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EDUCATION POLICY ANALYSIS ARCHIVES
Volume 4 Number 8 ISSN 1068-2341
April 23, 1996 (1950 lines)
A peer-reviewed scholarly electronic journal
operating as a LISTSERV under the name
EPAA at LISTSERV who-is-at asuvm.inre.asu.edu
Editor: Gene V Glass Glass who-is-at asu.edu
College of Education Arizona State Univ.
Book Review Editor: Walter E. Shepherd
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Copyright 1996, the EDUCATION POLICY ANALYSIS
ARCHIVES.Permission is hereby granted to copy
any article provided that EDU POLICY ANALYSIS
ARCHIVES is credited and copies are not sold.
____________________________________________________________________
Developmentalism: An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction on
Educational Improvement
J. E. Stone
East Tennessee State University
stonej who-is-at eduserv.east-tenn-st.edu
Abstract:
Despite continuing criticism of public education,
experimentally demonstrated and field tested teaching methods
have been ignored, rejected, and abandoned. Instead of a
stable consensus regarding best teaching practices, there
seems only an unending succession of innovations. A
longstanding educational doctrine appears to underlie this
anomalous state of affairs. Termed developmentalism, it
presumes "natural" ontogenesis to be optimal and it requires
experimentally demonstrated teaching practices to overcome a
presumption that they interfere with an optimal developmental
trajectory. It also discourages teachers and parents from
asserting themselves with children. Instead of effective
interventions, it seeks the preservation of a postulated
natural perfection. Developmentalism's rich history is
expressed in a literature extending over 400 years. Its
notable exponents include Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey,
and Jean Piaget; and its most recent expressions include
"developmentally appropriate practice" and "constructivism."
In the years during which it gained ascendance, developmentalism
served as a basis for rejecting harsh and inhumane teaching
methods. Today it impedes efforts to hold schools accountable for
student academic achievement.
Developmentalism: An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction on
Educational Improvement
Over the past thirteen years American public schools have
been subjected to an increasing barrage of criticism. The
chief object of complaint has been their continuing failure
to equip students with the academic and workplace skills
needed in an era of increasing economic competition.
Recent expressions evidence a growing public impatience.
In an April 1993 statement, U. S. Secretary of Education
Richard Riley commented: "A watered down curriculum and low
expectations for too many of our students prevent them from
meeting high standards" (Riley, 1993). A September 1993
report by the National Center for Education Statistics found
that 16 to 20 percent of the U. S. adults who perform at the
lowest levels of reading, writing, and arithmetic were high
school graduates (Kirsch, Jungblut, Jenkins & Kolstad, 1993).
In November of 1993, the U. S. Department of Education
reported that in comparison to their peers in other
industrialized countries, gifted American students rank near
the bottom in math and science achievement (Kantrowitz &
Wingert, 1993). In September of 1994, the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC, 1994) disclosed that
since the Nation at Risk report in 1983 there has been little
change in the achievement levels of public school students
despite a 43% increase in real dollar expenditures. Near the
end of 1994, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD, 1994) described the quality of American
education as a major threat to the future economic well-
being, productivity, and competitiveness of the U. S. In
April of 1995, Business Week (Mandel, Melcher, Yang &
McNamee, 1995) declared that businesses find too many job
applicants unable to read, write, or do simple arithmetic and
that Americans are "fed up" with their public schools.
Berliner and Biddle (1995) and various other commentators
(Bracy, 1996; Westbury, 1992) have attempted to defend the public
schools' record by offering a more sympathetic interpretation of
the available evidence. However, a recent review of Berliner and
Biddle (Stedman, 1996) indicates that reinterpretation of school
and student performance data is unlikely to convince knowledgeable
observers that the ongoing criticisms of public schooling are
"manufactured" or otherwise off target.
Despite these mounting concerns, 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. They are experimentally validated, field
tested, and known to produce significant improvements in learning.
Instead, the schools have continued to employ a wide variety of
untested and unproven practices which are said to be "innovative"
(Carnine, 1995; Marshall, 1993). In particular, teaching
practices such as mastery learning and Personalized System of
Instruction (Bloom, 1976; Guskey & Pigott, 1988; Kulik, Kulik &
Bangert-Downs, 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.
Methods Texts and Experimental Research
A sampling of popular textbooks used in regular
education teaching methods courses offers what may be a
reason for this anomalous state of affairs. Widely used
textbooks--in the present report, elementary, middle, and
secondary teaching methods texts that have been revised
repeatedly, some over thirty and forty years (Armstrong &
Savage, 1994; Callahan, Clark, & Kellough, 1992; Clark &
Starr, 1991; Henson, 1993; Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993;
Kim & Kellough, 1995; Lemlech, 1994; Ornstein, 1992;
Sheperd & Ragan, 1992)--give little weight to experimentally
demonstrated results as a basis for identifying effective
teaching practices. Instead, they present an eclectic
assortment of approaches colored by distinct distaste for
methods that are structured, teacher-directed, and result-
oriented--characteristics that exemplify the experimentally
vindicated approaches to teaching. Lemlech's (1994) account is
typical:
In classrooms where students are given little opportunity to
choose what they will learn, how they will learn, and the way
in which they will be evaluated for learning, there is a
greater likelihood that the classroom is structured through
intrinsic rewards, incentive programs, and normative
evaluation. As a consequence, learning will become joyless.
There is also a tendency in these classrooms to overemphasize
repetition, drill, and commercially produced dittos for
practice materials. Some believe this to be prevalent in low
socio-economic and low achieving classrooms, and as a
consequence it may the cause of negative motivation patterns.
(p. 91)
Instead of empirically grounded recommendations as to best
practices, the methods texts suggest a personalized and intuitive
approach to instruction built around teacher experience,
circumstances, and sensitivity to student needs. Ornstein's
(1992) advice exemplifies this view:
In considering what is best for you, you must consider
your teaching style, your student's needs and abilities,
and your school policies. As you narrow your choices,
remember that approaches overlap and are not mutually
exclusive. Also remember that more than one approach
may work for you. You may borrow ideas from various
approaches and construct your own hybrid. The approach
you finally arrive at should make sense to you on an
intuitive basis. Don' let someone impose his or her
teaching style or disciplinary approach on you.
Remember, what works for one person (in the same school,
even with the same students) may not work for another
person. (p. 129)
In essence, these methods texts acknowledge research as
a foundation for educational practice but give it little
weight in formulating a conclusion about the practices most
likely to produce results. Neither do they encourage the
reader to rely on research as a basis judging the quality of
teaching practices. They seem to wear the mantle of science but
oddly neglect its substance and purpose.
The same emphasis on teaching shaped by innovation and
sensitivity to student differences is quite evident in the
catalogues of publishers that target teachers and teacher
educators. The titles and descriptions of offerings by
Heinemann (1995) and National Education Association (1995),
for example, both reflect a market preference for the new and
innovative and a market indifference to the empirically
grounded or to the tried and true.
The varied and ever-mutating body of scholarship referenced
by the textbooks implies the kind of ongoing refinement and
revitalization characteristic of scientifically informed practice.
Yet their recommendations with respect to teaching do not reflect
the kind of consensus that would be expected to emerge as recent
advancements are built onto established findings (Stanovich, 1992,
1993). Empirical findings are at best an imperfect guide to
practice; but as they cumulate and converge, they do yield
important clues. At the least, they reveal that certain findings
tend to repeat themselves. The impression conveyed by the present
textbooks, however, is that learning's relationship to teaching is
largely idiosyncratic and unpredictable. That which is true for
one teacher, teaching one lesson, to one set of students is not a
valid guide for others.
