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Holistic/Constructivist
Principles
of
the
Teaching/Learning Process:
Implications
for the
Field
of
Learning Disabilities
Mary
S.
Poplin
Structuralist philosophy, constructivist theory, and holistic beliefs define the learn-
ing enterprise in opposition to reductionistic behavioral learning theory and sug-
gest that the task of schools is to help students develop new meanings in response
to new experiences rather than to learn the meanings others have
created.
This
change in the very definition of learning reveals principles of learning that beg
consideration in designing classroom instruction. Twelve principles are drawn here
from the structuralist, constructivist, and holist literature and are applied to
teaching students with learning disabilities. Looking at learning from this paradigm,
one can see a different classroom environment emerging, one in which instruction
is seen through the eyes of the students rather than through preferred
methodologies, mandated curricula, and student assessments and diagnoses.
N
aming and giving language to
nonreductionistic values, beliefs,
and principles of the teaching/learning
process is an extremely difficult task
since for so long most of the language
we use in education has been associated
with reductionism. Alternative means of
"seeing" phenomena (i.e., nonreductive-
ly) have been and are being developed
in every field from physics (Prigogine &
Stengers, 1984) to epistemology (Piaget,
1970).
Indeed, different ways of think-
ing about phenomena lead invariably to
different definitions of knowledge
(Polanyi & Proesch, 1975) and learning
(Gallagher & Reid, 1983). New methods
of research are natural consequences of
our new ways of seeing (Erickson, 1986;
Piaget, 1970; Polkinghorne, 1983;
Prigogine & Stengers, 1984). Challenges
to old maxims and current paradigms
emerge at every intersection. These
challenges are not unique to the field of
learning disabilities or to education.
At the very least, paradigmatic change
is disconcerting to all of us —philoso-
phers,
theoreticians, researchers, and
practitioners —who learned well the old
ways of seeing and now find ourselves
challenged by new definitions of
phenomena we once thought we under-
stood and/or by having our old
definitions criticized. Even more
disconcerting, when we find ourselves
thinking and acting in significantly
nonreductionistic ways, we invariably
discover that the political, economic,
and social structures in which we are ac-
ting are also enmeshed in the web of
reductionism (Schon, 1973). Thus, a real
danger of paradigmatic change is the
overwhelming sense of inertia and
apathy that we may feel as we discover
the vast quantity of definitions and
methodologies that must be rethought
—
and the institutional structures that are
in need of serious reformation.
According to most sources, this is the
first paradigmatic change in Western
thought since the 1500s (Polkinghorne,
1983),
and some suggest that it may, in
fact, be the first ever substantive change
in direction of thought in the history of
Western civilization (Capra, 1983).
Various persons in the Western world
have been credited with revealing infor-
mation that required and/or used new
ways of approaching phenomena —Ein-
stein (1924), Marx (1906), Marcuse
(1966),
Freud (1920), Piaget (1970),
Barthes (1970), Levi-Strauss (1963), and
Prigogine (1980; Prigogine & Stengers,
1984).
Numerous groups are currently
linked with the emergence of this new
paradigm
—
feminist theoreticians
(Keohane, Rosaldo, & Gelpi, 1981; Mar-
tin, 1985), human science researchers
(Giorgi, Fischer, & Von Eckartsberg,
1971;
Giorgi, Fischer, & Murray, 1975;
Giorgi, Knowles, & Smith, 1979; Polk-
inghorne, 1983), and structuralists
(Green, 1984; Levi-Strauss, 1963;
Piaget, 1970).
Inside the field of education, the in-
dividual and the theory that most chang-
ed our way of looking at learning was
Jean Piaget's constructivist theories of
learning. Other work that has contri-
buted to this new view of knowledge and
learning include Whitehead's (1929)
work on process thought; Levi-Strauss's
(1963) structuralism; Michael Polanyi's
(Polanyi & Proesch, 1975) work on
meaning and knowledge; Barthes's
(1970) work on interpreting text; and
Gilligan's (1982) work on moral
development. These ideas have been
made available to practicing educators
largely through the work of Gallagher
and Reid on Piaget and Inhelder (1983);
Smith (1982, 1986a, 1986b) on reading
and writing; Graves (1982, 1986) on pro-
cess writing; Moffett (1981) and
Macrorie (1984, 1985) on the teaching
of English in secondary schools; Freire
(1970,
1985) on education as transforma-
tion; Krashen
(1981,
1982, 1984, 1985;
Krashen, Scarcella, & Long, 1982) and
Cummins (1984) on second language ac-
quisition; Applebee (1978) on the child's
concept of story; Bleich (1985) and
Purves and Beach (1972) on reader
response techniques; Johnson and John-
son (1984) and Slavin (1983) on coop-
erative learning; Donaldson (1978) on
Piaget; Kamii (1985) on arithmetic;
John-Steiner (1985) on creativity; Kohl
(1984) and Wigginton (1985) on teach-
ing; Holdaway (1984) on literacy; Bissex
(1980) on writing; Phillips (1983) on
native American culture; Shor (1980) on
culture and education; Schon (1973) on
the reflective practitioner; Glasser (1986)
on control theory in the classroom;
Glaser and Strauss (1967) on grounded
theory; Bleich (1975) on reader-
response; Berthoff on dialectic journals
(1981);
and Belenky, Clinchy, Gold-
berger, and Tarule (1986) on different
ways of knowing.
For me, one of the most frustrating
aspects of attempting to think about and
describe nonreductionistic ways of
teaching and learning is naming the
paradigm. I have before used numerous
terms taken from various bodies of
literature in alluding to the emerging
paradigm: structuralism, construc-
tivism, and holism (Poplin, 1984a,
1984b, 1985). Structuralism is actually
a philosophic method for collecting,
perceiving, organizing, and interpreting
phenomena (Piaget, 1970). But the word
structuralism sounds reductionistic, and
by referring to "structuralism" one takes
on more baggage than one wants. For
example, the early structuralists, of
which Piaget is one, believed ultimately
in the ability to reduce structural
transformations to mathematical prin-
ciples (see also Chomsky, 1957, and
Levi-Strauss, 1963). Piaget (1970)
believed that constructivism was part
and parcel of structuralism, that one
could not exist without the other.
