Posted on 06/14/2010 4:44:27 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Okay, it took me 3 years but here's what I finally figured out. Not only is Constructivism a mostly useless gimmick but it hurts younger, less educated, and poorer kids the most. Here's a short new article that explains why:------------
"Constructivism versus Minorities and the Poor....
Constructivism is the latest fad burning through American public schools. Here’s a quick definition: children are supposed to invent their own new versions of all knowledge, while teachers (now called facilitators) are supposed to stand back and encourage the process.
I’ve been writing for some years about how unrealistic and time-consuming this approach is. There are 1000s of things that a child should know. Children would need many extra years to reinvent the main facts of biology, history, arithmetic, geography, etc. Even worse, children are supposed to build on what they already know (prior knowledge) and work at their own pace, So the class is automatically fragmented into many levels and points of interest. Let the chaos begin.
As noted, I was satisfied that this thing is not a good idea. But I’ve recently received a number of letters from teachers lamenting their classroom situations, and I now realize that Constructivism is even more of a menace than I supposed.
To put this in perspective, first consider older students, in college or even high school, with a good education up to this point. They know a lot of information and thus have a chance of reaching some new insight or generalization. Now extrapolate downward to younger, less informed children. Their prior knowledge is very meager. What is the child supposed to build on?
Let’s also extrapolate from the children who grow up in educated, talkative, involved families. Isn’t it obvious that these children would know much more than the children from poor homes, deprived homes, homes where the parents are not well educated and not very interested in the education of their children. Such children know almost nothing. It’s precisely these children most urgently in need of a crash course in foundational knowledge!
What they get instead is an officially approved policy guaranteed to prolong their ignorance. Let me spell this out so there can be no misunderstanding: the younger and more ignorant the children, the greater the damage inflicted by Constructivism.
Now the following two letters from teachers will be self-explanatory:
“...I was told today at a job interview that, even though I get great results with my students, they would rather hire someone who already believed in Constructivism....My kindergarten students can dissect a sentence like a second grader, and I am very proud of that. Still, I get marked down and ridiculed on my evaluations. My superiors complain that I need to have my students in cooperative groups (useless chatter), in learning stations (playing with toys), and that I need to refrain from correcting children for their mistakes and instead guide them with poignant questions to the right answer. I could spend a whole day or longer probing and cueing a child to give an answer, when he/she doesn't have the frame of previous knowledge from which to derive the answer.” (Lynn M.)
“The principal has refused to recommend me for employment as a teacher because I flagrantly ignored the school’s emphasis on education reform (read Constructivism) according to him. He was appalled that I had the students memorize facts. Where was the higher order thinking involved in the task, he queried me-–not waiting for an answer and clearly not wanting one. It mattered not to him that the kids loved the geography unit. That they had learned about the equator, they had seen images of maps and had talked with me about how the world seemed to grow over time in ancient maps. We talked about technology and how our planet looked on Google Earth. We talked about the invention of the wheel, of navigation, and all sorts of other fascinating things. The boys were wondering if we would soon have Google Moon and Google Jupiter. They knew what a compass rose was and what it did. They learned about scale and computed some simple scale problems. No, none of that mattered because I had violated two major rules -– I had had the children memorize facts and I had taught them information.” (Jan H.)
For me, these letters are inexpressibly sad. These teachers are caring and conscientious but all that counts for nothing in schools that have declared war on facts. This war has been in progress for almost a century. Constructivism is just the cleverest new tactic in this war. But unlike the previous tactics, which taught less to everybody across the board, this new tactic discriminates against the under-educated. The less you know coming in, the less you will be allowed to know, ever.
Constructivism is just a highfalutin gimmick for dumbing down the next generation. Like so many methods called “progressive,” it is actually regressive and repressive.
Schools must get back in the knowledge business. This need has never been more urgent. Facts are fun. Knowledge is power. Start from these simple premises, and excellent schools are almost inevitable."
[PS: You're going to hear a lot about Race to the Top, and I suspect Constructivism will be part of the package. I know homeschoolers avoid this stuff, but everybody pays for it.]
THAT'S THE ENTIRE ARTICLE I JUST PLACED ON AMERICANCHRONICLE....IF YOU WANT MORE ANALYSIS, LINK LEADS TO A BACK-UP ARTICLE CALLED "34: THE CON IN CONSTRUCTIVISM."
Are they nuts? These are kids. They don’t know anything. They don’t know that they don’t know anything. This is a complete abandonment of a teacher’s responsibility. Lazy teachers and dumb kids, on the taxpayers’ dime.
There needs to be a blend of both the giving and discovery of facts. It is one thing to have head knowledge but if not coupled with the hands-on discovery which constructivism brings, it remains just facts and not true knowledge.
Yes, constructivism takes time. But there needs to be time given to it. Such activity used to be called “labs.”
So beautifully put. Thank you.
You have bought into the sales pitch. Which can sound good. But let’s focus on implementation...
Here’s a paradigm. We tell a kid that Paris is the capital of France. Why isn’t that true knowledge?
How will you coax the kid into creating this knowledge for himself?
My point is that, for most kids, most of the time, Constructivism will function to retard education.
Back when they called it”labs”, they probably taught the facts that enabled the labs to function.
A kid who has mastery of some facts has some pride and confidence, and can put them to use.
I went to law school with the socratic method, where they don’t explain things, they expect you to derive them. It was extremely inefficient for beginners, and amounted to hiding the ball. It wasted money and time and discouraged many bright people. If you actually want people to learn quickly, teach a lot of information the regular way, and then let the inquiry flow when there is a foundation established.
Again, that’s so perfectly put.
But the top educators really do want to push this thing all the way down to first grade.
I'm not completely convinced of that. Some information literacy models that are constructivist in nature such as the web quest, an activity in which students solve problems through the use of online resources, have won widespread critical acclaim in the education community.
Been thinking about this for a week.
Why is gathering info from websites the least bit different from getting info from books, libraries, magazines, talking to people, visiting museums, etc. No difference. It’s research. Same as it ever was.
Methinks one trendy professor is getting away with a conceptual scam. Webquest is a clever name. After that, it’s less than zero.
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"Computer-Using Educator" groups, school librarians, and others in the "wired" teaching community often rave about web quests and other such models in their journals and on their blogs. However, in my opinion, a web quest might be useful primarily as a supplemental activity. I believe there is no substitute for a term paper, produced by individual students, for intensively learning about a given topic.
By the way, here's another book for your summer reading list: Class Warfare: Besieged Schools, Bewildered Parents, Betrayed Kids and the Attack on Excellence by J. Martin Rochester (Encounter, 2004). What the author says about fads, in particular "multiple intelligence theory" is quite eye-opening.
It’s a new in name only. One of our HS mathematics teachers
forthrightly said “this method we must use to teach you
is called ‘the discovery method’. It doesn’t work.”
The law schools’ “socratic method” is essential to
the goal of obscuring and subverting fundamental legal
and Constitutional principles. This is not merely my
opinion but that of a law school professor, but I don’t
have permission to name him.
Don’t get me started on Constructivism. I have to get some sleep.
Only to say that “educators” are the greatest threat to education (teamed with teachers’ unions).
(BTW, I’m a teacher, please don’t call me an educator, ever)
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