Neither do these textbooks acknowledge the unique value of
experimental trials. The distinctive value of experimental
evidence is understood throughout the scientific community (Cook &
Campbell, 1979), and experimentation as a guide to effective
teaching practice has been recognized by the educational community
for more than thirty years (Campbell & Stanley, 1963). Yet the
methods texts are silent on the matter. Here again although the
fallibility of empirical evidence must be acknowledged, it must
also be said that the well conceived experiment offers more
convincing evidence of whether a teaching method works than a
report offering only description or correlation. Dismissing
experimental findings on the grounds that offer only good but not
certain evidence of pedagogical effectiveness is to fallaciously
make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Given the market success of these textbooks and the
teaching profession's apparent comfort with such an
orientation, it is not difficult to see how schools continue to
respond to the public call for better results with
untested innovations (Carnine, 1995). Seemingly the education
community has neither a scientifically founded consensus about
best practices nor a recognition that experimental evidence would
be integral to the formation of such a consensus. In the
absence of attention to experimental trials, teaching
innovations lacking demonstrated effectiveness can come into
vogue on the strength of publicity and marketing only to
later be bypassed by more of the same (Armstrong, 1980;
Carnine, 1993; Marshall, 1993). In truth, continual
innovation may have become a way of coping with public
criticism. New practices are incongruously piled onto the
old as consultants, school boards, superintendents, and
teachers come and go (Armstrong, 1980). Criticisms that are
behind the curve can be ignored because they are no longer
relevant. Criticisms of the latest innovations can be
ignored because they are premature and intolerant of
innovation.
The Influence of Developmentalism
The thesis advanced in the following is that a
longstanding but poorly recognized educational doctrine
underpins the neglect of experimental evidence found in
methods 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.
Developmentalism's clearest present-day expressions
include the "child centered" or "progressive" teaching seen
in Canadian schools (Freedman, 1993), the "progressivism" or
"Plowdenism" seen in the British Primary Schools (Alexander,
Rose, & Woodhead, 1992), and the "developmentally appropriate
practice" advocated by early childhood educators (Carta,
Schwartz, Atwater & McConnell, 1991). The learner-centered
teacher education favored by National Education Association
is another expression, one that is widely known and well
regarded in colleges of education (Darling-Hammond, Griffin &
Wise, 1992).
Discovery learning is predicated on developmentalism
(Bruner, 1966) and so is the increasingly popular
constructivism (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). Although
constructivism employs a distinctive terminology and a more
credible theoretical foundation, its major precepts are
largely those advanced by John Dewey (1916/1963) at the turn
of the century and discredited in the nineteen fifties.
Dewey's "progressive education" (Dewey, 1938/1963) is the best
known historic form of developmentalism and one whose present day
influence is remarkably underestimated. "Reflective thinking,"
"authentic learning," "hands-on" experiences, "authentic
assessment," and many other of today's best known pedagogical
terms and concepts are rooted in Dewey's adaptation of
developmentalism. Other recent (but now less popular) forms of
developmentalism are the "third force" and "humanistic"
psychologies on which the educational innovations of the nineteen
sixties and seventies were based (Weber, 1972).
A variety of other popular practices are less explicitly
developmentalist but they share developmentalism's premises about
the goodness of the natural--a characteristic that is key to their
acceptance by the educational mainstream. Well known examples
include the "whole language" and "language experience" approaches
to reading (Altwerger, Edelsky & Flores, 1987), the closely
related "emergent literacy" view of reading (Teal & Sulzby, 1987),
and the "cognitive apprenticeship" approach to instruction (Brown,
Collins, and Duguid, 1989). Stahl and Miller's (1989) discussion
of whole language and language experience reading instruction
highlights its appeal as a "natural" mode of instruction: "The
goal of both approaches is to bring children into literacy in a
'natural' way [italics added], by bridging the gap between
children's own language competencies and written language" (p.
88).
Developmentalism: The Term and Its Referents
Although Stone (1991, 1993a, 1994) seems to have
originated the use of "developmentalism" in reference to the
doctrine discussed herein, similar terms have been used to
denote developmentally informed educational practice. Sprinthall
and Sprinthall (1987) used the term "developmentalists" in
reference to educators who base their practices on developmental
considerations. A similar term--"philosophic-developmentalist"--
was used by Lawrence Kohlberg and Rochelle Mayer (1972) in
reference to the views of John Dewey (1859-1952) and Jean Piaget
(1896-1980). Dewey's and Piaget's views were termed
"interactionist" and those of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778),
"maturationist." In contrast to these precedents,
developmentalism as used by Stone (1991, 1993a, 1994) refers
to a broad doctrine that presumes "natural" ontogenesis to be
optimal. Such a presumption is common to both maturationist and
interactionist views of development; and it is implicit in Dewey,
Piaget, Rousseau, and the others here termed developmentalists.
As the term is used here, the "ism" in developmentalism is the
uncontested assumption that the "natural" course of development,
however conceived in theory, is the optimal possibility. It is an
obscure but vital form of romantic naturalism--one thoroughly
embedded in the American culture.
Stated broadly, developmentalism is the view of age-related
social, emotional, and cognitive change that regards the optimal
progression to be a fragile result of native tendencies emerging
in a world congenial to their presumed wholesome nature. It
emphasizes (a) the sufficiency of a natural inclination to
learning, (b) the dangers of interference with native
characteristics and proclivities, and (c) the desirability of
learning experiences that emulate those thought to occur
naturally. Social, emotional, and cognitive attributes that may
be the unrecognized result of teacher and parent intervention are
presumed by developmentalism to be manifestations of nature's
normal trajectory. Man, his social contrivances, and indeed,
civilization are seen as distinct from nature; and deliberate
efforts to alter the course of child development are suspected of
interfering with optimal developmental outcomes.
Developmentalism assumes that the developmental directions
issuing from the child's native tendencies and characteristics are
optimal because they are a part of "nature." Although their
concepts of development differed, Rousseau, Dewey, Piaget, and all
other developmentalists share this premise. For Rousseau, nature
was God's work untainted by human influence. In his view, the
optimal developmental progression was simply the emergence of
native tendencies and characteristics unfettered and unspoiled by
society. By contrast, Dewey and Piaget considered the child's
tendencies and characteristics to be the product of Darwinian
evolution. Native tendencies and characteristics were desirable
because they had survived the process of natural selection.
Unlike Rousseau, Dewey and Piaget held that the optimal
progression depended not only on successful maturation but on a
natural process of interaction wherein the native characteristics
selected-for by evolution were enhanced by the naturally occurring
experiences to which they were fitted (Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972).
Thus originated Dewey's emphasis on authentic educational
experience. Evolution equipped humans to learn by solving
problems, therefore learning in the context of problem solving was
optimal. Although Rousseau's development was more exclusively a
matter of maturation, he too treated social and educational
influences as having the ability to either facilitate and nurture,
or to corrupt and misdirect the optimal progression to which
nature was postulated to tend.
A Brief History of Developmentalism
Developmentalism's historic foundations go well beyond
the writings of Rousseau, Dewey, and Piaget. Pedagogical
theorists such as Johann Bernard Basedow (1724-1790), Johann
Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel (1770-1831), Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), Herbert
Spencer (1820-1903), William James (1842-1910), and G.
Stanley Hall (1844-1924) are the best known proponents of the
past 200 years. In general, their views were premised on
either the maturation-only or the maturation/environmental-
interaction schemes of development.