Constructivism is more familiar to
educators as it describes the learning
process in terms of the construction of
new knowledge through the processes of
transformation and self-regulation.
Constructivist learning theory was
developed by Piaget throughout his life,
though in the United States we are pri-
marily aware only of his earliest work
on stages (Piaget, 1955). But, in my
opinion, constructivists are also guilty
(as are most learning theorists) of being
too cognitive, that is, in giving only
superficial credit to other, noncognitive,
variables related to learning, such as
those generally associated with feelings
or intuitive thought, motivation, and
larger sociological variables (Bronfen-
brenner, 1979). Holism, on the other
hand, includes feeling and intuition, but
it, too, carries much baggage. It has
become associated with popular, often
cult-like notions of phenomena, and its
advocates often err on the opposite side
of the cognitive-oriented constructivists.
Some have referred to the emerging
paradigm as nonmechanistic or nonre-
ductionistic (Heshusius, 1982). While
this is an attractive idea, and possibly
the best solution, I fear it implies that
the paradigm exists only in opposition
to reductionistic, mechanistic ones. If
that were the case, I could simply have
stopped at the end of the previous arti-
cle and said the new paradigm is not
reductionistic. That, however, is not the
case:
The new paradigm has its own set
of values and beliefs, and the theories
and methods derived from the new para-
digm have their own special sets of
assumptions, just as our reductionistic
ones did. Dewey (1939) warned us that
it was dangerous to build a philosophy
solely on the basis of opposition to all
principles that had been held by an
opposing philosophy; instead, new
principles should be realized, and not
simply in terms of opposition to old
principles. There is much to do ferreting
out the principles of a new philosophy
of learning.
In certain specific contexts, the terms
top-down versus bottom-up; schema
theory versus associationist; global ver-
sus analytic; and intuitive versus analytic
may also apply; but none are inclusive
enough to represent the new paradigm.
One of my colleagues refuses to label the
paradigm because "it's just plain com-
mon sense." To make a long story short,
I have chosen here to refer to the new
paradigm and theory as holistic con-
structivism, recognizing full well the
limitations and awkwardness of the
phrase. What appears below is my at-
tempt to define my own interpretation
of the best of structuralism, construc-
tivism, and holism as they relate to
teaching, learning, and learning
disabilities.
Though in the previous paper I doc-
umented reductionistic practices in (a)
the definition of the problem of learn-
ing disabilities, (b) the teaching/learn-
ing process, and (c) the actualization of
educational services, I will deal in this
paper almost exclusively with the
teaching/learning process. Suffice it to
say that a holistic/constructivist view of
learning does not necessarily lead one to
the identification of specific subgroups
of students for special services or in-
struction, such as learning disabilities.
Let us proceed, then, with a given —that
we identify and serve these, and most,
students within a context of a reduc-
tionistic sociopolitical educational in-
stitution: special, remedial, and even
"regular" education. Given the reduc-
tionistic educational environment in
which we find ourselves, our problem as
educators moving into the 1990s is how
we can implement constructivist prac-
tices in our schools and classrooms. In
light of structuralist views of organiza-
tional change, once we begin the pro-
cess,
the institution will begin to change
from within, but this is a discussion for
another paper.
It is the explicit goal of this paper to
elucidate the paradigmatic beliefs and
values, as well as the theoretical assump-
tions and practical methodology, that
are borne of the new paradigm as it
relates to the teaching/learning process.
I hope to point out, where appropriate,
the major points of disagreement be-
tween reductionist and constructivist
learning theories. In the context of
learning disabilities, I will also point out
pertinent assumptions of the construc-
tivists regarding the failure to learn and
share my rough attempt to describe the
differences between reductionist and
constructivist teachers and classrooms.
We will begin the discussion of the con-
structivist notion of learning with a
diagram and examples of learning from
both constructivist and reductionistic
points of view; these examples will pro-
vide a point of departure.
Example: Learning as the
Construction of Meaning
This first example demonstrates how
a new experience prompts a child to con-
struct a new meaning. Christianne is just
learning to talk. She lives with Mom,
Dad, and a cat she calls "kitty." One day
her adoring mother, Dani, takes Chris-
tianne for a walk, whereupon Chris-
tianne meets her first small dog, which
she immediately calls "kitty." Dani
laughs and says, "No, honey, that's a
dog." Certain that Dani is either look-
ing in the wrong direction or not pay-
ing attention, Christianne points and
repeats more loudly-"KITTY." This
kind of interplay goes on for several
moments, until Christianne, looking
quizzical, faintly attempts to repeat
"doggie." Repetition of the sound "dog-
gie"
several times successfully with dogs
and pictures of dogs, coupled with the
use of reinforcement, satisfies reduc-
tionistic criteria of learning, that is,
stimulus-response. To "kitty," the child
has now added "dog."
For the constructivist, the story
doesn't end here; on the contrary, it is
just beginning. In the next few days,
perhaps even years, with more ex-
periences with dogs, Christianne will
construct
new
meanings associated with
cats
and
dogs.
But in
order
to do
this,
that
is,
while
she
begins
to
understand
dog,
Christianne must completely
reconstruct
or
revise
her
current mean-
ing
of kitty. She
cannot simply
add to
her current concept
of kitty the
new con-
cept
dog,
such
as
that presumed
by
reductionistic learning theory, because
her current concept
of kitty
cannot
accommodate
the
concept
dog.
