a solution marion brady howard brady education reform: shaping the future thirteen problems a...
TRANSCRIPT
A Solution
Marion Brady
Howard Brady
Education Reform: Shaping the Future
•Thirteen Problems•A Solution•Process
A Solution2
Preparing to put a jigsaw puzzle together…
…we study the picture on the lid of the box. It’s the grasp of the big picture—the whole—that helps us make sense of the individual pieces.
A Solution3
For students in school,
…there’s no “picture on the lid of the box.” The familiar curriculum gives them a little biology, a little poetry, a little history, a little of this, a little of that,
but nothing about how these miscellaneous bits and pieces relate and reinforce each other.There isn’t even a hint that the bits and pieces are supposed to relate and reinforce each other.
A Solution4
Integrating knowledge
Convinced that the whole of knowledge is too complicated to understand, we study it piecemeal. However, the amount of information isn’t the main problem. It’s information randomness and lack of logical organization that make learning difficult.No one knows how much information the human brain can handle if the information is organized.
A Solution5
Organization is essential
A system of organization—the periodic table of the elements—made it possible to predict the existence of the element germanium before it was actually discovered.
A system of organization—alphabetical ordering of names—makes it possible to find, in a matter of seconds, a phone number in a phone book.
A Solution6
Organization is essential
a particular book in a library, a particular kind of cereal in a supermarket, a particular car taillight in a junk yard, a particular departure gate for an airline flight, a particular spot on the face of the earth.
Systems of organization make it possible to locate:
A Solution7
We take our systems of organization for granted,
…but it’s systems of organization that make civilization possible.
From getting a cup from a kitchen cabinet to the most esoteric research in physics, it’s systems of organization that guide action.
The better the system, the more efficient and effective the action will be.
A Solution8
Organization is essential
From this it follows, if we want to improve something, taking a long, hard look at its system of organization is a good place to start.
We want to improve our schools. We should, then, be carefully examining the organizing systems that shape them.
A Solution9
In schools, there are plenty of systems to examine.
Systems to: sort students assign them to teachers set schedules lay out instructional programs check on individual and collective performance establish consequences for success and failure.
In short, systems of organization control the educating process from start to finish.
A Solution10
Organizing knowledge
Unfortunately,
…the one system of organization that gets the least attention is the one that’s far and away the most important—the student’s mental system for organizing knowledge.
A Solution11
Organizing knowledge
Then, follow the student through the school day, watching and listening, as into that library, into that supermarket, into that junkyard, a conveyor feeds a constant stream of information and dumps it in an unorganized heap.
Think of the brain as library, as supermarket, as junkyard.
A Solution12
What we see as essential in every other dimension of daily life—
A system of organization
…is routinely ignored in the one place where it
matters most:
in the mind of the student.
A Solution13
Organizing knowledge
In earlier times, when the volume of information directed at students
was far less, when there was more agreement about what the young
needed to know, when there was little awareness of the importance of
teaching people to think for themselves,
…the need for a system for organizing knowledge was less apparent.
A Solution14
In earlier times,
…rote learning worked pretty well.Not now. We’re deep into an information
explosion, there’s no agreement on the aim of education, and, as some nations have found, emphasizing rote learning may pay off in high standardized test scores, but does so at the cost of creativity, innovative thinking, undue dependence on authority, and inability to adapt to change.
A Solution15
Organizing knowledge
Rote learning no longer even comes close to meeting the challenge of educating.
What students need most if they’re to make maximum use of their brains is the clearest- possible understanding of how they organize knowledge.
A Solution16
Ignoring the student’s need for a knowledge-organizing system…
…assures that most “academic stars” will continue to be– not the most brilliant– not the most contemplative– not the most creative
…but simply those who happen to have the best short-term memories to see them through the next test.
A Solution17
We said,
“What students need most…is the clearest-possible understanding of how they organize knowledge.”
The knowledge-organizing “system” now in use in schools—the one most familiar to students, parents, teachers, administrators, and the general public—is a random collection of subjects and courses.
A Solution18
Organizing knowledge
Of course, this random collection of subjects and courses isn’t really a “system” at all. Subjects and courses:
have different aims, use different vocabularies, employ different conceptual frameworks, operate at different levels of generality and
abstraction.
A Solution19
Organizing knowledge
Yes, school subjects can be jammed together, as is sometimes done with social studies and literature, or science and math.
But they can’t be made to add up to the big picture—the whole of knowledge.
A Solution20
Organizing knowledge
And yes, school subjects can be pulled together to investigate a theme, undertake a project, explore cultural diversity, address a social problem or pursue some other instructional aim.
But again, that doesn’t turn them into a tool that organizes and integrates everything the student knows.
A Solution21
In our attempt to make sense of life,
…school subjects are helpful. Obviously, however, they’re not the main organizers of thought. If they were, only those who had been to school would be able to think, and such is far from the case.No, school subjects aren’t the basic building blocks of thought. We use simpler, more familiar organizers, and those organizers could and should organize the curriculum.