The ascendance of developmentalism in America may be related
to an early belief about education as a cause of madness.
According to Makari (1993), Rousseau's "education naturelle" was
presaged by the writings of John Locke in 1691 and Giambattista
Vico in 1709. Vico believed that children develop through a
series of immutable phases and he condemned educational practices
not in harmony with the "natural" progression. He considered
abstract Cartesian thought to be particularly harmful. Vico's
supposition that that which appears to be unnatural is apt to
harmful has been echoed repeatedly even to the present day.
Proponents of "developmentally appropriate" teaching practice, for
example, believe that the use of incentives with young children
is likely to be damaging.
Vico's belief was accepted within American psychiatry
from its earliest years, and it persisted in the professional
literature well into the late eighteen hundreds (Makari,
1993). The public and professional acceptance of such
thinking as enlightened and informed clearly would have lent
credibility to the criticisms of formalist teaching methods
voiced by Dewey, James, and others. Also it would have
bolstered the acceptance of the developmentalist schooling
methods imported from Europe throughout the era.
Rousseau and European Developmentalists
Rousseau argued that all that comes from the hand of the
Creator must be good; and in doing so, he substituted a
doctrine of original goodness for that of original sin.
He believed that formal schooling was not only unnecessary
(because children tend naturally to learn) but that it harms
students by violating their natural propensities (Green,
1955). Classically premised on a romanticist faith in nature,
Rousseau's Emile was a critique of educational practice in his
day.
Hegel embellished Rousseau's theme and described
child development as a process of unfoldment toward a state
of natural perfection (Bigge & Hunt, 1962). Basedow,
Pestalozzi, and Froebel each articulated their unique vision
of schooling based on Rousseau's and Hegel's concepts (Rusk,
1965). In each case, their conceptual framework required
schooling to be fitted to the child in the interest of
preserving the goodness inherent in nature, and in each case
they were received by the European public as a welcome
alternative to the often harsh teaching methods of the day.
Teachers of the era typically were retired drill sergeants
and their methods were adaptations of military training
(Riegel, 1972).
Herbert Spencer and William James
Spencer and James similarly argued that education must
be fitted to the child but their ideas were premised on an
evolutionary model of nature (Cremin, 1964). The vision of
natural perfection suggested by evolutionary theory differed
from that of Rousseau but the ideal of education in harmony
with natural perfection again was perpetuated. Optimal
educational results were those that arose from fulfillment of
nature's inherent order--an order shaped by the workings of
evolution. Although Spencer and James both relied on an
evolutionary premise, their thinking diverged as to the
relationship between the natural order and desirable
educational outcomes. Spencer conceived of education as
subordinate to and, ideally, accommodated to the broader
evolutionary process. He held that men were "infinitely more
creatures of history than its creators" (Cremin, 1964, p.
93). Thus educational practice fitted to nature's dictates
was the arrangement most conducive to optimal enhancement of
the species. In contrast, James conceived of the human mind
as having an active role in shaping the natural order and;
more than Spencer, Rousseau, or Dewey, he believed that
teachers should instill good (i.e., adaptive) habits.
James differed in other important ways from Dewey and
other developmentalists. In contrast to Dewey, James
conceived of educational outcomes as specific observable
behavior change, not as a broad gaged and intangible
intellectual growth. Also in contrast to Dewey and most
other developmentalists, James believed that learned habits
could serve to inhibit or overcome unfavorable natural
tendencies. Thus he was he was not especially critical of
recitation and the older "formalist" educational methods, and
neither did he expect all learning to be motivated by a
genuine personal interest. In James's words, the belief that
learning should be motivated only by interest was "soft
pedagogy" (James, 1899/1924, p. 109).
As to the relationship between human development and
learning, James held that evolution had endowed humans with
naturally "ripening" instincts and native interests to which
successful teaching should be fitted. Unlike Dewey and other
developmentally informed theorists, however, he did not
insist on adherence to nature's ripening process or on an
approximation of nature's interaction patterns as the optimal
means of educating. Rather James' Talks to Teachers (1899/1924)
offered practical recommendations that could be implemented
largely without reference to developmental considerations.
Thus in spite of his attention to human development as an
educational consideration, James, unlike Dewey, did not
greatly contribute to the restrictive orthodoxy that is
developmentalism.
G. Stanley Hall and Arnold Gesell
G. Stanley Hall may have been the individual most
responsible for infusing the American educational tradition
with the maturation-only version of developmentalism
(Strickland & Burgess, 1965). Hall believed that quality
teaching was that which was fitted to what he termed a
"saltatory" pattern of development--a pattern he believed to
have been dictated by human evolutionary history (Hall,
1907).
Hall's views are among the most explicitly
developmentalist in the history of American education; and
although his "general psychonomic law" (ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny) was eventually rejected, his concept
of improving the educational process through the study of
child development became a mainstay educational orthodoxy
(McCullers, 1969). In his essay "The Ideal School as Based
on Child Study," Hall argued that contrary to accepted
Western educational practice, the school should be fitted to
the child rather than the child fitted to the school.
Teachers, he believed,
. . . should strive first of all to keep out of nature's
way, and to prevent harm, and should merit the proud
title of defenders of the rights and happiness of
children. They should feel profoundly that childhood,
as it comes fresh from the hand of God, is not corrupt,
but illustrates the survival of the most consummate
thing in the world; they should be convinced that there
is nothing else so worthy of love, reverence, and
service as the body and soul of the growing child.
(cited in Cremin, 1964, p. 103).
In his definitive account of progressive education,
Cremin (1964, p. 104) argues that the popularization of
Hall's "pediocentric" view was "truly Copernician" because it
shifted the "burden of proof" for learning from the student
to the school. Coming at a time when compulsory education
was becoming widespread, its impact on American education was
enormous and continues to be felt.
The aim of improving the educational process through
child study was further popularized by Hall's student Arnold
Gesell. Although not widely read today, Gesell's
developmental concepts are consistent with popularly held
views of early childhood development (cited in Bigge & Hunt,
1962):
As with a plant, so with a child. His mind grows by
natural stages. A child creeps before he walks, sits
before he stands, cries before he laughs, babbles before
he talks, draws a circle before he draws a square, lies
before he tells the truth, and is selfish before he is
altruistic. Such sequences are part of the order of
Nature. . . . Every child, therefore, has a unique
pattern of growth, but that pattern is a variant of a
basic ground plan. (p. 166)
John Dewey and Progressive Education
John Dewey is another developmentalist who did not rely on a
formally stated developmental sequence. Instead, Dewey believed
that evolution had equipped man with characteristics fitted to
certain types of naturally occurring experiences and that the
learning that emerges as the individual encounters these
experiences is optimal. Quality teaching was, therefore, the
practice of fitting educational experiences to the emerging
characteristics and proclivities of the child for the purpose of
optimizing "growth." Optimal development was both driven by
maturation and nurtured by experience. In contrast to Rousseau,
Dewey did not consider maturation sufficient to guide the process.
Instead, he was frequently critical of progressive educators who
followed Rousseau's maturational precepts, referring to their " .
. . idealizing of childhood [as] . . . lazy indulgence" (cited in
Axtelle & Burnette, 1970, p. 260).
Also contrary to popular belief, Dewey conceived of
school as a structured experience in which teachers would
ingeniously arrange student encounters with personally
meaningful problems--problems which, if well chosen, would
instigate self-directed learning experiences (Dewey, 1916/1963).