Addi-
tionally,
she
does
not
construct mean-
ings about
dog as the
adult knows
dog,
either. Students
do not
construct facts
as curriculum writers understand them;
they construct
new
meanings from
their
old ones. Very soon, Christianne will
no
longer
see
cats
as she did
before learn-
ing dogs. This period
of
perplexity,
of
learning, Piaget called disequilibrium.
The process
by
which
she
will construct
meanings about dogs
and
reconstruct
her present meanings about cats
is
call-
ed equilibration. Another grand task
will soon transform even this definition
of
cat,
when Christianne goes
to the zoo
and discovers that tigers, lions,
and
leopards
are
also called
cats.
In Figures
1 and 2 the two
spirals
represent
a
much-simplified spiral
of
knowledge. This spiral
of
knowledge
was developed
by
Piaget
to
describe
the
processes involved
in
constructing
(learning) new meanings. (See Gallagher
& Reid, 1983,
for a
detailed explanation
of this spiral
of
knowledge.)
The
figures
illustrate
the
difference between reduc-
tionistic views
of
Christianne's learning
of
dog
(Figure
1) and
constructivist
views (Figure
2).
In addition
to new
experiences
prompting
new
meanings, repeated
ex-
periences, recalled experiences,
and
renewed interests
can
promote learning
(i.e.,
changes
in
one's spiral
of
know-
ledge).
It's
not
uncommon
to
repeat
the
same experience with some time lapse
in
between
and see in
that second
ex-
perience meanings that
had not
been
previously constructed.
For
example,
reading
the
same book,
or
seeing
the
same movie
at
different times
in our
lives,
we see
different meanings because
we view
the
movie
or
read
the
book with
different prior experiences;
we
bring
to
the activity
a
different spiral. Students
often experience this kind
of
feeling
NEW
INFO
[dog|
cat
]
Figure
1.
The behaviorist notion
of
learning
cat
and
dog. The
teacher gives
to the
child
two
con-
cepts
to
learn that
sit
side
by
side associated
but
that
are not
transformed.
does occur spontaneously
in
class
it is
often denigrated
as
daydreaming.
Re-
called experiences
are
frequently united
and transformed into
new
meanings
as
parallels
are
drawn, commonalities
ferreted
out,
thoughts redesigned, ques-
tions rephrased,
or new
solutions dis-
covered.
The
theory posits that once this
happens,
we
gradually lose
the
ability
to
see these experiences
in the old
way ever
again
(see
Vygotsky, 1962,
on
scientific
vs.
spontaneous concepts). Some
of us
remember
the day
when
we
finally
figured
out why you
"carry"
the
numbers
in
complex addition. After that
we suddenly realized what
all
those
bundles
of
popsicle sticks
in
first grade
were really about! Once students under-
stand
the
concept
of
ones, tens, hun-
dreds,
and so
forth, they never
see
addition
in
quite
the
same
way, and
estimation
is
suddenly possible.
But
most
of us
learned mechanically
how to
when they suddenly
see
themes
in
fairy
tales they once heard only
as
bedtime
stories
(see
Figure
3).
Repetition
of
similar experiences also
often prompts
new
meanings
and
trans-
formations
of old
ones.
For
example,
students
may
realize
the
relationship
be-
tween something they learned
in one
class with similar
or
related knowledge
gained
in
another class
or
from another
experience.
For the
perceptive teacher,
these
are
wonderfully teachable
mo-
ments, chances
to
relate experiences
to
students' present
and
past knowledge
and
to
relate subjects across
the
cur-
riculum. Reductionistic curriculum
and
segmentation
of the
school
day as
well
as specialization
of the
teaching force
does
not
encourage
the
reflection
or the
personal contacts necessary
to
integrate
these learning experiences with
one
another
or
within
the
context
of
one's
life.
A
new
meaning also
may be
con-
structed through contemplation
or
recalled experience. Unfortunately, this
kind
of
reflection
on
previous experience
is also
not
often valued
or
encouraged
in
our
school classrooms,
and
when
it
Figure
2. The
constructivist notion
of
learning
dog
and
cat
(the motion
in the
spiral indicates
cat
must
be
transformed
as
dog).
The
funnel indicates
that
the
child
has
chosen
dog to
learn.
complete
the
worksheets
of
ones, tens,
and hundreds even though
we may not
have really understood
the
concept
un-
til several years later.
Our
learning dis-
abled youngsters generally have much
difficulty completing these mechanical-
ly oriented worksheets,
and we
know
very little about
how
their mechanical
problems affect their learning
of
con-
cepts.
There
is
some evidence that
in the
writing process, students with learning
disabilities have much less trouble with
concepts than with mechanics (Poplin,
Gray, Larsen, Banikowski, & Mehring,
1980).
Renewed interest generally sends
us
plunging back into books
or
calling
friends
to
seek answers
to
questions
we
once memorized
but
have long since
forgotten. Many
of us, for
instance,
learned enough about Halley's Comet
in
elementary school
to
pass
the
exam;
however,
it
would
be the
rare
one of us
who
did not
have
to
relearn
the
infor-
mation this time around. (Halley's Com-
et comes
by
just often enough
for all
curriculum writers
to get a
glimpse
and
consider
it a must for any
educated stu-
dent; then
the
newly educated student
waits most
of
his
or her
adult life
to ex-
perience
it.)
This renewed interest
may
well stimulate
us
enough
to
really learn
the information, versus simply mem-
orizing
it for a
short time. This kind
of
memorizing experience,
so
prevalent
in
reductionistic teaching/learning prin-
ciples,
prompted Einstein
to
comment,
It
is, in
fact, nothing short
of
a miracle that
the modern methods
of
instruction have not
entirely strangled
the
holy curiosity
of in-
quiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from
stimulation, stands mostly
in
need
of
free-
dom; without this goes
to
wreck
and
ruin
without fail.
