Education That Works:
The Child is Always Right, Part Three
Why haven't effective methods been adopted?

Edward L. Anderson, Ph.D.

Firstly: Fear. Effective programs all have clear goals. They define what the student is expected to accomplish by any given time and how this can be evaluated. Teachers, schools, districts and states will be held accountable for these goals and found wanting. And teachers know that today’s methods won’t work for many students in spite of how hard they try!

Secondly: Philosophy. The establishment is committed to the unproven idea that learning is a “developmental process”; that only at the right stage are individuals able to learn certain things regardless of the quality of instruction. We agree that children can’t learn addition in their first month, but we have proven that they can learn much earlier than has been assumed. But educators are so philosophically sure of their position, they’ve never tried to push the limits.

Goals, standards and assessment of progress are said to be “unfair” to many children because schools often use these tools to make judgmental comparisons that destroy self image. As you will see, we now know that proper testing is precisely what is needed to optimally teach. The way we test is not invidious, and it permits us to raise the lower level students to the highest standards rather then consign them to darkness as schools do now.

Thirdly: Work. The truth must be told. Good teaching is harder than mediocre teaching. Teaching based on the developmental philosophy merely requires that appropriate material be "presented." The student then learns or doesn’t. It’s not the teacher’s problem. But if the methods really work, good teaching demands that the teacher take responsibility. Teachers are not paid enough for the hard work of good teaching, but ironically, good teaching might make the public more willing to pay good salaries.

Additionally, school administrators often feel they are paid, not to become first in the state academically, but rather to keep order, assuage parents and not make waves.

Rita Kramer, a prominent education writer, in her recent book, Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America’s Teachers (4) visited 15 Schools of Education: Columbia, Michigan, UCLA, and less well known schools. She attended and recorded classes, and talked extensively to professors and students.

She summarizes her findings like this:

“Everywhere I found idealistic people eager to do good. And everywhere I found them being told that the way to do good was to prepare themselves to cure a sick society. Almost nowhere did I find a sense that any kind of knowledge is valuable in itself or more valuable than any other... Among teacher educators today, the goal of schooling is not... to be instructional, let alone intellectual, but (rather) political. The aim is not to produce individuals capable of effort and mastery, but to make sure everyone gets a passing grade. The school is to be remade into a republic of feelings–as distinct from a republic of learning–where everyone can feel he deserves an A.”

Continuing, she says:

“Where the goal of the teacher is to promote self-esteem in everyone in equal measure, performance will no longer count for much. Nor will it matter much what is taught.”

Educators, when presented with Engelmann’s results, respond either that they don’t believe them or they don’t apply to our schools because “our children are different.” Like most Americans, they do not understand the methods that science uses to verify performance in technical fields. They draw unwarranted conclusions from mere anecdotes and are unable to tell bad experiments from good experiments designed by experts. This problem is compounded; education has increasingly drawn the less qualified college students and their own education has required less liberal arts and scientific content.

What Engelmann accomplishes in teaching is dismissed as “merely skills training,” exactly what Kramer warns us about; education for feelings not mastery! Obviously, there is more to education than skills training, and these programs also teach great literature, concept formation and many other things. But even if they didn’t, wouldn’t it be better to teach at least the basic skills to all kids rather than use methods that can’t do even this?

Like Aristotle, most people do not understand that structured observation is the only scientific test of truth. He believed that he could sit in his armchair and deduce the laws of nature, leading to his conclusion that the world is made of earth, air, fire and water. Bertrand Russell had a derisive comment on this approach to science. He pointed out that Aristotle went to his grave believing that women have more teeth than men, an error he could have corrected by asking Mrs. Aristotle to open her mouth.

American educators still operate in the Aristotelian mode! They are more interested in the hypothetical stages of learning, a process, than what in fact, the students learn, an outcome. And they discover these stages as Aristotle did, by theorizing about them, rather than directly observing what works and then using that information as feedback to test possible changes, all in a never ending cycle of improvement.

California actually called Engelmann’s program an example of what good education shouldn’t be: they called it “rote” instruction, which their philosophy tells them is bad. But is there a parent who hasn’t used rote instruction? Did you not all teach your children how to count this way or learn the alphabet by singing a rote song? Those examples are rote and yet they clearly work!

Don’t get me wrong! Engelmann’s program is not rote and our experiments tell us that in more advanced instruction rote doesn’t work, but not working should be the criterion for rejection not armchair philosophy. Armchair philosophers don’t build our airplanes or our bridges, but they do build our educational structure.

The Child is always right. If he or she isn’t learning, it’s our job to observe that outcome and use that knowledge to improve our skills. This is the way every other advance in knowledge is made, why not in education?

With this background, we can now talk about the main issue: What has the Child taught us in thirty years?

Edward L. Anderson, Ph.D.
Ed Anderson was among the founders of the Cambridge Center,
and remains one of its most active supporters.
This paper is based upon a talk that Dr. Anderson gave on August 2, 1994,
sponsored by the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York.

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