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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. A dinosaur of education by J. G. Fabiano.
I am a dinosaur! I know it and many of my colleagues whom I've spent decades teaching with also clearly understand this. We are being replaced by the concepts of multiple intelligences and brain-based learning. Our philosophies of disciplined teaching styles are said to be obsolete and ineffective. In other words, the mammals are taking over. Let me explain. I've been teaching high school science since the early part of the 1980's. I have many colleagues at Newmarket Jr. / Sr. High School in Newmarket, New Hampshire who have taught for well over three decades. In fact, some have taught for so long that they are now teaching the children of the students they taught many years before. All of us love to teach. All of us love to watch our students develop into fine young men and women. We don't care where they came from or what social grouping they find themselves in. We also don't care what tests say they are or why they are not supposed to learn. All of our students are special. They don't have to be told they are because of a battery of tests and psychological profiles. They are all our students and we love to watch what they become. In fact, many of us believe that putting a label, "special" on any young man or woman makes them carry a remarkably heavy load. Our younger colleagues and even younger administrations now tell us that the way we have been teaching is wrong. We should no longer consider content of our subjects over methods of teaching. We should become more involved with the physiology of our students brains instead of keeping them abreast of all that is new in the subjects we love. We are now being forced into all-day seminars concerning brain-based learning and multiple intelligences. Last month I asked my administrator if I could work in my room during a particular seminar because I needed time to set up a server-based system for my computers and I also needed time to develop a new module concerning biotechnology. It was as though I asked for the high heavens to fall! She quickly rejected my request and told me in no uncertain terms that it was time that I learned something new. Here I thought I learned new things every day! This particular seminar consisted of games between teachers, an explanation of the physiology of the brain in elementary terms, moving around between groups of tables, and many other "touchy-feely" systems that were supposed to enlighten us as to how to teach. All I could think about during this time was how a networked system of computers could have helped me teach the concept of bioengineering. The candy they gave us also made me sick! Eric Jensen is the founder of this new teaching technique. He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience and New York Academy of Science. He was named to Who's Who of the World and voted an outstanding young man of America. He was the designer and key trainer for the MetWest Initiative in Australia that is one of the world's largest learning and training programs. The one thing omitted in his biography was any teaching experience. In fact, I assume he has never taught in any public or private school. The co-founder of Jensen Learning is Dianne Jensen whom I am happy to say did teach. In fact, she was a first grade teacher in Houston, Texas for 13 years. I have to wonder if she understands the difference between teaching first grade and teaching older students. To quote Eric Jensen from his web page, "Brain-based learning offers some direction for educators who want more purposeful, informed teaching." I actually thought my decades of teaching were 'purposeful and informed'. He continues by stating that brain-based learning: "offers the possibility of less hit or miss in the classroom." I know of no teacher who enters his or her classroom with the concept of hit or miss. Jensen goes on to explain: "We have learned about how environments impact our learning, the role of trauma and the effects of distress and threat." My classroom has never been or will ever be an environment of distress or threat. Mr. Jensen ends his summary by explaining that: "With additional clarity in research, brain-based approaches may soon suggest far better options for those struggling with learning." I hope so but I have seen many other miracle cures in my many years of teaching. One of which was entitled: "Multiple Intelligences". Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University explains that: "Intelligence is the ability to find and solve problems and create products of value in one's own culture." This is a comment that many of my colleagues totally agree with. This is also the reason we teach the way we do. Dr. Howard Gardner explains that: "Multiple intelligences is a psychological theory about the mind. It's a critique of the notion that there's a single intelligence which we're born with, which can't be changed, and which psychologists can measure. It's based on a lot of scientific research in fields ranging from psychology to anthropology to biology. It's not based upon based on test correlations, which most other intelligence theories are based on." Since we are in an era of spending millions of dollars on worthless testing this is a nice theory to explore. Personally my classroom needs computers, printers, and various technological systems. Hell! My classroom needs chairs that don't bite you every time one sits in them. This inclusion of classroom needs has been eliminated because of the expense of a mandated testing program. I fear that further cuts in my budget will occur because of these new expensive cure-alls for education. "The claim is that there are at least eight different human intelligences. Most intelligence tests look at language or logic or both - those are just two of the intelligences. The other six are musical, spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist." This is where my colleagues and I disagree with his concept. If we are to spend all of our time working with the different learning styles when will we have time to teach? Of course we clearly understand that different children learn in different ways. My colleagues and I also understand that our students learn in different ways during different times of the day and even at different times of the year. Nothing stays the same because the art of learning is extremely dynamic. I always believed it was my responsibility to know when my students want to learn, which gives me the capacity to teach. We understood this the first day we stepped into our classrooms. To spend massive amounts of time and money on learning what we already know is above and beyond my comprehension. To put the concept of method over content is above and beyond my imagination. But, like I said before: "I am a dinosaur." The End
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