It is a
very grave mistake
to
think that
the
enjoyment
of
seeing
and
searching can be prompted by means
of
coer-
cion and
a
sense
of
duty. (Einstein, cited
in
Goertzel & Goertzel,
1962, p. 253)
HOLISTIC CONSTRUCTIVIST
PRINCIPLES
Constructivists posit that learning
is
a process whereby
new
meanings
are
created (constructed)
by the learner
within
the
context
of
her
or his
current
knowledge. The new
meanings that
are
Age
16
Age
30
Figure
3. To the
constructivist, reading
the
same novel
at two
different points
in
one's life reveals
different meanings
in the
text, because
the
reader brings different experiences (meanings)
to the
text.
constructed
by the
learner
are
products
of transformations that occur between
the
new
experience
to be
learned
and all
other previous
and
current learning
ex-
periences (i.e., one's spiral
of
know-
ledge).
Therefore, learning
is to
some
degree both personally
and
culturally
relative,
and to the
structuralists,
universal.1 These transformations
are
self-regulatory,
in
that
our own
"spiral"
delimits what
we
will
or
will
not
learn,
given
all
that
we
currently know,
our
developmental readiness,
and so
forth.
To
the
constructivist, learning
is not
simply
the
taking
in of
new information
as
it
exists externally
(in
adult minds,
in
the curriculum
or
text),
it is the
natural,
continuous construction
and
reconstruc-
tion
of
new, richer,
and
more complex
and connected meanings
by the
learner.
Holistic educators tend
to de-
emphasize developmental limitations
and emphasize more
the
role
of
affect,
intuition,
and
sociopolitical forces
in
learning. Further, holists stress
the
role
of interest, self-concept, connectedness,
trust,
and
expectations
in
learning, fac-
tors that
are
often overlooked
by
cog-
nitive learning theorists.
The
memory
researcher
may not
attend
to
these vari-
ables;
they nonetheless exert enormous
force
on
practicing educators
in
their
classrooms.
With this brief overview
of
construc-
tivist views
of
learning
in
mind,
we can
begin
to
delineate some
of the
energiz-
ing principles behind
the
teaching/learn-
ing process from this nonreductionist
perspective. Twelve principles
of
holistic
constructivist learning theory
are
listed
in Table
1. The
first three principles
are
common
to
structuralists
in all
fields
(see
Levi-Strauss, cultural anthropologist
and
author
of
Structural Anthropology (1963), described differences
be-
tween cultures
as
well
as
structures that were universal.
For
example,
all
cultures develop specific rules
for
gift
giving, though
the
rules vary across cultures.
TABLE
1
Principles
of the Structuralist/Constructivist/Holistic Teaching/Learning
Process
Structuralist
Values
1.
The
whole
of the
learned experience
is
greater than
the sum of its
parts.
2.
The
interaction
of the
learned experience transforms both
the
individual's spiral
(whole)
and the
single experience (part).
3. The
learner's spiral
of
knowledge
is
self-regulating
and
self-preserving.
Constructivist
Beliefs
4.
All
people
are
learners, always actively searching
for and
constructing
new
meanings, always learning.
5. The
best predictor
of
what
and how
someone will learn
is
what they already
know.
6. The
development
of
accurate forms follows
the
emergence
of
function
and
meaning.
7.
Learning often proceeds from whole
to
part
to
whole.
8.
Errors
are
critical
to
learning.
Holistic
Thought
9. Learners learn best from experiences about which they
are
passionately
interested
and
involved.
10. Learners learn best from people they trust.
11.
Experiences connected
to the
learner's present knowledge
and
interest
are
learned best.
12. Integrity
is a
primary characteristic
of the
human (learner's) mind.
WHOLE
> SUM OF
PARTS
(Structuralism)
Piaget's, 1970, Structuralism).1 Prin-
ciples 4 through 8 are derived from cur-
rent research and constructivist
classroom practices. Principles 9
through 12 are informed primarily by
holistic thought.
In explaining that the whole of two
pieces of learned information is larger
than the mere sum of those parts, the
constructivists echo the philosophy of
the early gestalt psychologists, who
sought to define perception. Chris-
tianne's knowledge of dog and cat form
a significantly larger concept than dog
and cat simply added together. Learn-
ing is not represented by the memoriza-
tion and accumulation of isolated facts.
To the constructivist, learning takes
place when the person has constructed
new meanings by integrating what is new
with what is old. And that integration
causes what is known to be a whole both
different from and much larger than the
pieces of information added together.
Thus,
generalization, the integration of
new meaning into present knowledge, is
part and parcel of constructivist defini-
tions of learning; it is not taught as a
separate skill, but is regulated by the
learner, who finds meaning in what she
or he is learning. To the reductionist,
generalization (synthesis, or application)
is a separate, higher level "step" in learn-
ing, one that must be specifically taught
with special methods (see Bloom, 1956,
1976;
Engelmann & Carnine, 1982;
Hunter, 1982).
The belief that the whole of any phe-
nomenon is greater than the sum of its
parts disinclines constructivists from
breaking into parts the act of learning
(e.g., strategies or psychological pro-
cesses) or the content of what is to be
learned (e.g., task analysis). Construc-
tivists, then, do not believe that learn-
ing is best accomplished in a piecemeal
fashion such as that recommended by
reductionistic task analysis approaches
taken largely from lists of specific
mechanical objectives from scope and
sequence charts or mastery learning
steps depicting sequential steps in the in-
structional process (Bloom, 1956, 1976;
Hunter, 1982).
THE PRINCIPLE OF
TRANSFORMATION
(STRUCTURALISM)
As new experiences and information
are taken into a person's spiral of know-
ledge, the existing structure of the spiral
and the structure of the new experience
begin to interact in a dynamic way, caus-
ing one to transform the other. In this
manner, learning from a new experience
changes one's own knowledge, as a
whole. So Christianne's new experience
with dog transforms her old knowledge
of cat, and her current knowledge and
developmental level transform and
determine the way she will see dog. For
teachers, learning to see teaching in a
more constructivist/holistic manner
begins to transform all things related to
teaching —curriculum, method, materi-
als,
presentation, and instruction—just
as what we currently believe about
teaching transforms and determines how
we will view constructivism.
