developmentalism is bad

It is.

Developmentalism: An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction on Educational Improvement

....schools have largely ignored the availability of a number of teaching methodologies that seem capable of producing the kind of achievement outcomes demanded by the public. In particular, teaching practices such as mastery learning and Personalized System of Instruction (Bloom, 1976; Guskey & Pigott, 1988; Kulik, Kulik & Bangert-Drowns, 1990), direct instruction (Becker & Carnine, 1980; White, 1987), positive reinforcement (Lysakowski & Walberg; 1980, 1981), cues and feedback (Lysakowski & Walberg, 1982), and the variety of similar practices called "explicit teaching" (Rosenshine, 1986), are largely ignored despite reviews and meta- analyses strongly supportive of their effectiveness (Ellson, 1986; Walberg, 1990, 1992). Yet methodologies such as whole language instruction (Stahl & Miller, 1989), the open classroom (Giacomia & Hedges, 1982; Hetzel, Rasher, Butcher, & Walberg, 1980; Madamba, 1981; & Peterson, 1980), inquiry learning (El- Nemr, 1980), and a variety practices purporting to accommodate teaching to student diversity (Boykin, 1986; Dunn, Beaudrey, & Klavas, 1989; Shipman & Shipman, 1985; Thompson, Entwisle, Alexander, & Sundius, 1992) continue to be employed despite weak or unfavorable findings or simply a lack of empirical trials.

Equally surprising is the observation that many of the ignored and rejected methodologies are quite similar to those that have been found effective and are routinely used by special educators and school psychologists (Hallahan, Kauffman, & Lloyd, 1985; Hammill & Bartel, 1990; Wang, Reynolds & Walberg, 1987). In many instances, the otherwise unused practices are successfully implemented but only after a student has been identified as disabled.

[snip]

The thesis advanced in the following is that a longstanding but poorly recognized educational doctrine underpins the neglect of experimental evidence found inmethods textbooks and in the attempt to find more effective teaching methods. It is a doctrine that pervades teacher education and one that disposes the teaching profession to favor certain practices and to ignore others regardless of empirically demonstrated merit. Termed "developmentalism" (Stone, 1991, 1993a, 1994), it is a form of romantic naturalism that inspires teacher discomfort with any practice that is deemed incompatible with natural developmental processes (Binder & Watkins, 1989). It is a view that acquired popularity as a grounds for rejecting the often harsh formalist teaching methods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Ravitch, 1983; Riegel, 1972). Today it poses an obscure but powerful restriction on scientifically informed educational improvement and more broadly on teacher and parent efforts to influence the developing child.

[snip]

Over the last thirty years, a variety of experimentally vindicated teaching methods have been developed and disseminated only to be ignored or discarded in favor of less well tested practices that better fit developmental thinking. Mastery learning and Personalized System of Instruction may be the best known examples (Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Drowns, 1990). Direct Instruction (Becker & Carnine, 1980)--also known as DISTAR (Kim, Berger, & Kratochvil, 1972) and as "systematic instruction" (Slavin, 1994)--is another. Direct Instruction is little used despite having been as thoroughly validated and field tested as any methodology in the history of education (Watkins, 1988). These and a large group of structured and sequenced teaching methodologies termed "explicit teaching" (Rosenshine, 1986) are among the most clear instances of experimentally supported approaches to teaching that have failed to gain widespread acceptance and/or have been abandoned.

Programmed instruction (Skinner, 1958) is another example of an abandoned methodology and one that uniquely appears to demonstrate how developmentalism's hold on the teaching profession influences teaching practices in public schools. Despite its initial acceptance and evident promise, K-12 educators rejected programmed instruction in favor of less structured, more naturalistic, "real-world," "hands-on" approaches (Skinner, 1986). However, among educators less influenced by developmentalism, i.e., private sector business and industrial trainers, military trainers, designers of computer-based instruction, etc., it remained well established (Ellson, 1986; Vargas & Vargas, 1992).

[snip]

Ellson (1986) listed seventy-five studies of teaching methods all of which report learning effects that are at least twice as great as control comparisons. Most of these methods were popular at one time but none are in widespread use today. Walberg (1990, 1992) summarized the results of nearly 8000 studies that point to the efficacy of a brief list of powerful and teacher- alterable classroom interventions, most of which are supported by experimental evidence. High expectations for effort and achievement is one, the use of incentives is another. In general, the neglected methodologies identified by Walberg and Ellson are structured and teacher directed; they aim to instill preconceived academic and intellectual outcomes; and most of them employ practice, feedback, and incentives.

