The current wisdom is that different students learn in different ways - some by seeing, some by doing, some by hearing, etc. If a student isn’t getting it, a teacher can [and should?] change their delivery to present material in a way more compatible with that student’s learning style.
Not only is that inefficient and ineffective, but learning doesn’t quite work that way.
Daniel T. Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, has posted a short presentation on YouTube called “Learning Styles Don’t Exist” [click for video]. Willingham explains what the learning style myth is about, why we believe it, and why it doesn’t hold up.
If you can’t be bothered to click the link above or watch the video below, here’s Willingham’s parting summary:
“Good teaching is good teaching, and teachers don’t need to adjust their teaching to individual students’ learning styles.”
Sounds good to me.
UPDATE: D-Ed Reckoning takes a deeper look and has lots of good links.
In cozy Rochester, New York sits Nick Tahou Hots, a restaurant famous for one dish: the Garbage Plate.
From their website:
“We start with a base of any combination of home fries, macaroni salad, baked beans, or french fries topped by your choice of meats and dressed to your liking with spicy mustard, chopped onions, and Nick Tahou’s signature hot sauce. Each plate comes with two thick slices of fresh italian bread and butter.”
You can see the picture, that thing’s a mess.
The first time I really encountered the UFT’s Leo Casey, I thought, “Good Lord, this guy is a garbage plate of logic.”
I wouldn’t mind so much if, like the real garbage plate, UFTcasey just sort of sat there and smelled bad [and only cost about $6.00]. Unfortunately, the UFT version has a website and a well-funded organization behind him.
Leo The Logical Garbage Plate’s latest tendentious mouth-frother is directed toward Jay Greene for cherry-picking research. There’s so much irony in that post that reading it actually pressed my shirt [Haha! Dang, that Casey makes those pseudo-witty puns roll right onto the keys!].
And Casey’s just about completely wrong. Greene set him straight this afternoon.
I’m with Downes on the OLDaily [twice in 24 hours = new World and Olympic record] - I’m not all that interested in this debate, especially Casey’s objections, but we’re tired of cherry-picking in education.
The worst offenses come from school districts - Boards and administration - who not only cherry-pick research indiscriminately, but usually haven’t a damned clue what they’re even touting. I cringe every time I hear “studies show” from a principal or Board member.
Not much can be done about it in the short-term - those principals will keep misusing research until they can at least handle algebra, and organizations like the Church of the UFT will keep sniping until they go broke.
Until we get a crop of education folks who have the capacity to understand research and have a commitment to intellectual honesty, we’ve got to develop a taste for the garbage plate or go hungry.
Yipes. I had no idea how irrelevant we all were. I guess there’s always the patronizing suggestion that we do some good, noble work locally or in a tiny niche - which is the equivalent of sitting the Kids’ Table at Thanksgiving.
Richard Whitmire is guestblogging over at Eduwonk:
“… where the important education reform issues of the decade get debated. I maintain, however, that these debates would be greatly diminished absent indirect contributions from the thousands of sentinels out there expending shoe leather at local schools and school board meetings. Those would be our members at EWA.”
That’s the National Education Writers Association. Take a few minutes to browse their website - what they do, some of the EWA member stories, some of their events for members. Drop your jaw in awe after about 45 seconds [I've got to instruct you because it won't happen naturally].
Whitmire gives a few nods: Jeff Solochek’s Gradebook team in Florida [I say this because Ron Matus pumps out just as much good stuff], Scott Elliott in Ohio and Cathy Grimes in Virginia. I don’t know much about Cathy Grimes’ work in the Newport News area, but I’m well familiar with the other two papers, both of which do a solid job covering their state/local education scenes.
Elliott says:
“Richard has some kind words for Get on the Bus in the course of arguing that education coverage needs traditional media sources because free-standing education blogs could not provide the depth of coverage necessary for quality commentary on the issues without relying on traditional journalism.”
Eeep. No depth, lack of quality commentary. Touche, Elliott.
But it’s partly right - the education blogosphere, like pretty much all the blog sectors, depends on traditional journalism for their material. Why? Because it’s efficient - it’s there and ripe for the picking - not because we aren’t capable of doing it ourselves.
Think of it this way: EWA writers grind the flour [and apparently see themselves as soldier-sentinels with a penchant for gumshoe lore and professional martyrdom, admittedly odd pairings for flour-grinders but perfectly appropriate for writing about teachers] while more knowledgeable folks bake with it.
And, yes, I said it - more knowledgeable. The biggest problem in education writing is the biggest problem in education. It isn’t the budget, it’s the lack of practitioner knowledge.
The irony here is that the dismal state of education writing is evidenced by the lack of depth in education stories. Most education writers - yes, even some of the darlings at the EWA! - haven’t a clue about the curricula they write about. If you want surface-only, uncritical, simplistic coverage, pick up a newspaper and flip around until you find the education stories.
Now that I’m thinking of it, how would your local education reporter fare in the Third World Challenge? And would he/she report his results candidly in the local paper?
It’s the unique depth that I appreciate from the blogosphere - and it’s that depth I don’t get from the bulk of the education media. The content in the education blogosphere simply has more relevance both nationally and on your block than the weekly updates on bus fuel prices and lawsuits/bickering amongst school officials.
Solochek says:
“Could bloggers take up the slack as papers cut education reporters? Not unless the bloggers are education reporters themselves.”