These transformations also cause
knowledge to be personalized. For ex-
ample, two adults reading the same
novel often see the novel's message very
differently because each person brings
to the novel different experiences that
interact with the text in significantly
different ways. So it is with children, par-
ticularly students from different back-
grounds and at different developmental
levels.
Waters (1987) uses fairy tales and
fables with high school students in
English as a Second Language (ESL)
classes; the stories are not seen as bed-
time tales; rather, students find themes,
plots,
and symbolism, and can compare
themes across cultures without having to
deal with unfamiliar plots and
vocabulary.
The principle of transformation led
structuralist literary critics such as
According
to Piaget (1970), structuralists in every field share three basic beliefs regarding phenomena. These
beliefs are also a part of constructivist learning theory. These are each discussed in the text in terms of learn-
ing,
though Piaget also discusses these principles with regard to biology, mathematics, psychology, linguistics,
so.cial science, and philosophy.
Barthes (1970) to state that the text alone
has no meaning; rather it is given mean-
ing by the reader. The reader, the movie
goer, the writer all interpret the world
through their own previous experiences.
They transform the new experience in-
to a context that is meaningful for them,
borne of the interaction of reader's and
writer's meanings. Reader response and
dialectic journal techniques (one of a
myriad of constructivist techniques) are
replacing old notions of student book
reports and reading comprehension ex-
ams.
The students are not asked to
report what the book is about or what
the passage means, but what they make
of the text, their favorite parts and
characters, and their new insights
(Berthoff,
1981; Blatt & Rosen, 1984;
Bleich, 1975; Purves & Beach, 1972;
Simpson, 1986).
On the other hand, in school we fre-
quently fail to take such information
into account, for we believe in reduc-
tionistic definitions of knowledge as
right versus wrong, as the knowing of
facts and absolute truths. For instance,
there is little recognition that children
from different cultures will interpret
(transform) the same text in very
dif-
ferent ways. Our teacher guides con-
tinue to contain specific "correct"
answers to comprehension questions.
Comprehension, being a "high-level
critical thinking skill," must be con-
structed within the context of the stu-
dent's own experience. As teachers of
students with learning disabilities, we
must also acknowledge the personaliz-
ing (the transformations) that must take
place between reader and text in order
for a student to think, to reflect, to com-
prehend, indeed, to learn.
SPIRALS AS
SELF-REGULATING
AND SELF-PRESERVING
(STRUCTURALISM)
Our learning proceeds in a manner
that allows us to individually select and
determine what is to be learned, while
not choosing those experiences that will
cause too much discomfort (disequilib-
rium) or that are too far from our own
experience or development. Just as our
bodies constantly change and seek
balance (equilibrium), so do our minds.
Teachers constantly seek new ex-
periences and reconstruct what they
know about teaching, learning,
students, and the content they teach, as
they become more talented teachers.
But, if a new experience, such as infor-
mation on constructivism, is too far
from a teacher's own current values,
development, and intuitions, it is likely
to be rejected, ignored, or at least
transformed into something that fits
better with current experience
(self-
regulation and preservation). For this
reason, some reject the theory outright,
others recognize it as their own, but a
larger number of teachers seem to find
it intuitively appealing and intellectual-
ly exciting. One way to avoid teachers'
paralyzing feelings of depression over
their current teaching or the current
state of affairs in the schools, or being
overwhelmed with new ideas, is to in-
troduce constructivism to the classroom
a little at a time. For example, the
teacher might begin with one day a week
during which all reductionistic tech-
niques are avoided. In this way, teachers
can avoid the problems associated with
trying to make too great a transforma-
tion at once.
Likewise with our students, they are
naturally drawn to learn things that are
related to their own developmental
levels,
interests, and problems. This is
the reason that teachers using construc-
tivist methods understand the impor-
tance of knowing their students'
development, interests, hobbies,
favorite music, shows, and so forth.
Students' informal conversations with
one another, with teachers, in coopera-
tive groups, and dialectic or personal
journal writings, are rich sources of per-
sonal insights that can help teachers
bridge students' lives and the content of
the curriculum.
Developmental readiness acts as a sort
of automatic self-regulating device,
governing what a student learns from a
new experience at any given point in life.
Piaget and Inhelder's work in this area
is best known; for example, the mathe-
matical conservation tasks with which
we are all familiar (Gallagher & Reid,
1983).
There is a great deal of research
on the effects of developmental levels on
learning, and, in fact, it is perhaps both
the best and worst understood aspect of
constructivist theory; it is certainly the
most well researched (Donaldson, 1978).
Self-preservation also accounts for
why many students who have experienc-
ed failure soon begin to say to others,
and to believe themselves, that they no
longer care about learning to read,
and/or simply don't care about school.
People just stop trying to learn things
that seem too difficult for them. Fail-
ing grades give students the message that
the material and content of school is
beyond them. In order to feel good
about
oneself,
in order to preserve one's
dignity, one must not care about things
with which constant failure is
associated; it is a matter of
self-
preservation. Waters (1987, p. 3) com-
ments on student response to these
messages in adolescence.
In school this means they diligently work to
perfect a current understanding of
"self,"
rather than be easily persuaded to adopt a
new understanding. For example, a poor
reader works to confirm and to map the
limitations of his or her ability to read.
Reconstructing a new self-concept as a good
reader would require a total reconstruction
of the old poor-reader-self in response to a
powerful intrinsic motive. The secondary
school teacher with 150 to 180 students, bent
upon covering prescribed district curriculum,
can do little more than to confirm or help
to jell a student's already formed
self-
concept. The good students become better
good students; the poor students become bet-
ter poor students.