[snip]

Given the nature of the developmentalist view, experimentally demonstrated teaching practices are bound to invite a great degree of skepticism. The object of experimental research is to demonstrate the impact of an independent variable as an agent of change. Contrary to such an objective, developmentalism requires that social, emotional, and cognitive change emerge, not as an effect induced by an external agent, but as an independent expression of the student. Thus experimentally tested methodologies are automatically considered suspect if not outrightly objectionable depending on which developmental limitations are presumed applicable. In effect, developmentalist doctrine discourages reliance on the most important and most credible research educators have at their disposal (Bloom, 1980 as cited in Gage & Berliner, 1992; Cook & Campbell, 1979).

and

Developmentally appropriate practices

and

Progressivism, Schools, and Schools of Education: An American Romance (pdf file)

Two important components of the naturalism inherent in progressive pedagogy, according to Hirsch, are developmentalism and holistic learning. If learning is natural, then teaching needs to adapt itself to the natural developmental capacities of the learner, which requires a careful effort to provide particular subject matters and skills only when they are appropriate for the student’s stage of development. ‘Developmentally appropriate’ practices and curricula are central to this progressive vision. The second key extension of the naturalistic approach to teaching is the idea that learning is most natural when it takes place in holistic form, where multiple domains of skill and knowledge are integrated into thematic units and projects instead of being taught as separate subjects. Thus we have the progressive passion for interdisciplinary studies, thematic units and the project method.

and

The dangerous and the good? Developmentalism, progress, and public schooling

In light of numerous critiques of developmentalism, this article examines whether developmentalism has been a dangerous way to think about human life. It traces the emergence of different kinds of developmental discourse, locates the discursive preconditions for developmentalism’s dominance in education, and examines the conjuncture between developmentalism and progressivism in shaping the limits of education’s discursive field since the late 19th century. The article examines some of the productive and repressive legacies of developmental reasoning and concludes by examining present efforts to destabilize and fracture developmental discourse. It suggest that the historical articulation of developmentalism to an idea of progress has not been undermined through present-day critiques that still implicitly project “progress as the grounds for efforts to destabilize “developmental.” Alternatives to developmental discourse are considered in relation to how judgments of the dangerous and the good have been shaped through problematic narratives of progress and human freedom.

...present efforts to destabilize and fracture developmental discourse?

yeah

sounds like a motto to me!


spaced repetition

Repeat after me:

• Two important components of the naturalism inherent in progressive pedagogy are developmentalism and holistic learning.

• I am an Enlightenment baby.
  

blind side

Even though, in theory, I know these things, I was blindsided when developmentalism turned out to be the reason why our district thinks it's OK to give a course only the top 10% of kids in the country can handle.

That would be the Regents Earth Science course being taught in the 8th grade, the same one schools in Pelham are teaching to all of their students, with Regents passing rates in the 90s (a figure that includes SPED kids).

At Irvington the course is taught "conceptually."

Because it is taught conceptually, only kids testing in the top 10% of the country are assured of succeeding; kids testing at the 80th percentile will find it a challenge; kids testing at the 70th percentile either won't be invited to take the course or would be well-advised to say 'no' if asked.

Everyone testing below the 70th percentile can forget about Earth Science until sophomore year in high school.

Of course, I interpreted "taught conceptually" to mean "a course only the smartest kids can handle," but that wasn't it.

"Taught conceptually" means "a course only the most mature kids can handle."

Apparently this is a theme throughout the entire sequence of grades 6-12 here in Irvingtonland.

As far as I can tell, when parents ask why their child was rejected for an accelerated or honors course, they are in some cases told that their child does not have the maturity he or she needs to manage the course.

And that is that. Maturation is a natural process; it can't be hurried or pushed.

In another year or two, the child will be more mature.

So there's nothing to worry about.

It's all about development.

I didn't see that one coming.


end run

Let me add, for the benefit of all you math brainiacs out there with K-5 kids, that the word "mature" is not necessarily code for "IQ."

Sometimes it is. At least, I assume it is.

Other times it's an end run around IQ.

I talked to a friend with whom I'd been out of touch. Her child, with a measured IQ of 155, was dropped from his Honors science class (I believe it was science) for reasons unknown and unexplained to her. Mom and dad are both math-science people; math-science is this kid's thing and he's got a measured IQ of 155.

He's out of Honors science.

I'm sure that if you pressed the folks at the high school to the wall they'd say her kid just isn't mature enough yet for the rigors of an Honors course in science.

I know for a fact they could say it, because I know they've said it to other parents with extremely bright kids.

repeat after me: Develomentalism is bad.

coda: I'm going to guess that the new chair of the science department will be making some major changes in these practices. She's already done it at the middle school level; she's made sweeping changes in transparency and objective criterion. That's why parents now know that the criteria is top 10% scorers on the CTBS.

She hasn't shared her thoughts on the "Pelham question," that being: why do we have an 8th grade Regents Earth Science course only the top 10% scorers in the country can take?

Or, alternatively, if we're going to have an 8th grade Regents Earth Science course only the top 10% scorers in the country can take, how about also offering an 8th Grade Regents Earth Science course the other 90% can take?

(thanks to Illinois Loop as always)

The Dangerous and the Good