The teacher's actions, however, were intended as a means of
facilitating or enhancing a spontaneous learning process, not as a
means of unnaturally or artificially inducing a preconceived
outcome. In Dewey's words, the only proper aim of education is
"growth" (Dewey, 1916/1963):
Since growth is the characteristic of life, education is
all one with growing; it has no end beyond itself. The
criterion of the value of school education is the extent
in which it creates a desire for continued growth and
supplies means for making the desire effective in fact.
(p. 53)
Dewey argued that the right sort of experience would
instigate "reflective" thinking and thereby move the student
toward a meaningful and individually defined form of knowing.
The problem solving experience was, in his view, nature's way
of teaching--the way in which the species had been equipped
for learning by virtue of natural selection. Dewey's
prescriptions for teaching were designed to emulate nature's
process.
Because he believed that true understanding was
personalized, Dewey held that educational aims could not be
dictated by any agent external to the student (Dewey,
1916/1963, 1938/1963; Feldman, 1934/1968). For this reason,
Dewey's concepts severely limited the ability of teachers to
insure that students acquire any preconceived understanding
or knowledge. Education was a process intended to enhance
the student's reflective powers. That subject-matter which a
student learned incidental to the educational process was the
only important or expected kind of formal educational
achievement--a view clearly at odds with traditional
expectations for schooling and with the concept of teacher
accountability for specific academic accomplishments. An
individual's familiarity with the knowledge and insights
gleaned by intellectual forebearers was of secondary
importance in Dewey's thinking.
Dewey's departure from traditional expectations for
schooling was tied to his reliance on an evolutionary model
of nature (Boydston, 1970). He believed that progressive
schooling would produce varied outcomes; that the outcomes
most advantageous to society would be selected for; and that
society would be bettered by the process. Although he
opposed preconceived outcomes as the aim of schooling, his
faith in human rationality led him to expect that students
would arrive at commonly held truths as a result of their
personal explorations.
A similarly founded departure from conventional
expectations for schooling--Dewey's emphasis on student
interest as the sole legitimate source of student motivation-
-led to practical difficulties with his approach. Because
student interests might be far removed from conventional
academic pursuits, the time, effort, and resources necessary
to elicit their emergence was destined to collide with
economic reality. The cost-effectiveness of schooling was
not a major consideration in Dewey's time. Neither was the
availability of meaningful occupational opportunities for
students whose natural thirst for learning was significantly
delayed. Thus in spite of his pragmatic orientation, neither
Dewey nor his followers seemed to appreciate the pedagogic
and economic inefficiencies that would result as growing
children became immersed in a world increasingly dominated by
competing attractions.
As to reliance on formal knowledge of human development,
Dewey called for teachers to be guided by the emergence of
the individual student but to be informed by known developmental
considerations (1916/1963):
The method of [knowing and learning exhibited by an
individual student] . . . will vary from that of another
(and properly vary) as his original instinctive
capacities vary, as his past experiences and his
preferences vary. Those who have already studied these
matters are in possession of information which will help
teachers in understanding the responses different pupils
make, and help them in guiding these responses to
greater efficiency. Child-study, psychology, and a
knowledge of the social environment supplement the
personal acquaintance gained by the teacher. But
methods remain the personal concern, approach, and
attack of an individual, and no catalogue can ever
exhaust their diversity of form and tint. (p. 173)
In essence, the student's "needs" were to guide the selection
and sequencing of educational experiences. Accordingly,
Dewey's curriculum was comprised of the subject matter and
experiences that fit the unique pursuits of the individual.
Knowledge of formal subject matter was purely incidental to
the educational process (Dewey, 1938/1963).
The fact of Dewey's long and prestigious career combined
with the extensive influence of the progressive education
movement resulted in Dewey's principles and its inherent
developmentalism becoming a very potent educational
orthodoxy. Cremin (1964) notes that by the late nineteen
forties and early fifties, the language and concepts of
progressive education were no longer thought of as
representing a particular educational view. Rather they were
simply considered good and sensible educational practice.
For a period of fifty or so years following World War I, both
the U. S. Office of Education and the National Education
Association disseminated educational recommendations based on
progressive principles as "best practices." Today, teaching
practices inspired by Dewey's concepts continue to attract
adherents despite discouraging empirical findings. The
attempt to improve student achievement by matching teaching
styles with learning styles and investigations of attribute-
treatment interactions are examples of research that fail to
support Dewey's recommendations for teaching (Slavin, 1991).
Within teacher education, progressivists were extremely
influential. William Heard Kilpatrick held the senior chair
in social foundations of education at Teachers College,
Columbia University from 1918 to 1938. During that time he
is said to have taught 35,000 teachers (Cremin, 1964). Thus
even though progressive education per se eventually fell into
disrepute, its concepts and jargon were so thoroughly
established as "conventional wisdom" that the reasonableness
and intuitive appeal of all subsequent educational theorizing
was largely governed by its compatibility with progressive
concepts--concepts that for the most part embodied one or
another version of developmentalism.
Neoprogressive Theorists
Subsequent to progressive education's demise in the late
nineteen fifties, a number of neoprogressive psychological
theories, all possessing a strong developmentalist bent,
gained widespread popularity within the teaching profession
(Weber, 1972). Exemplars include Lawrence Frank, Daniel
Prescott, Carl Rogers, Arthur Combs, Abraham Maslow, A. S.
Neill, and Erik Erickson--all of whom viewed central aim of
education as a broad gauged personal development. Although
their theoretical foundations and emphases diverged from
those of progressive education, (for example, the liberation
of human potential, the enhancement of self-esteem, the
achievement of self-actualization, etc.), their
recommendations for teachers were plainly congruent with
progressive education's focus on facilitation of naturally
developing tendencies and processes. Other theorists
emphasized narrower facets of development but they too were
entirely compatible with developmentalism and progressive
education (Weber, 1972). These include Paul Torrence who
focused on the development of intellectual creativity and
Lawrence Kohlberg who articulated a moral development
progression based on Piaget's general framework.
Of particular relevance to present day educational
practice are the neoprogressive accounts of cognitive
development that became popular in the late nineteen sixties
and early seventies. Jerome Bruner and, especially, Jean
Piaget are the best known exemplars in this area; and both
are essentially compatible with Dewey, particularly in their
emphasis of a natural, i.e., personal discovery, type of
learning experience.
Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky
As earlier noted, Kohlberg and Mayer (1972) identified
both Piaget and Dewey as exponents of "philosophic-
developmentalism"--a view that holds intellectual growth to
be the only defensible aim of education. Piaget's theory was
grounded in his extensive observations of his three children
and in a host of more systematic investigations undertaken
subsequently. By training a biologist, Piaget described what
seemed to be a biologically shaped sequence of person/
environment interaction--one he believed necessary to the
emergence of individual intelligence. Thus, in contrast to
the commonsensical and anecdotal accounts of intellectual
development offered by Dewey, Piaget's work provided
educators an elaborate theoretical edifice based on
legitimate scientific observation.
The Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1987), a contemporary
of Piaget, similarly conceived of a biologically shaped
developmental progression but with an important differences
in emphasis. In contrast to Piaget, Vygotsky argued that
learning as a result of sociocultural experiences played a
far greater role in the emergence of mature thinking and
behavior. The influence of experience on behavior, however,
was limited by a biologically governed zone of proximal
development. Of the two theorists, Piaget was far better
known and thus exerted far greater influence on educational
practice.
