If your little Austin or Ashley tells you about all the "cool" activities he or she is doing in school, you might want to do some investigating.
For example, if he is building a shoebox-sized replica of the contents of his locker and labeling all of the items in Spanish, you might want to question whether the amount of learning is commensurate to the 20 or so hours of effort that goes into the project. And if she is imagining that she is a television reporter preparing a news report covering the Roman assault on Masada, you might question the depth of understanding of ancient issues implied in that assignment.
These examples were drawn from an article by Gilbert T. Sewall in summer 2000 issue of The American Educator, published by the American Federation of Teachers. Yes, the publication is the house organ of a teacher union. But for several years now - since before the death of infamous AFT boss Albert Shanker - the union has been preaching the gospel of research-based teaching techniques leading to genuine learning.
Sewall's article traces the history of activities-based teaching to the training of today's teachers. "Teachers are on the receiving end of much bad information about learning," he writes. "Not only do they endure pressure from gurus and guides. Complicit are schools of education that encourage teachers not to be 'hung up on facts' but to concentrate on nurturing self-esteem and individuality.... Those preparing to be teachers rarely hear that some projects are neither beneficial nor valuable, that they may in fact corrupt subtle thinking about a subject. That if projects are to succeed, they must be limited in scope and time."
One reinforcement of Sewall's opinion recently occurred during a summer institute at the University of Nevada, Reno. A professor from the College of Education repeatedly insisted that "factoids are not learning," and modeled an emotional response to questions that the teachers and prospective teachers in that course were expected to take back to their classrooms.
As it happens, several of the students were participating in that institute as part of their training to be the resource people at their schools for the implementation of statewide educational standards. In 1999, the Nevada Legislature set aside $7 million to build four regional programs that would help teachers understand and learn how to teach the new standards.
As Jennifer Crowe wrote in a May Reno Gazette-Journal article, "Schools always have had a course of study, which listed topics teachers must cover during the school years. Standards are different because they specifically outline what ideas and concepts students must know and be able to do. Teachers don't just cover material in class. Students now have to demonstrate mastery of each skill."
Accompanying Crowe's article were pictures of smiling and screaming teachers as they "learned about physics" on the Ultimate Rush rides in Las Vegas and Reno. As the coordinator for the northwestern Nevada program said, "This could be the model of how we do staff development for years to come."
Sewall explains where this kind of thinking originates: "Word and number learning were demoted during the 1990s, joined in schools by new kinds of intelligence that all seemed to cry for activities-based learning. The premier exponent of the 'multiple intelligences' (MI) schema - the most powerful force in progressive education today - is Howard Gardner, the tireless promoter of the theory. Sage-on-the-stage Gardner is Harvard University's professor of cognition and education, and an adjunct professor of psychology, a staple on news and talk shows, and author of dozens of books, monographs and videos. The MI concept - originated by Gardner in the early 1980s and embraced by education organizations, schools and experts - has achieved doctrinal status in a short time... The MI appeal is obvious. It caters to the idea of individual modes of learning, itself a concept that research has failed to deliver on but that nevertheless remains a central progressive interest and promise."
"Education is not a game," Sewell concludes. "The only valid architecture of projects and activities is core knowledge. How to handle words, express yourself fluently, and listen are not educational electives. No substitute exists for the foundations of mathematics, history and science. Individual deliberation, judgment, understanding and the ability to take advantage of the present depend on an individual's storehouse of these fundamental facts and skills. They are the armature, skeleton and building blocks on which continuing education depends."
Gov. Kenny Guinn, many state legislators and even the AFT seem to be getting the idea that teaching and learning involve work. Now all we have to do is convince Nevada's educrats.
Mary Novello, Ed.D., is a senior research fellow with the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a free-market research and education foundation. She can be contacted through NPRI's Website, www.npri.org.