Adults do the same; few of us continue
to go to an aerobics class we feel is
beyond our ability, though as adults we
do not face the penalty associated with
quitting that students face if they quit
or drop out.
LEARNERS ACTIVELY AND
CONTINUOUSLY SEARCH
FOR MEANING
(CONSTRUCTIVISM)
A fourth principle derived from con-
structivist learning theory is that all peo-
ple are always learning and that the
learning process cannot be stopped. The
spiral never stops turning, and old and
new experiences are constantly interact-
ing;
we are
always thinking. People
are
always trying
to
make sense
of
their
own
lives
and the
things they experience
around them.
The
process
of
making
sense
of
things involves
a
never-ending
search
for and
construction
of
personal
meanings.
The
cliche that "they just
aren't learning
a
thing"
is
simply never
true.
As
John Holt (1967)
put it, "No
use
to
shout
at
them
to pay
attention.
If
the
problems before children
do not
interest them, their attention will slip
off
to what does interest them."
The
same
is true,
of
course,
for
adults.
The meanings constructed
by
people
are constructed internally,
as
suggested
by
the
first three principles.
One
does
not simply take information
in
from
the
external environment without first judg-
ing
its
personal value
and its
relationship
to what
is
already known. Otherwise,
we
take
it in for a
short time until
we
have
gotten
by a
problem like studying
for a
test. This principle leads constructivists
to very different attitudes about
how to
involve children
and
adolescents
in
learning. First,
the
search
is
always
ac-
tive;
the
student acts, rather than pas-
sively receiving information
bit by bit.
Time
for
reflection
is
necessary.
The
memorization
of
facts
in the
curriculum
does
not
hold such
an
honored position
as this objective holds
in
reductionistic
learning theory.
For
example, memoriz-
ing Bruce Catton's four major reasons
for
the
Civil
War is not
considered,
in
and
of itself, a
valuable learning exer-
cise.
Students must construct their
own
reasons
and
relate these
to
what they
already know
or
will later learn about
all wars, about
the
North
and the
South,
and about Catton's reasons
(see
also
Belenky
et al., 1986, on
ways
of
know-
ing).
Einstein said, "Education
is
what
you have left after you've forgotten
everything
you had to
learn" (Einstein,
1950,
cited
in
Crowell,
1975, p. 223).
Polanyi (Polanyi
&
Proesch,
1975,
p.
27)
stated,
The behaviorists, culminating
in B.F.
Skin-
ner, have reduced thought
to
various forms
of conditioned behavior
and
have directed
us
to
look "beyond freedom
and
dignity"
—
beyond
the
life
of
self-control
and self-
direction—to
the
manipulated learning
of a
set
of
tricks supposedly
to be
ultimately good
for
us to
have learned.
While
we go on
creating
new
methods
to coerce students
to
learn what
we
believe they should, they
go on
learning
other things; often they learn
how to
better frustrate
our
attempts
at
control
and coercion (Erickson, 1987).
WHAT
IS
KNOWN PREDICTS
WHAT
IS
LEARNED
(CONSTRUCTIVISM)
Because learning
is
self-selected,
self-
motivated,
and
self-constructed,
the
best
predictor
of
what students will learn
next
is
what they already know
and
what
interests them.
The
spiral, being
self-
active, naturally focuses
on
things
in the
environment that relate
to the
develop-
mental level,
the
previous experiences
and meanings already constructed. That
is
why
those
of us who
read
JLD
would
rarely pick
up a
journal
of
theoretical
mathematics. Most
of us
simply
do not
have
the
previous experience, readiness,
and interest necessary
to
make reading
a mathematics journal
a
valuable
or en-
joyable experience.
Unless
we
know what
is
already
known
and
perceived
by
students
as
meaningful,
it
will
be
very difficult,
if
not impossible,
for us to
know
in
what
context
and
time
to
present
new ex-
periences
to our
students
in a
manner
that will captivate their interest
and set
their spirals spinning with
new
mean-
ingful constructions. Sylvia Ashton-
Warner
in
1941 (cited
in
Partnow,
1981)
described
how she
went about teach-
ing—"I follow them into their minds
and fraternize there." Constructivist
teachers,
too,
exploit every learning
op-
portunity because they know that what
is
in the
minds
of
their students
is
critical
to what
and how
they will learn
new
information —much more important,
in
fact, than information generally reveal-
ed
by
most reductionistic psychological
and cognitive process exams
or
achieve-
ment tests.
For
example, when students
come
in
talking about
the
latest punk
rock band,
the Los
Angeles earthquake,
or
the
strangest exhibit
at the
local fair,
these teachers grasp
the
opportunity
to
allow students
to
think, reflect, com-
pare,
and
contrast their thoughts with
the thoughts
of
others (e.g.,
in the
class,
the text,
or the
news).
A student whose primary language
is
not English
is not
very likely
to
learn
about
the
vowel rules
in
English. Most
of
the
vowel sounds
in
English
are not
familiar
to
them
to
begin with; there-
fore,
there
is
little chance
to
connect
these rules
to the
students'
own
linguistic
knowledge (Cummins,
1984;
Krashen,
1981,
1982, 1984, 1985;
Krashen
et al.,
1982).
Instead,
the
language they know
predicts
the way
letter sounds will
be
perceived
and
formed. Young children
also
do not
learn vowel rules, except
as
isolated bits
of
information,
for
they
do
not have enough experience with oral
and written language with which
to
con-
nect
or
integrate this information. Since
they
do not
have enough experience with
written language,
one
could predict that
they also would
not be
naturally drawn
to such information
(see
Figure
4).