Given the credibility of his findings, Piaget's
educational recommendations were taken as substantially more
authoritative and convincing than those of Rousseau, Dewey,
and the others. Yet, despite its merits, Piaget's theorizing
did not escape the preconceptions of its predecessors. As
had Dewey and Rousseau, Piaget surveyed that which he took to
be the naturally occurring developmental progression and
presumed it optimal. Thus his conclusions--ones buttressed
by impressive theoretical and empirical refinements--
conferred a predictable and welcome affirmation of
developmentalist beliefs.
Piaget's educational recommendations were intended to
preserve "natural" experiences and to facilitate that which
is unique to the individual. According to Kohlberg and Mayer
(1972) they include:
. . . (1) attention to the child's mode or style of
thought, i.e., stage; (2) match of stimulation to that
stage, e.g., exposure to modes of reasoning one stage
above the child's own; (3) arousal, among children, of
genuine cognitive and social conflict and disagreement
about problematic situations (in contrast to traditional
education which has stressed adult "right answers" and
has reinforced "behaving well"); and (4) exposure to
stimuli toward which the child can be active, in which
assimilatory response to the stimulus-situation is
associated with "natural" feedback. (p. 462 )
Although the empirical underpinnings of Piaget's
framework have been undermined by subsequent research
(Siegler, 1991) and his theory significantly revised (Case,
1991), Piaget's thinking remains highly influential with
mainstream educators. Its recent educational expression is
the increasingly well known "constructivism" (Brooks &
Brooks, 1993); and as with virtually all popular educational
doctrines, its acceptance by the educational mainstream
reflects its compatibility with Dewey and developmentalism.
Overton (1972) acknowledges the mutually supportive
relationship between Piagetian developmental concepts and
Dewey. In essence, Dewey enabled popularization of Piaget,
and Piaget has provided a seemingly unassailable rationale
for Dewey's educational prescriptions:
. . . Piaget's functional position contributes
primarily to educational foundations and methods. The
implications of his major emphasis upon activity echo
progressive education's assertions of intrinsic
motivation, self-direction, and freedom of the learner.
The detailed analysis of the nature of the activities
involved in adaptation stresses the significance of
discovery-oriented methods in which the teacher actively
participates by presenting appropriate materials and
setting appropriate problems over methods of rote drill,
training, or enriched environments. Above all, there is
the point shared with progressive education that
learning and development occur through the experience of
the child's actively confronting his social and physical
world. (Overton, 1972, p. 113-114)
Thus the theoretical and empirical expressions of present day
(mainly Piagetian) developmentalism may not be Dewey's but
its conclusions about educational practice are largely the
same (Reschly & Sabers, 1974).
Although today viewed principally as guide to teaching
at the primary school level, developmentalism serves as a
conceptual foundation for educational practice at all levels
(Clark & Starr, 1991; Sprinthall & Sprinthall, 1987; Squire,
1972; Wlodkowski, 1986). At the preschool and K-3 levels,
the "developmentally appropriate instruction" concept has so
thoroughly penetrated educational thinking that it is
included in the "America 2000" statement of national
educational goals (U.S. Department of Education [USDOE],
1991); it is acknowledged in the school reform principles
formulated by business leaders (Committee for Economic
Development, 1991); and it is explicitly cited in school
reform legislation (Kentucky Education Reform Act, 1990;
Stone, 1993).
Developmentalism's Restrictions on
Teaching and Parenting
Developmentalism's effect on educational reform must be
understood in the context of its influence on teaching, parenting,
and socialization as a whole. As the now popular African proverb
suggests, "it takes a village to raise a child," thus the
influence developmentalism's strictures and recommendations on the
actions of both parents and teachers are critical to schooling
outcomes.
In general, developmentalist guidance has encouraged parents
and teachers to be less assertive and to afford children greater
freedom. In particular, it has encouraged lessened parent
insistence on study and effort in school and on mature and
responsible behavior generally. Parents are given to believe that
in a developmentally accommodative world, frustration and delayed
gratification are to be minimized while immediate success and
satisfaction are to be maximized.
For example, an NEA publication by Wlodkowski (1986),
discourages teachers' from insisting on results:
We need to look more at the process and performance of
our students and less at the more narrow and self-
defeating emphasis of product or acquisition. If a
student is responding with enthusiasm and interest,
she/he will probably learn, but often without a neat,
continuous, daily progress line. To lose our students'
excitement and involvement for lack of immediate
learning is not only a waste of effort but also a danger
to the ultimate goal of any teacher--a student who is on
the road to becoming a lifelong learner. (p. 16)
The National Association for the Education of Young Children
(NAEYC) is more specific. Its policy statement on
"developmentally appropriate practice" identifies that the
following actions to be inappropriate (Bredekamp, 1988):
The teacher's role is to correct errors and make sure
the child knows the right answer in all subject areas.
Teachers reward children for correct answers with
stickers or privileges, praise them in front of the
group, and hold them up as examples. (p. 76)
Broadly speaking, developmentalism and its restrictions
on teaching practice argue against intervention and, instead,
favor the kind of premissiveness found in the child-rearing
recommendations of Dr. Benjamin Spock (1976) and others
(Brazelton, 1974; Gessell & Ilg, 1943; Warner & Rosenberg,
1976). In truth, Spock, et al and the educational
developmentalists rely on many of the same theoretical
foundations.
Developmentalism suggests that both teacher and parent
expectations for behavior or achievement must be subordinated to
concerns about optimal development. Rather than seek to shape the
child to social or academic norms, developmentally informed
teachers and parents are deemed responsible for affording
experiences and opportunities that are compatible with the child's
current proclivities. That such experiences will result in effort
and achievement commensurate with individual potential is
simply taken for granted. Clark and Starr (1991, p.37) exemplify
this view in their textbook on secondary and middle school
teaching methods: "Because learning is developmental, it
follows that one learns better when one is ready to learn."
Bigge and Hunt's (1962, p. 377) text is more explicit: "A young
person is ready to learn something when he has achieved
sufficient physiological maturation and experiential
background so that he not only can learn but wants to."
Whatever the measurable impact of developmentally informed
teaching and parenting on the course of child development (a
remarkably little examined topic), its immediate impact on teacher
and parent attempts to instruct and discipline are entirely
foreseeable. Developmentalism gives rise to a disabling
hesitancy and uncertainty about how or whether adults should
attempt to influence children. It strongly suggests the
possibility of harm, but it offers no clear guidance as to a
safe and effective course of action. It requires an
estimation of a child's developmental status as a
prerequisite to action yet it offers no workable means of
ascertaining that status.
The requirement of correctly inferring individual development
presents a substantial obstacle to the application of
developmental theory. The prototypic studies of human development
by Gessell (1940, 1946, 1956) and McGraw (1945/1969) tracked
physical and motor development--both low inference constructs.
The indicators of development--height, weight, number of teeth,
number of steps, etc.--were visible and readily quantifiable.
By contrast, the phases of social, emotional, and cognitive
development to which developmentally appropriate teaching and
parenting must be fitted are high inference constructs, i.e., ones
said to be manifested by complex patterns of behavior. The
inherent observational problem is evident in Piaget's concept of
intelligence (Furth & Wachs, 1975):
For Piaget, intelligence is constructive and creative;
in fact, development of intelligence is but the gradual
creation of new mechanisms of thinking. It is creation
because it is not the discovery or the copy of anything
that is physically present. Classes and probability
cannot be found in the physical world. They are
concepts constructed creatively by human intelligence
and cannot be handed down by means of language or other
symbols. (pp. 25-26)
To add to the imprecision and uncertainty of the
required inference, Piaget's theory holds that the relationship
between current behavior and developmental status is neither fixed
nor self-evident and that the underlying developmental progression
is characterized by spurts, lulls, and uneven dispersion across
the various behavioral, emotional, and intellectual domains.
