implementing the methods in my classroom.  It never happened, and mainly due to my own doubts, which initially concerned how practical this would be when I see 120 students per day in six groups of 20 for a total of 45 minutes per day for each group.  (Oh yeah, and I teach three different laboratory science courses.)  Those doubts have since spread to more philosophical issues regarding what this and other predominant ideas in education assume about the nature of students.  It is one thing to focus on the diversity of student preferences about how they would like content to be delivered, and another to effectively teach to it.  The authors do a very good job of making that distinction in the article.  Unfortunately, the principle of multiple learning styles (and the vast majority of educational theory) assumes that diversity alone is the answer to how to effectively teach.  When that is the assumption we lose what Ravi Zacharias refers to as the “unity from diversity”, from which we actually derive the term “university.”  I went into education with the firm belief in truth of what the psalmist wrote when he said,

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” – Psalm 139:14

That making comes in many diverse facets, but there are certain aspects that are the same in each human.  Research into brain function is suggesting that focusing on the similarities between students may be a better way to go for teachers.  A lot of this research is being distilled into the concept of “brain based learning” which is gaining ascendency, not only in the larger world of education but also in my classroom and teaching.  I have noticed that this idea also has blind spots, especially in its tendency to reduce the learning process to what C.S. Lewis referred to as “chemical phenomenon” in his masterpiece That Hideous Strength, but I believe it gives a more accurate picture of students as learners that I am able to use until such time that the picture becomes more in line with how God sees (and wants me to see) learners.

Will this research signal the death knell of learning styles?  Not right away and maybe not ever.  The authors are actually open to research on whether learning styles can be effectively matched to content such as verbal approaches for a writing class or a spatial approach to geometry, but no data has been made available to examine.  I fully expect those who have staked their careers on learning styles to defend their positions rigorously.  I saw this many times in the world of science and engineering.  It is a natural reaction to being challenged, and when done with discipline (sometimes extremely difficult to do!) can be very constructive.  In the meantime schools and their teachers will likely continue to differentiate instruction, sometimes on strict orders to do so.  I just hope that hasn’t been a complete waste of valuable tax dollars and even more valuable time, because if it has then there will be more painful trips taken to the woodshed in the future.

The Changing Face of Teaching

This week the National Center for Education Information released the results of a national survey of teachers in the United States.  I was most interested to find that 40% of the teachers surveyed who were hired since 2005 entered the profession through an alternative route.  That is they did not obtain a traditional 4-year degree in education.  Rather they obtained a degree (or perhaps more than one) in another field and then went into teaching.  Furthermore these alternatively licensed teachers have different views on the education profession than their traditionally trained colleagues.  These views included more openness to:

• Standardized testing of students and using the results to evaluate teacher performance
• Merit pay for teachers
• Ending the practice of tenure for teachers
• Having market-driven pay, meaning that teachers in harder to staff areas such as urban school districts, or in high demand subjects such as special education, math, and science would be paid more than other areas
• Recruiting more individuals into teaching from other fields

As a teacher who took an alternative pathway into education, I was not surprised to see that numbers of alternative pathway educators was growing, but I didn’t expect to see 40%.  I was not part of the survey, but after reading the report, which included the survey questions.  I do not believe I would have answered differently in any significant way.  I’m OK with standardized testing but I also believe that professional practice should also be included.  Why shouldn’t a teacher be rewarded for having a good year?  I earned tenure this past year, but I realize that the nature of tenure is changing and it wouldn’t kill me to not have it.  Being a science teacher, I would benefit from being paid what the market currently bears (but my school district might not).  I would absolutely love to see more alternative pathway teachers enter the field.  I am pleased to see that Teach for America is coming to Ohio this year, and I hope those who enter through that program do a great job.

These points are also of interest in that they differ, sometimes greatly, from the traditional positions of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.  They also differ from the positions of the vast majority of the education faculty who are training both the teachers in traditional education and in the alternative pathway programs.  (I had some interesting discussions with some my profs on these matters, and some fellow students, too!)  They definitely differ from those who are headlining the Save Our Schools rally happening this weekend in Washington D.C., such as Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, and Diane Ravitch.  I hope these groups are paying attention because these data show that a growing number of the people they supposedly represent may want to try some of the things they oppose.  Some of these alternative pathway teachers may end being future education professors, union leaders, or writers on the subject, opening the possibility that this changing face of teaching may also change how we view our own profession, and that is something I would whole-heartedly welcome.