I want to understand that line better than I do right now - I’ve got to be missing something - so if anyone, including Mr. Solochek, can elaborate, it’s most welcome. He goes on:
“But more mainstream readers like the ones we write for want to know about the local schools and the state’s policy directives, and these reports don’t just materialize out of thin air. That’s what we as education reporters provide, and blog about.”
I’m a little puzzled. Help me understand?
UPDATE: 08.20.08, 6:23pm:
Still waiting… will anyone address this? If there’s something I don’t understand here, lay it out for me.
Congressman Mike Honda [Dem.] represents the 15th District in California - those of us outside the state can think of his district as Silicon Valley. Honda has been a teacher, principal and school board member, so public education isn’t just a hot topic for him.
Honda hosted a telephone town hall meeting about public education, and his office has made it available on his website. You can listen to the full call [about an hour] or individual questions.
I’m not convinced by many of Honda’s answers, and I tend to yawn at contradiction. At 24:07 in the call, Honda says:
24:07: “It’s not that the state [California] is cash-poor, it’s where the cash flows and how much of it - where it goes - and who controls it.”
Makes sense. But in answering a followup question submitted after the call:
“The greatest barrier to improving education is insufficient funding.”
There are certainly bigger sins than mixed messages in a town hall format, though.
Honda touches on the importance of teacher/principal quality around the 36th minute - and a telephone poll taken by listeners on the call showed that 70% saw teacher quality as more important to a school’s success than the school environment. I’d like to hear specifics about how Honda thinks California, or schools anywhere, can attract and maintain solid academic talent for its teachers and principals [especially those principals].
Having said that, this telephone town hall is an excellent feature. It’s cheap/easy to produce and is accessible to constituents, media and other interested parties - there’s no excuse for other members of Congress not to do the same.
Well done, Mike Honda - hopefully this is the first of many education telephone town hall events with you and other members of Congress. I’m not on board with many of your solutions, but I love the way you’re going about it.
Today Fordham proudly releases David Whitman’s latest book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism. (We don’t subscribe to the Bush Administration’s maxim that, “from a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.” After all, it’s back-to-school time!)
The book is now available via Amazon, but if you want to dig in right away, read this Gadfly editorial by Checker Finn and Marci Kanstoroom or, even better, print out and read this Education Next excerpt. Here’s the heart of Whitman’s argument (who is, by the way, a freelance journalist and former senior writer at U.S. News & World Report):
Above all, these schools [American Indian Public Charter School, Amistad Academy, Cristo Rey, KIPP, SEED, and University Park Campus School] share a trait that has been largely ignored by education researchers: They are paternalistic institutions. By paternalistic I mean that each of the six schools is a highly prescriptive institution that teaches students not just how to think, but also how to act according to what are commonly termed traditional, middle-class values. These paternalistic schools go beyond just teaching values as abstractions: the schools tell students exactly how they are expected to behave, and their behavior is closely monitored, with real rewards for compliance and penalties for noncompliance. Unlike the often forbidding paternalistic institutions of the past, these schools are prescriptive yet warm; teachers and principals, who sometimes serve in loco parentis, are both authoritative and caring figures. Teachers laugh with and cajole students, in addition to frequently directing them to stay on task.
The new breed of paternalistic schools appears to be the single most effective way of closing the achievement gap. No other school model or policy reform in urban secondary schools seems to come close to having such a dramatic impact on the performance of inner-city students. Done right, paternalistic schooling provides a novel way to remake inner-city education in the years ahead.
The use of the term “paternalistic” is sure to spark debate (most of the schools’ leaders detest it), but don’t knock it till you read Whitman’s argument. As uncomfortable as it might be to discuss in public, what these schools are doing is providing a middle-class, achievement-oriented culture to children who come out of a culture of poverty. And for that, the schools should be applauded (and emulated). It might not be politically correct to use these terms, but they are accurate. And that should count for something.
On Flypaper, Liam Julian says:
Much of the disagreement caused by the use of the term paternalism in David Whitman’s new book stems, I think, from a reticence to acknowledge reality. That’s unfortunate—education policy already suffers from a dearth of invested persons willing to call things what they are.
We can be even more honest than Whitman, and a little less academic.
Some of us - yes, even some younger than 100 - think of education as teaching kids how to live. It’s really that simple. We don’t have to call it paternalism, in loco parentis, or anything else. Teachers show kids how to live [to varying degrees, depending on the discipline]. There’s little more to it.
The most intriguing point here is the reluctance of school leaders to be honest. Julian continues:
Take, for instance, the reluctance of Eric Adler, who co-founded the SEED School, to have paternalism in any way attached to his institution. Whitman writes:
Eric Adler, cofounder of the SEED School in Washington, D.C., argues that calling a school paternalistic implies that its staff is asserting that it “knows better than others—like parents or the neighborhood”—which values schools should transmit. “I don’t think SEED asserts that we ‘know better,’ we just assert that we have more resources with which to teach.”
I get it. Adler has no reason to ascent to the labeling of his school as paternalistic and every reason to rebut it.
Julian’s got it - very, very few education leaders, from individual community leaders to those on the national scene, are comfortable and honest enough to tell it like it is. We need to say what we are, what we aren’t, and get on with things.
This mealymouth’n'milquetoast bit has to go. Grow up, get it together and spit it out. No apologies, no pandering, no ruses - school leaders are terrible at all of that anyway.
The other day I wrote a mildly tongue-in-cheek post about the Education Olympics in which I made a point quite seriously - American education needs a Herb Brooks.