Again in reference to Piaget (Furth & Wachs, 1975):
This variability takes three forms, each of which is
contrary to a normative ideal. First, different
individuals differ on the same task and much more than
an IQ mentality would have us believe. . . . A second
type of variability is found within a certain individual
(intraindividual variability) as he performs on a
variety of different tasks [tasks requiring the same
underlying intellectual capability]. . . . A third type
of variability is observed both within the same
individual and on the same task. In other words, the
performance of a child fluctuates from day to day--an
entirely normal phenomenon that all of us experience. .
. . Recognition and acceptance of this variability is
particularly important in the case of mechanisms of
thinking which develop gradually and almost
imperceptibly [italics added]. (pp. 28-29)
In addition to their ambiguity, estimates of developmental
status are inherently conservative and restrictive of adult
action. Conceptually, current levels of intellectual performance,
effort, maturity, achievement, and other indicators can understate
but not exceed present levels of development. For example, a
child whose reasoning is concrete operational may exhibit skills
indicative of the earlier preoperational level but they would
never misleadingly exhibit skills appropriate to the more mature
formal operations level. Thus assessments of development based on
a child's current behavior may underestimate but not overestimate
present developmental status.
Given that developmentally appropriate teaching and parenting
must be fitted to the child's current developmental status, and
given that efforts to exhort or otherwise induce advancement
beyond the child's developmentally governed potentialities are
considered risky at best, teachers and parents are given to
understand that expecting too little is a much better choice than
expecting too much. From a developmentalist perspective, if
opportunity and conditions conducive to developmental advancement
have been maximized, the developmentally guided teacher or parent
has done all that can safely be done.
In effect, developmentalism discourages teachers and
parents from asserting expectations or otherwise acting to
induce more mature behavior. Even in the face of noticeable
deficiencies or problematic conduct, the developmentally
appropriate course of action is that which is congenial to
the child's apparent developmental status, i.e., his or her
present behavior and inclinations. Continuing lack of
advancement in spite of suitable facilitating conditions is
taken to reflect delayed emergence of developmentally
governed potentialities, not ineffective teaching or
parenting.
Personal, Social, and Cultural Implications
The implications of such a perspective are far-reaching
and they may be relevant to the well known concerns about the
waning influence of homes and schools. In a world that
affords few immediate incentives for responsible and
constructive behavior, children whose teachers and parents
are captivated by developmentalism may be significantly
disadvantaged: They are too little influenced by those
adults who have the greatest interest in their well being.
To the extent that teachers, parents, and other socially
ordained influences are withheld, "default contingencies"
(John Eshleman, personal communication, February 26, 1993)--
i.e., influences arranged by peers, by the entertainment and
recreation industries, etc.--are empowered.
Not only does developmentalism appear to undermine
teacher and parent assertiveness, the view of children
inherent in developmentalism may be negatively linked to the
"growth" of maturity, character, and a sense of personal
responsibility. Rather than encouraging parents to treat
children and youth as individuals responsible for their own
behavior, developmentalism encourages tolerance and
acceptance of immaturity, irresponsibility, and failure. And
given the belief that mature and responsible behavior simply
emerges if properly facilitated, the child who fails to
exhibit expected social and academic progress is excused as a
victim of adverse circumstances--a rationale for individual
shortcomings that has become a cultural archetype (Birnbaum,
1991).
The influence of developmentalism and its philosophic
foundation, romantic naturalism, may extend far beyond
teaching and parenting practices. For example, the growth of
so called "anti-science" (Holton, 1993; Kurtz, 1993) and of
certain forms of environmentalism seem to be linked to the
same romantic assumptions about the wholesomeness of nature
that are integral to developmentalism. Over a 75 year period
developmentalism has been a prominent feature of educational
practice, and from this venue, it has had opportunity to
thoroughly infuse the American culture. The degree to which
popular thought in America may have been influenced by romanticist
leanings within the public schools, however, is well beyond
the present analysis.
Implications for Schoolwork
Learning of the kind sought by schools inevitably
requires very substantial commitments of student time and
effort (Tomlinson, 1992). Developmentalism, however, discourages
teachers from any attempt to directly induce it. Instead,
developmentalism requires that teachers endeavor to produce
"learning in ways that are stimulating yet minimally obtrusive,
challenging yet requiring only comfortable levels of exertion"
(Stone, 1994, p. 65). An anomaly becomes apparent (Stone, 1994):
. . . schools [are encouraged] to spare neither effort
nor resources in fitting instruction to students while
expecting little from them in return. Student
inattention and apathy are met with herculean efforts to
stimulate interest and enthusiasm. Deficient outcomes
are countered by reducing expectations to the level of
whatever the student seems willing to do. Even the
practice of [motivating students by] affording . . .
accurate feedback about accomplishments is deemed
questionable because of its purported detrimental effect
on intrinsic motivation and self esteem.
. . . recurrent failure to attain even minimal
achievement is accepted as lamentable but unavoidable
and treated accordingly. In short, developmentalism
requires only the teacher to work, not the student. (p.
62)
In essence, developmentalism leads to schools in which
attendance is compulsory but study is not. Students are
expected to make an effort only if they feel interested and
enthused. Study is expected to be more like fun than work.
If students waste time and educational opportunity because
they find schoolwork boring, their behavior is not merely
tolerated, it is understood and excused as the product of
insufficiently stimulating instruction, i.e., instruction
that fails to facilitate the emergence of the postulated ideal.
In the end, teachers are burdened with an unattainable
expectation. They, their employers, and the public are encouraged
to believe that if a teacher is sufficiently creative and
ingenious in harnessing each individual student's potentialities,
expected learning outcomes will emerge in a way that the student
will experience as spontaneous, natural, and comfortable. It is
an ideal founded wholly on developmentalist supposition but it
has come to define good teaching.
Developmentalism's ideal of taking the work out of
schoolwork may be responsible not only for poor work habits and
attitudes beyond the classroom--a problem widely noted by
employers (Mandel, Melcher, Yang & McNamee, 1995; Survey, 1991).
So long as study and effort are expected only if the student feels
so inclined, the self discipline necessary to putting school "work
before pleasure" is largely omitted from the academic regimen.
Instead of a work ethic, students are given to expect significant
accomplishments with minimal effort (Shine, 1993).
Educationally Appropriate Practice
A vital distinction must be drawn between developmentally
appropriate instruction and educationally appropriate instruction,
i.e., those teaching practices that accommodate teaching to the
learner without regard to the hypothetical constraints posed by
developmental theory. Developmentally appropriate instruction
(a.k.a. developmentally appropriate practice) seeks to optimize
the development of the "whole child" (Johnson & Johnson, 1992)
irrespective of academic norms. It is a "learner centered"
(a.k.a. "student centered" or "child centered") approach to
teaching (Darling-Hammond, Griffin and Wise, 1992) meaning
that the teaching process is constrained by developmental
considerations but the product is open ended. It is an
approach that rejects both expectations for accomplishment
based on curricular benchmarks or peer referenced norms as
well as any "artificial" means of insuring that they
materialize.
