[IAEP] versus, not

[Kathy Pusztavari]

Listen, I don't want to argue with Alan Kay.  Obviously I'm not as smart nor
have I been at it as long as him (I googled him and watched 3 different
videos - amazing!).  My job is to set the record straight.
 
1. "Tim Gallwey is one of the best teachers I've ever observed, and he had a
number of extremely effective techniques to help his students learn the real
deal very quickly (and almost none of these were direct instruction..."  
 
I would be willing to bet $10 (I'm cheap, alright?) that Mr. Gallwey has
used the principles of Direct Instruction to teach.  I'd love to see Mr
Gallwey teach a child with autism, developmental disability, or
speech/communication issue how to talk, ask questions, etc. without Direct
Instruction/Applied Behavior Analysis.  About 1-3% of the educational
students have serious learning issues and about 17% have undiagnosed
"learning disabilities" that make these students fail in current
constructionist educational system.  In all, there are an average of 13%
students in special ed, some of which are there simply because they can't
read. 
 
2. "At levels below these two, we are talking about areas of study that are
neither about literacy nor about mathematics, but something else. The
something else could be useful (for example, reading street signs and goods
in stores, or adding up simple sums)."
 
I'm sorry, that doesn't make sense.  Below heady levels of learning ARE the
basics - arithmetic and literacy (learning to read).
 
3. " However, part of the real deal is being able to *do* the pursuits, not
just know something about them..."
 
Direct Instruction and Applied Behavior Analysis actually require the
ability to generalize what you have learned to new situations.  The do not
preclude activities to generalize concepts.  Often, however, activities are
foregone due to time constraints - which is unfortunate.
 
If students are not generalizing, the "Analysis" part should indicate
"ooops, I messed up as a teacher."  I've done it myself when my son's
therapists realized (to their surprise) that he forgot the meaning of bigger
and smaller.  The items used to teach these concepts were limited to one
exemplar and it did not get generalized.  We then moved the program to a
more natural environment (think Helen Keller going around and touching
things in the room) and voila, the problem was solved.
 
4. "My main complaint about most schooling processes whether official or
grassroots is that for a wide variety of reasons they settle for the
"something else" rather than try to find ways to help the students learn the
real deals."
 
Yes, and watching kids struggle in class, say they are stupid, practice
avoidance behavior due curriculum and teacher aversions is NO FUN.  It is
easily solvable by putting kids in appropriate curriculum that lets them
succeed.  I saw it with my fourth graders (and some fifth) more times than I
care to admit in a short 12 week period.  It was very sad so see 2 out of 24
of my fourth grade students completely, 100%, illiterate and about 20%
illiterate enough to be unable to comprehend what they were reading.  And
this was at the most elite school in the town.
 
I'm not religious about DI but I have to fight for it everywhere to simply
be considered, included, or even considered as an option.  In my state,
constructivism is so rampant that when I mention DI I get treated like the
red headed step child.  And so does the option of Direct Instruction
because, you see, the dirty little secret is that DI is not really an option
at all.
 
-Kathy


  _____  

From: iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org
[mailto:iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Alan Kay
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 6:27 AM
To: Bill Kerr; Walter Bender
Cc: iaep; Sugar-dev Devel; community-news at lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: Re: [IAEP] versus, not


My take on this over the years has excluded labels and categories for a
variety of reasons.

But I do think thresholds are important for most areas of learning. For
example, at what level would an actually literate person consider a high
school graduate to be fluent in literate actions and thinking? At what level
would a mathematician consider a high school graduate fluent in mathematical
actions and thinking? This is very different from asking questions about the
level that a professional would need to attain. At levels below these two,
we are talking about areas of study that are neither about literacy nor
about mathematics, but something else. The something else could be useful
(for example, reading street signs and goods in stores, or adding up simple
sums).

My main complaint about most schooling processes whether official or
grassroots is that for a wide variety of reasons they settle for the
"something else" rather than try to find ways to help the students learn the
real deals.

If the real deals are chosen, then the interesting question is what kinds of
processes will work for what kinds of learners? If it is some non-trivial
percentage of direct instruction, then this is what should be done (and
depending on the learner, this percentage could range from 0% to a
surprisingly high number). However, part of the real deal is being able to
*do* the pursuits, not just know something about them, so all pedagogical
approaches will have to find ways to get learners to learn how to do what
practitioners do who above the two thresholds of "fluency" and "pro".

Tim Gallwey is one of the best teachers I've ever observed, and he had a
number of extremely effective techniques to help his students learn the real
deal very quickly (and almost none of these were direct instruction --
partly because, as he liked to say, "The parts of the brain that you need to
do the learning very often don't understand English!"). But if he could see
that the student had gotten on a track that couldn't be influenced by
"guided discovery", then he would instantly tell them to "do it this way".
In other words, he was not religious about his own very successful method,
but instead did what his students individually needed and that worked the
best for them (which happened to be "learning by doing").

Best wishes,

Alan


  _____  

From: Bill Kerr <billkerr at gmail.com>
To: Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
Cc: iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; Sugar-dev Devel
<sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>; community-news at lists.sugarlabs.org
Sent: Monday, May 4, 2009 5:20:50 PM
Subject: [IAEP] versus, not


On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
wrote:


===Sugar Digest===

I encourage you to join two threads on the Education List this week:
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html, which
has boiled down to an instruction vs construction debate; and
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html, which
has boiled down to a debate of catering to local culture vs the
Enlightenment. I encourage you to join these discussions.


Agree that these are important discussions 

Need to be careful about the use of the versus depiction of these
discussions IMO, this tempting shorthand can create the wrong impression

eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but don't
see that it follows as a general model for all education (special needs are
special) or that we should even think it is possible to have a correct
general model. I don't think there is one and good teachers swap between
multiple models all the time.

no one on this list has argued overtly against  "the enlightenment" or that
local culture ought not to be taken into account, eg. Ties said "think
practical", the response was of the nature that our context demands we do <a
certain course of action>

however, I do think the roll back of enlightenment principles is not well
understood (http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals) and that a
better understanding might persuade more people of the need to keep
searching and struggling for different ways to go against some of  the tide
of local culture - there is a recent interesting comment thread on mark
guzdial's blog which is worth reading from this point of view
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK 








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