The National Center for Education Information has the report on its website.

Fear, Loathing, and Public Discourse

A couple of days ago Juan Williams wrote an excellent piece in USA Today concerning the lack of honest debate resulting from the fear of being stigmatized by people of opposing viewpoints.  Mr. Williams has personal experience in the matter having been fired by National Public Radio last year for admitting feeling nervousness at the sight of Muslims in their traditional clothing after the 9/11 attacks during a debate.  Fortunately for him, Fox News hired him within days of his release from NPR.  As I read his list of areas where he has seen debate stifled I kept expecting one area to come up, but it didn’t, that was education.  I do not believe that was from negligence on his part but rather there were so many examples, that he probably ran out of room in his column and couldn’t fit it in.  Yet, I have seen and experienced it first hand as a teacher, and we are entering a season, especially in Ohio, where we are going to be inundated with it to a point where the voting public’s view of teachers could be altered for a long time.

I spent my first full year as a public school teacher, 2005-2006, under what was called at the time a “conditional permit.”  In Ohio you could get one to teach your first year if you were hired by a school district but didn’t have an education degree.  I had to take several classes that year to get an alternative educator’s license and then finish those courses to obtain the same provisional license that teachers with education degrees started with.  One of the first courses I took was “Effective Instruction” and in that course I had to write a reflection paper following each session and turn it in the following class.  The instructor would read parts of some of the papers in class and comment on them.  In one of my papers I decided to mention an opposing viewpoint on the night’s topic and referenced The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.  A week later the instructor read my paper and said something I will never forget.  “Hirsch is worthless.  He is not an educator.  You will not get anything of value from him, and you must BURN THAT BOOK!”  He said it in front of the entire class.  While it was not the first time I had experienced something like this, it was still an eye-opener.  I saw that it did not matter what profession I was in, whether it was teaching or in my previous profession, that what Juan Williams described in his column is something that can happen anywhere, even in the supposedly “open” classroom.  I didn’t take too kindly to my instructor’s instructions and wrote my displeasure in my next reflection paper, and challenged his actions.  (He read that one in class, too.)  By the grace of God I got an A in the course, and vowed never to do that to my students.

In the years since that incident I have seen many cases in education where this kind of thing still happens.  Since you have elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels all giving their directions on how to run the schools, public education is inherently political.  The major changes or considered changes in curriculum that have come up in years in various states have often been due to some special interest group packing a block of candidates on the state board of education, and then using their newfound power to change what is taught, essentially trying to control the answer to the question of what is good education.  It pains me to see that Christian groups have at times been as guilty as other groups in this area in regards to teaching evolution.  But the worst offenders of all in the past few months have been the teachers’ unions and their reactions to legislation in Wisconsin and Ohio.  I’m not saying they don’t have the right to protest or to have grievances heard or even that they don’t have a legitimate gripe on some of the issues addressed in those bills, but there is not going to be a legitimate debate when all you see on TV is a bunch of angry people screaming “KILL THE BILL!”  It’s only going to get worse in Ohio as we get ready for a barrage of ads for and against Senate Bill 5 that could be on the scale of what you see in elections for President.  In last Sunday’s Columbus Dispatch Thomas Suddes predicted that the pro-SB5 side would wage a campaign of envy over the benefits that teachers, police, and fire fighters get from the state in an attempt to close the polling gap they currently face.

Yet within this crucible of tough political tactics, name calling, and dirty tricks there is an opportunity, another testimony to God’s grace to us; that opportunity is to turn from our evil ways and sit down actually debate this issue and the other issues facing public education (and indeed beyond them).  We need to remember the words from the Sermon on the Mount quoted by Abraham Lincoln:  “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  What comes out of it probably won’t be perfect, but it will be better than the hatred and bitterness that we have now.