In contrast, "educationally appropriate" instruction
(Stone, 1994) seeks to meet recognized standards and to
otherwise maximize academic achievement. Both
developmentally appropriate and educationally appropriate
instruction rely on present levels of demonstrated
performance as a starting point for instruction and both seek
to optimize intellectual advancement. Educationally
appropriate teaching (or practice), however, does not treat
present performance as a marker for a child's developmental
limits. It is "learning centered" in the sense that observed
performance, not presumed developmental limitations, guides
academic advancement. Although sensitive to student comfort
with teaching practice, educationally appropriate practice
holds achievement, not developmental suitability, to be its
top priority and neither does it presume high expectations or
teacher insistence on effort to be developmentally hazardous.
In conclusion, developmentalism appears to discourage
teacher and parent intervention while simultaneously
promoting the belief that academic achievement and
responsible behavior will spontaneously emerge if only given
time and facilitating conditions. Contrary to
developmentalist expectations, however, it may be that
awaiting the emergence of wholesome behavior is an open
invitation to default contingencies and the growth of
unfavorable habits--ones that might have been precluded by
the acquisition of appropriate patterns. By the time the
realities of such deficits and/or inappropriate conduct make
the need for action inarguable, remediation is likely to be more
difficult. Well ingrained patterns of faulty behavior must
first be eliminated before constructive alternatives can be
established--a situation all too familiar to special
educators and school psychologists.
The Developmentalist Neglect of Experimentally
Vindicated Teaching Practices
Developmentalism influences teacher acceptance of
experimentally demonstrated teaching practices in much the same
way it impacts teaching and parenting generally. It argues
against intervention on the grounds that it is likely to detract
from the more optimal outcome that presumably will emerge when
natural developmental processes are permitted to run their course.
Some Neglected Methodologies
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-Downs,
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).
Many of the experimentally validated methodologies are
behavioral because behavioral approaches to teaching and
learning are derived from the experimental analysis of
behavior. However, mastery learning (Bloom, 1976) and the
"explicit teaching" methodologies discussed by Rosenshine (1986)
are not behavioral and the same can be said for most
of the "productive" methodologies discussed by Ellson (1986)
and Walberg (1990, 1992). 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.
Developmentally Inspired Concerns, Reservations,
and Objections
Teaching methods textbooks and other sources of
recommendations about teaching practice seem to sanction the
disuse of experimentally vindicated methodologies either by
giving them little or no attention or by discussing them
in the context of various concerns, objections, and
reservations (Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993; Ornstein,
1992; Wlodkowski, 1986). These remarks are especially
noticeable when contrasted to the uncritical treatment given
developmentally compatible methodologies. Typical cautions
and criticisms involve claims that the experimentally
vindicated methods are insufficiently individualized
(Armstrong, 1980), too artificial and mechanical (Bailey,
1991), excessively reliant on extrinsic motivation (Kohn,
1993a, 1993b), suited only to lower forms of learning
(Ornstein, 1992), or simply boring (Henson, 1993; Lemlech,
1994). Virtually all of these reservations and objections
are premised on a developmentalist view of learning.
Developmentalists hold that adherence to that which is
developmentally appropriate is more important than educational
achievement thus they favor educational experiences that are well
accepted by students over those that are known to produce results.
In the developmentalist view, teachers should seek methods that
produce results but they should select them only from among those
methods that maximize student satisfaction. Judged by priorities
so ordered, experimentally vindicated teaching methodologies are
suspect at best because they are built around the notion that
learning is the primary consideration. If the authors of
methods textbooks were to suggest that teachers should prefer
methodologies that have been experimentally vindicated, they
would be in disagreement with developmentalist doctrine,
i.e., with the view that student satisfaction is primary and
learning secondary. The same consideration applies to teacher
expectations for student effort and achievement. Developmentalism
suggests that teachers should expect a commitment to schoolwork
that is commensurate with the student's lifestyle and
developmentally determined inclinations, not with external and
artificial requirements that are based on arbitrary or socially
derived academic standards.
In effect, developmentalism requires experimentally
vindicated practices not only to be attractive, interesting,
and engaging, it obliges them to overcome the belief that they are
likely to be risky or harmful, i.e. that they interfere in unknown
or unsuspected ways with a virtually boundless range of
developmental considerations (Elkind, 1981). The test of
usefulness to which demonstrably effective interventions are
subjected is not one of observed cost and benefit compared to the
observed cost and benefit of an existing alternative, it is one
that entails suspected hidden cost versus the perfection that
hypothetically emerges in the absence of human interference.
For example, when "whole language" proponents express
concern about skill-sequence approaches to reading (Goodman &
Goodman, 1979), they worry that the interest in reading that
otherwise naturally emerges might be lessened. Criticisms of
drill, corrective feedback, and the use of incentives are
typically founded on the same argument. If, however, nature
is permitted the opportunity (i.e., a "developmentally
appropriate" opportunity) to work its effects, developmentalists
assume that the expected skills and interest will emerge and
without exposure to the hazards inherent in intervention (Clark &
Starr, 1991; Lemlech, 1994; Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993;
Stone, 1995).
The Alleged Threat to Intrinsic Motivation.
Some developmentally inspired reservations about
experimentally vindicated methodologies are based on more
than theoretical extrapolations. For example, the concerns
about reductions in intrinsic motivation due to positive
reinforcement reported by Deci & Ryan (1985), Lepper, Greene,
& Nisbett (1973), and Schwartz (1990) appear to be supported
by credible empirical findings. Even these claims, however,
seem to have been exaggerated without challenge perhaps as a
result of developmentalism's enormous influence within the
educational community.
For the past seventy-five or so years, the teaching
profession has idealized learning that is motivated by
interest as the only "true" learning. Led by Dewey
(1916/1963; 1938/1963), the mainstream teaching profession
has held that such "intrinsic" or naturally occurring
interest will express itself provided that the student is
confronted with a sufficiently meaningful or relevant or
lifelike problem. Thus teaching that relies on extrinsic
sources of motivation is, according to Dewey's concept,
inherently poor teaching, i.e., insufficiently creative,
innovative, and stimulating, and its use of extrinsic
incentives a concession to faulty educational practice. The
widespread acceptance of Dewey's developmentally informed
vision seems likely to have contributed to the positive
reception given the reports of Deci, Ryan, Lepper, et al.
and, more recently, to Kohn's (1993a, 1993b) wholesale
derogation of positive reinforcement, incentives, rewards,
and competition.
The technical foundations of these reports, however,
have been the subject of scholarly disagreement, and the
exaggerated nature of their claims has become evident in the
recent meta-analysis by Cameron and Pierce (1994). Reviewing
the literature from 1971 to the present, they conclude that
the empirical findings with respect to intrinsic motivation
simply do not warrant exclusion of incentives from the
classroom.
One other telling observation may be made about Kohn's
(1993a, 1993b) criticisms. Positive reinforcement and other
extrinsic sources of motivation have been successfully
employed by school psychologists, special educators, and
teachers of remedial and "at risk" students for many years
(Hallahan, Kauffman, & Lloyd, 1985; Hammill & Bartel, 1990).
Apparently that evidence has been overlooked or discounted.
Perhaps such applications are considered exempt from
developmentalist strictures because students to whom they
are applied have acknowledged developmental imperfections.
Despite their success, however, interventions that are known
to benefit the disabled are not entirely immune from criticism.
For example, there is ongoing debate among early childhood special
educators regarding "early intervention" versus "developmentally
appropriate practice." Again, the question is one of whether
successful experimentally founded intervention strategies are
producing some subtle but as-yet-unnoticed developmental harm
(Carta, Schwartz, Atwater & McConnell, 1991; Johnson &
Johnson, 1992).
The Alleged Inattention to Thinking.
