Peter Kline is one of this nation's most innovative
thinkers on bringing instructional practice into line
with current theories of learning. He has written more
than 20 books on education and related topics over the
past 20 years.
Eye2theWorld is honored that Peter will be joining
us in each issue with one or more thought provoking
ideas regarding learning for life in the 21st century.
The following link
will send you to a portion of U.S. Writing Station's
Web site where there is a major section on Peter, his
life and his writings. It's well worth the trip!
-ED-
http://indiawritingstation.squarespace.com/learning-career-visions-kline/
Bringing Educational Theories And Practices Up To
Date
I got a rather unpleasant shock when I received my
latest royalty check not long ago. The amount was
for more than three times what I was expecting. The
shock came from the realization of the extent of the
"quiet crisis" (to use Thomas Friedman's words) that
underlies this statistic.
While during the last six months the sales of my
books in English remained basically unchanged, the
Japanese translations of two of them were outselling
their English counterparts about 30 to 1. The
Everyday Genius and Ten Steps to a Learning
Organization are of far greater interest to the
Japanese than to all of those who live in English
speaking countries put together. That is too bad,
because these are the kinds of books that educators
should be reading right now.
They offer a different perspective on how we
should construct our institutions of learning and
the kinds of services and values they should be
providing both children and adults. There are
plenty of other books that do this too, and none of
those are selling well either. In fact, when I went
to the Library of the Department of Education in
Washington, DC, to look up the titles of some of the
most important books for educators to be reading
right now, most of them weren't even listed there.
The above picture is darkened by the fact that I
have no idea how my books are selling in Korea and
China, because those countries don't pay any
royalties. I do know, however, that The Learning
Revolution co-authored by my friend and colleague
Jeannette Vos has not done well in the United
States, but has sold millions of copies in China.
In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman, foreign
affairs columnist for the New York Times, provides
an alarming picture of the fundamental difference
between the United States and China, Russia, India
and several other countries that has developed since
the dot com bust. The level of intellectual demand
required to do the kinds of jobs that are now being
exported is rising all the time, primarily because
the countries mentioned above do a far better job of
educating their huge populations than we are doing
in the United States. Those populations are now in
direct competition with American workers for a very
high percentage of all the jobs now available or
likely to become available in the future. This
means that we may not be far away from a huge
economic decline, not only in relationship to the
rest of the world, but even in absolute terms. As
those of our corporations that do business all over
the world continue to flourish, we as a country and
as a civilization may be on the brink of massive
unemployment and severely decreasing economic
productivity, according to Friedman.
We might be able to deal with this situation
more easily if it weren't for the huge educational
crisis we face, as nearly 50% of our children fall
below the very minimal standards that determine the
ability to read, write and calculate at "grade
level." This situation is greatly exacerbated by
the fact our methods of instruction increasingly
emphasize "drill and kill" methods at the expense of
educational practices that encourage the development
of independent thinking.
Meanwhile, according to the National Institute
of Mental Health (NIMH) there's no such thing as
diagnosable Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
Learning disabilities in most cases are directly
caused by teaching disabilities.
While the current Newsweek may give a sunny
impression of how well our best high schools are
doing nationally, it matters little that some of us
are on advanced placement when so many of us are
taught to be basically illiterate. Our economy can
no longer absorb huge numbers of unskilled workers,
which means that our schools must learn to improve
very quickly.
In the series of columns I will be writing for
Eye2theWorld, I will point out some of the things
our large public school systems need to do in order
to turn this situation around. Let me begin,
however, by pointing out that the problem has its
roots in the way that public school teachers are
currently being trained.
Current theories and practices of education are
based on a completely outmoded set of assumptions
about how human beings learn. This has happened
because these theories and practices are not
sufficiently informed and corrected by information
that is developed in other intellectual disciplines.
The most noteworthy of these is neurology.
Almost everything we know about how the brain
functions during the learning process has been
learned during the past half century. Almost
everything that is taught in schools of education is
based on the same myths and false assumptions that
were developed over the past thousand years of
educational practices. While during the past half
century cognitive studies have largely replaced
behaviorist ones, these studies and the theories and
practices that have developed from them have been
almost totally unaffected by the work of
neurologists like D. O. Hebb, C. Judson Herrick,
Roger Sperry, Paul Maclean, Marian Diamond, Karl
Pribram, Michael Mezernick, and, most notably,
Antonio Damasio.
Schools of education have also failed to take
into account the enormously important impact of
quantum and complexity theories on all other
scientific theories and practices. The implications
for these two branches of science on learning theory
are profound. What is sorely needed is major
changes in pre-service programs. In addition, the
country needs in-service training for existing
staffs to bring current teaching forces up to date
on how newly discovered neurological models can
affect classroom presentations.
It is true that many educators are now aware of
the enormously important work of Howard Gardner and
his multiple intelligences theory, and there is also
a growing interest in the importance of recognizing
how different learning styles impact learning.
Nevertheless, we still need a sea change of
attitudes and intellectual backgrounds in the
schools of education before we can even begin to
hope for a public school system that can keep our
ship of state from sinking well within the coming
decade.
In the next issue I'll discuss Antonio Damasios'
insights into how emotion dominates the learning
process and how we need to change our instructional
methods to take that into account.
Articles 4, 5
and 6:
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