ACCURATE FORM
FOLLOWS FUNCTION
AND
MEANING
(CONSTRUCTIVISM)
We know from
the
studies
of
children's natural attempts
to
learn
to
talk, read,
and
write that
the
accurate
forms
of
such activities emerge long
after
the
children have found valid func-
tions
(or
uses)
for
language
and
long
Grammar rule
Figure
4. Grammatical rule "learned"
by
reduc-
tionistic techniques,
but
student unable
to
active-
ly construct meaning regarding
the
rule
due to too
little experience
in
language.
after they have experienced the need to
express their own meanings. In reading,
young children babble to pages in text
long before they can accurately name
the words on the page. Even when they
have mastered oral language, they tell
the story in a crude but meaningful form
before they use individual words on the
page to relay the meaning. In writing,
children draw and scribble thoughts and
ideas (meanings) in elaborate greeting
cards (function) to mom and dad before
they have realized there are accurate
ways to write "I love you." By observ-
ing children's early attempts to spell (to
learn the accurate form of spelling), one
can see the extremely slow but regular
manner in which accurate forms finally
develop. Children begin by spelling
words using only consonants, later add-
ing tense vowels to spell lax vowel
sounds, and so forth (Henderson &
Beers,
1980).
At each point when children and ad-
olescents add the knowledge of another
accurate form to their own language at-
tempts, they experience a period of
dysfluency in which production de-
creases. The school curriculum, on the
other hand, is almost entirely form
oriented; perhaps because form is so
easily observed and worksheet manufac-
turers find it convenient to prepare
exercises for form activities, such as
spelling, handwriting, punctuation, and
capitalization. I also believe mechanical
form knowledge conforms more easily
to reductionistic teaching methods;
therefore in a reductionistic school en-
vironment, form is likely to receive
much more emphasis than it might
otherwise receive. Nevertheless, too
early and/or too much emphasis on
form will cause students to become
dysfluent. Constructivists suggest, then,
that instruction in forms such as punc-
tuation and spelling be addressed only
in the context of the students' own
sentences and stories, and not imposed
too early or in the context of externally
created text.
WHOLE-PART-WHOLE
(CONSTRUCTIVISM)
Related to the rather slow develop-
ment of form is another constructivist
principle —the transformation of new
experiences involves a process of creat-
ing meaning about the ideas as a whole,
the specific parts, and then back to
whole again. As we learn about con-
structivist theories, each of us will
understand the larger picture of con-
structivism and intuitively decide
whether or not the theory excites us
enough to pursue it. At that time,
perhaps even today, we may try to ex-
plain it to another person, realizing that
while we understood every word in the
book or article we read or the lecture we
heard, the concept itself is more difficult
than we had thought. To further our
own understanding, we will soon try to
break the theory down into some com-
prehensible parts and practical ideas,
such as I have done with the 12 prin-
ciples here. Someone else might break
it into 10 principles, or 3, or 25, but the
breaking down must be done by learners
creating meaning for themselves. Even
though we might consult authorities, we
must create the knowledge for ourselves,
in a sense, in our own words.
Whitehead's (1929) The Aims of
Education referred to similar phases of
acquiring knowledge and is a critical
resource for those interested in construc-
tivism. The initial phase he called the
stage of romance, a discursive activity
of the mind characterized by curiosity,
searching for new experiences, shaping
new questions, and craving for more in-
formation. This phase must be nourish-
ed by allowing plenty of "independent
browsing amid first-hand experience"
(p.
35). This natural and absorbing in-
terest in a subject represents a kind of
love affair with the whole.
The second stage —precision
—is
the
ferreting out of details (forms or parts)
driven by the insatiable romance. This,
Whitehead stated, is unfortunately
where most education starts, and often
ends,
entirely missing the critical first
stage of romance. He believes that it is
very difficult to teach precision to an en-
tire class without losing most students'
interest: "In respect to precise know-
ledge, the watchword is pace, pace,
pace.
Get your knowledge quickly, and
then use it. If you can use it, you will
retain it" (p. 36). Reductionist teaching
techniques are most applicable to this
precision stage, so it is not surprising
that our education system focuses its
goals and materials primarily on parts
and forms (precision).
The last Whiteheadian phase is the
stage of generalization, a stage of put-
ting things back together, of using the
romance and the precision in a whole
way.
The stage of precision is the stage of grow-
ing into the apprehension of principles by the
acquisition of a precise knowledge of details.
The stage of generalization is the stage of
shedding details in favor of the active ap-
plication of principles, the details retreating
into subconscious habits... In a sense,
knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows: for
details are swallowed up into principles,
(p.
37)
Thus,
Whitehead would call the
sequence I have here called whole-part-
whole romance-precision-generaliza-
tion.
Learning to write involves a sequence
of going from whole to part to whole;
from romance to precision to generaliza-
tion. We begin as young children,
enamored to write whole meaningful
messages by scribbling, and as we be-
come more conscious of the language,
we begin to intuitively understand the
parts —the spelling and grammar
—of
our language (Bissex, 1980; Graves,
1983;
Smith, 1982, 1986a, 1986b). If
spelling and grammar rules are overem-
phasized with learning disabled adoles-
cents,
they, too, may become dysfluent.
This dysfluency is most noticeable in a
decrease in production in writing or the
failure to achieve any fluency at all, due
to excessive and premature attention to
producing the parts of the whole in the
form of grammar (Macrorie, 1984,
1985;
Moffett, 1981). In reading,
dysfluency is noted when children begin
to depend too much on sounding out
words in the text, thus stalling the pro-
cess and frequently causing a concomi-
tant loss in understanding. The whole
must be fully grasped before the parts
can be related to current knowledge;
otherwise, there is no scaffolding to at-
tach the specifics, the parts. We are
finding in our observations of construc-
tivist classrooms that teaching students
to attend to the parts of writing in
elementary school is counterproductive
until students are consistently writing
what could become five complete sen-
tences. In secondary schools, too much
emphasis on grammar is detrimental
before students are consistently writing
200-word selections in class.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
ERROR (CONSTRUCTIVISM)
Probably the most significant and ob-
vious difference between constructivist
notions of learning and reductionistic
theories is the way in which error is
perceived in the classroom. To the be-
haviorist and in most classrooms today,
errors are to be avoided and even
punished. To the constructivist, errors
are essential to learning. The spiral of
knowledge is best served when students
perceive that what they now see or need
is not explainable or solvable by pre-
vious knowledge; thus new knowledge
must be constructed
—
and the spiral
begins to productively deal with the in-
congruence (equilibration). This hap-
pens provided that previous experience
with the content is developed to the
point where errors can be recognized by
learners themselves.