Of the developmentally inspired concerns pertaining to
experimentally vindicated teaching methods, their alleged
neglect of student thinking is, by far, the most frequent
criticism (Armstrong & Savage, 1994; Callahan, Clark, &
Kellough, 1992; Clark & Starr, 1991; Henson, 1993; Jacobsen,
Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993; Kim & Kellough, 1995; Lemlech, 1994;
Ornstein, 1992; Sheperd & Ragan, 1992). These concerns and
the current pedagogical emphasis on cognitive processes,
higher-order intellectual skills, critical thinking,
reflective thinking, etc., again, reflect Dewey's (1916/1963)
view of learning:
The sole direct path to enduring improvement in the
methods of instruction and learning consists in
centering upon the conditions which exact, promote, and
test thinking. Thinking is the method of intelligent
learning, of learning that employs and rewards the mind.
(p. 153)
The same can be said of the present day emphasis on hands-on,
authentic, real-world learning experiences as a means of
facilitating learning:
Only by wrestling with the conditions of . . . [a]
problem at first hand, seeking and finding his own way
out, does . . . [the student] think. When the parent
or teacher has provided the conditions which stimulate
thinking and has taken a sympathetic attitude toward the
activities of the learner by entering into a common or
conjoint experience, all has been done which a second
party can do to instigate learning. The rest lies with
the one directly concerned. (Dewey, 1916/1963, p. 160)
Both Dewey (1916/1963) and Piaget (Siegler, 1991)
considered human learning capabilities the product of
evolutionary demands for intellectual adaptation to the
natural world. Formal knowledge and skills were held to be
important only to the extent that they were integrated with
applications to problem solving. If natural circumstances
required humans to learn and employ knowledge in the context
of problem solving, Dewey reasoned that schools would
optimize learning by doing the same. Thus in Dewey's scheme of
education, thinking in service of problem solving is primary to
education and acquisition of formal knowledge and competencies is
secondary and incidental.
What Dewey may not have adequately considered is that
traits evolved under one set of conditions can prove useful
under other conditions and in service of entirely different
ends. For example, human hands were not initially selected-
for because of their usefulness in writing or musical
performance but they subsequently served that purpose.
Analogously, the ability to acquire and retain knowledge may
have been selected-for under conditions where knowledge was
wholly contextualized, yet today the same ability can be
usefully employed to acquire knowledge that is partly or
wholly decontextualized.
Given the advantages that industrial and technological
cultures appear to derive from formal instruction afforded in
a classroom setting, it seems evident that a profitable use
has been found for the human ability to acquire factual,
abstract, and decontextualized knowledge and that acquisition
of such knowledge is a useful prerequisite to real-world,
problem solving experiences. In fact, it would seem that
schooling in societies which make use of the formal knowledge
cumulated from the experiences of innumerable ancestors would
necessarily entail a substantial amount of decontextualized
learning. Thus the achievement of preconceived objectives
through experimentally vindicated teaching methodologies may
afford socially, economically, and pedagogically advantageous
gains in educational efficiency despite its inconsistency
with the ideals inherent in Dewey, Piaget, and other popular
theorists.
Why Non-experimental Research is Better Accepted
In contrast to the skepticism typically encountered by
experimentally founded interventions, teaching practices
informed by studies of naturally occurring social and
educational processes are relatively well received by the
educational community. Even if not adapted to developmental
considerations, such practices do not suggest artificially
imposed alterations of "natural" conditions. Thus if peer
interaction processes or certain teacher or student
characteristics are found to be correlated with student
achievement, teachers can be safely encouraged to take
advantage of these "natural" (and presumably causal)
relationships by creatively interpreting and selectively
employing them as developmental considerations permit.
Studies of relationships between educational outcomes and
student learning styles (Dunn, Beaudrey, & Klavas, 1989;
Shipman & Shipman, 1985) are a good example. The recent
surge of recommendations favoring greater sensitivity to
multicultural diversity in the schools also seem founded on
this type of research (Boykin, 1986; Thompson, Entwisle,
Alexander, & Sundius, 1992). In each case, these studies
encourage teachers to shape instruction to the preferences and
inclinations of the student in order to enhance achievement to the
extent that student proclivities will permit.
Unfortunately, of course, the causal inferences
suggested by descriptive and correlational studies can be
grossly misleading and their misinterpretation has lead to
some of the most egregious instances of faulty teaching
practice. The attempt to improve learning by boosting self-
esteem is a prime example (Scheirer & Kraut, 1979).
The Incompatibility of Developmental and Experimental Views
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).
Because they claim an applicability that never seems
adequately tempered by developmental considerations,
experimentally validated methods tend to encounter an impassable
gauntlet of questions and reservations. In a reference to
Walberg's (1984) report of generalizable, robust, and teacher-
alterable influences on learning, Ralph Tyler (1984) expressed the
forlorn hope that the (developmentalist) notion that each student
and each circumstance is so unique that it can only be understood
(i.e., effectively taught) by a teacher deeply immersed in
the situation would be dispelled.
Armstrong (1980) raised the same issue in discussing
teacher demand for educational research:
Given the nature of undergraduate teacher preparation
programs and the cultural milieux of large numbers of
schools, many teachers have come to believe that
teaching is more art than science. Exposed to much talk
about "individual differences" and "unique
characteristics" of every classroom, many view teaching
and teaching problems as situation-specific. Through
their training and interactions with many colleagues,
large numbers of teachers are more predisposed to
acknowledge the differences than the commonalties
characterizing the human condition. Consequently, many
teachers suspect any generalized statements about human
behavior. This orientation prompts many to doubt the
value of educational research efforts that, by design,
seek generalizable knowledge [italics added]. (p. 59)
The restrictions on effective practice posed by
developmentalism have largely precluded many otherwise
credible attempts to improve education through applications
of science. The contrast between the degree of scientifically
founded progress in medicine versus that found in education
attests this conclusion. To a large extent, medical science has
benefitted man by employing scientifically informed means of
intervening in nature. The artificial creation of immunities
through the use of "unnatural" and invasive vaccination is an
historic example. In contrast, educational improvements on
"natural" patterns and processes of learning have been severely
restricted by a doctrine of developmentalism. Instead of using
experimentally validated teaching methods, teachers have been
encouraged to emulate nature and thereby preserve the perfection
assumed to exist in natural developmental processes.
Conclusion
Developmentalism presumes typical patterns and processes
of social, emotional, and cognitive change to be optimal
because they are "natural." It fails to recognize the extent
to which valued social, emotional, and cognitive attributes
may be induced and sustained (not merely facilitated) by the
purposeful actions of teachers and parents. Indeed, it seems
to underestimate the importance of civilizing influences
generally. By default, developmentalism ascribes the
positive effects of unrecognized environmental influences to
"natural" processes and argues that attempts to alter their
effects are likely to be harmful.
Present day developmentalism frames the process of
socialization and, specifically, that of teaching as one of
influencing the child in such a way as to avoid disruption of
a postulated optimal outcome. It transforms teaching from an
endeavor straightforwardly concerned with achievement to a
search for naturalistic conditions that will fit the
learner's tendencies in a way that permits the unfettered
and, therefore presumably optimal, emergence of intellectual
growth. Developmentalism assumes that teaching which
deviates from this general prescription is, at best, naive
and, at worst, dangerous and destructive of the learner's
best interests. Thus teaching practices uninformed by
developmental considerations are persistently rejected by the
teaching profession regardless of demonstrated educational
effectiveness and otherwise wholesome impact--a pervasive and
powerful but largely unrecognized restriction on
scientifically founded educational improvement.
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