A Solution22
Models as organizers
Trying to get a clearer understanding of complicated things, we often “model” them. Models are simplified representations of more complex realities.
A dress pattern is a model. House plans, maps, course outlines, exploded views of machines, literary metaphors, chemical formulas, novels, mathematical equations, computer simulations—all are models of reality—simplified versions of the real thing.
A Solution23
Models as organizers
We use models all the time. Because they cut out NON-essential information, they help us think more clearly about ESSENTIAL information.For example, a road map showing the fastest highway between New York and Chicago COULD include symbols for billboards, power lines, culverts, guard rails, rest stops, and much more.But a single line with “I-80” superimposed on it does the job. Color makes the line easy to follow, and little circles with the names of towns and cities along Interstate 80 allow users of the model to check their progress.
A Solution24
Models as organizers
As tomorrow’s newspaper headlines will almost certainly show, understanding life—understanding ourselves, each other, and the world around us well enough to avoid making a mess of things—is a lot more complicated than finding the way from New York to Chicago.
But the same principle applies. Indeed, the complexity of life when compared to Interstate 80 makes a good model for organizing knowledge even more essential.
A Solution25
A model as a “master mental organizer”
Fortunately, it isn’t necessary to devise or invent a model for organizing general knowledge. One already exists. It encompasses and organizes all knowledge, yet is so simple and familiar even very small children make constant use of it.This model underlies thought and language. Its basic components are everywhere on display, but perhaps most obviously in
DRAMA.
A Solution26
Master mental organizers
Stage productions—compact, tightly focused simulations of life—weave together five kinds of phenomena. The essentials are:
Stage,Actors,
Plot, andAction, set in
Time.These are our “master mental organizers.”
A Solution27
Master mental organizers
If we disassemble drama, novels, biographies, histories, newspaper accounts, legislation, social institutions, crime scene reports, conversation, casual thought, or dreams; if we describe or analyze a shopping trip, a childhood memory, an earthquake, a scientific discovery, a war, whatever, we will build on those five kinds of information.
A Solution28
Master mental organizers
Whatever we’re thinking about, we
(1) assign time dimensions,
(2) locate in a physical milieu,
(3) identify the participating actor or objects,
(4) describe the significant action, and
(5) attribute (or assume) a cause or causes for the significant action.
A Solution29
Master mental organizers
These five—not biology, not economics, not chemistry, not sociology, not physics, not academic disciplines, subjects or courses, not themes, not social problems, not citizenship, not “the eternal questions,” not the world of work, not any other curriculum organizers in use—these five are the foundation of our attempt to make sense of reality……the foundation upon which can be built a general education curriculum that will enable students to perform at intellectual levels not now being considered.
A Solution30
Not this:
But this:
A Solution31
A foundation for a superdiscipline
The five are NOT a curriculum. They’re the “macro-organizers” of a true GENERAL education—the base upon which can be constructed a “superdiscipline” that encompasses, organizes and integrates everything the student knows.To begin functioning as a discipline, the five must be elaborated.
Reality
Time
Place
Actors
Action
Cause
Primary environmentSecondary environment
PoliticalSocialEconomicReligious
Individual(s)Collectives(s)
FrequencyDurationIntervaletc.
ValuesAssumptionsetc.
A Solution32
Relationships and systemic integration
We face an unknown future. We don’t have answers for the questions that will arise. We don’t even know what those questions are going to be. It follows, then, that what the next generation needs most isn’t “accountability” defined as the ability to bubble in the “right” answers on multiple-choice tests…What the next generation needs most is the ability to make sense of what’s happening as it happens, to anticipate what might happen, and to create new and appropriate knowledge in response.
A Solution33
Relationships and systemic integration
The present curriculum doesn’t allow that. The arbitrary, artificial walls thrown up and jealously guarded by disciplinary specialists make it all but impossible for students to see the “big picture”—the whole of which today’s fields of study are parts.
A Solution34
Relationships and systemic integration
Lacking a vision of the whole, students fail to grasp what is surely the idea most central to human survival, that
REALITY IS SYSTEMIC.
A change in one part—time, place, actors, action, cause—changes the whole.
A Solution35
Reality is Systemic
Making sense of reality requires a school curriculum built on a foundation which is itself systemic, a foundation students can understand and explain.
Reality
Time
Place
Actors
Action
Cause
PoliticalSocialEconomicReligious
ValuesAssumptionsetc.
Primary environmentSecondary environment
Individual(s)Collectives(s)
FrequencyDurationIntervaletc.
A Solution36
Marion BradyHoward Brady
4285 N. Indian River DriveCocoa, Florida 32937
321-646-3448
July 2002
Education Reform: A SolutionCopyright © 2002 by Marion Brady and Howard Brady
[The presentation is offered free, and may be used, duplicated and distributed in its original form without the express permission of the authors. Excerpts must follow fair use rules, with proper credits.]