Since learners must reconstruct the
new information for themselves, they
are also the ones who ultimately must
perceive the incongruencies. Construc-
tivists do not seek "error-free learning,"
as programmed text advocates recom-
mend; rather they seek to create en-
vironments where "penalty-free errors"
can emerge and be realized. The new
cooperative learning techniques en-
courage students to take an active role
in evaluation of self and other; and pro-
cess writing encourages student editing.
Christianne would not have learned
dog had her previous concept of kitty
not been insufficient for the new cir-
cumstance. Likewise, she is not ready
for the zoological genus and species
names of animals. People learn new vo-
cabulary as they experience the need to
express ideas more precisely or in a
richer manner. The recognition of error
(disequilibrium) is a critical part of the
complex system of self-regulation and
self-preservation in learning. Teachers
(or materials) who constantly hand
down the verdict and who make errors
subject to penalty do not encourage
learners to understand error in this way.
A second important difference re-
garding reductionistic and constructivist
views of error is that of
type.
Reduction-
istic teaching, because it stresses factual
learning and accurate form or
mechanics, tends to focus on mechanical
or form errors. Thus students are pena-
lized primarily for inaccurate responses
(e.g., number facts and spelling). The
constructivists focus on higher level con-
cepts such as conservation of number or
thematic maturity. This difference is evi-
dent in the problems chosen for research
(e.g., number conservation vs. mechan-
ical problem in addition), as well as in
the focus of curriculum, activities, and
assessment.
PASSION AS NECESSARY
INGREDIENT FOR
LEARNING (HOLISM)
Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1963) saw the
classroom as full of feelings. Emotions
such as fear and love are a primary pre-
occupation of children and adolescents.
Ashton-Warner believed, like Fromm
(1964),
that there were both creative and
destructive tendencies in children, and
that the degree to which teachers could
promote one, they could reduce the
other.
Feeling, or what I am calling here pas-
sion (and what Whitehead would call
romance), exerts incredible force on
what is learned and how and when it will
be learned. Feeling to most social scien-
tists is a dirty word not belonging in pro-
fessional journals (see feminist theorists'
discussions on this same issue, e.g.,
Belenky et al., 1986; Keller, 1986;
Keohane et al., 1981). Feelings are not
discussed or even admitted in most
academic circles, where the ideal of ob-
jectivity reigns supreme, and subjectivity
is feared, ignored, and actively avoid-
ed. While the extreme end of feeling
(emotionality) may well be worth avoid-
ing, few of us seem to notice or to balk
at the extreme end of logic, the rational-
izations, that dominate much of our
social inquiry.
But if students in our classes feel
nothing, then they learn something else,
because the spiral of knowledge always
focuses on things about which there is
passionate interest, whether we wish it
or not, whether or not we think it pro-
ductive, and regardless of the fact that
most learning theories ignore it.
It is my contention that our fear of
subjectivity, obvious in most education
journals, is one of the major reasons
why practitioners often find these jour-
nals irrelevant and trivial to their
classrooms. For example, much of cog-
nitive psychology's experiments in learn-
ing attempt to set up experiments so as
to avoid feelings in both subject and
researcher, and, in most instances, go on
to strip the subject even of meaning so
that we can observe the "processes of
learning and memory" in their most
"pure forms." Human memory, how-
ever, does not operate in such a vacuum,
and neither does human learning.
LEARNING FROM TRUSTED
OTHERS (HOLISM)
Few of us learn from those whom we
distrust (see Figure 5). People with
learning disabilities are no different.
People who consistently hand us failure
and promote negative feelings cannot
lead us to construct positive new mean-
ings,
though we can construct negative
meanings from our interactions with
them. People who are perceived as too
complimentary also may not be trusted
(see Wong, 1980, on attribution theory).
But the complex and individual nature
of interacting personalities makes
almost impossible the prediction of the
students and teachers who will develop
bonds and trust. The critical role of trust
is ignored in schools, where fairness is
defined as random student assignment.
As adults, we are free to choose our
teachers, but in precollegiate education,
self-selection of classes and teachers is
virtually nonexistent. And though the
system rarely asks a learning disabled
student's advice on his or her own place-
ment, or does so in an obligatory or
patronizing manner, let us not forget
that the students' feelings about place-
ments weigh heavily in the potential suc-
cess or failure of such arrangements.
LACK
OF TRUST
Figure
5. The spiral of knowledge focuses where
there is trust.
CONNECTED EXPERIENCES
ARE BEST LEARNED
(HOLISM)
Constructivist-oriented teachers are
constantly trying to connect new learn-
ing experiences to students' current
knowledge and to their present interests
and concerns. As teachers, we have all
experienced the phenomenon of a stu-
dent becoming so interested in a subject
that his or her own disability becomes
almost invisible. An excited student
returning from a fishing trip is often
eager to learn about fish, lakes, or the
ocean (see Figure 6). Belenky, Clinchy,
Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) have
described the process of acquiring new
knowledge in a humanly connected
manner. They point out that knowledge
of the personal lives of authors and peo-
ple in history enrich the learning ex-
perience and make remote material
more accessible. Their book, Women's
Ways of Knowing, has critical insights
with pedagogical implications that could
lead to the design of very different in-
structional experiences, ones that better
connect personal knowledge with new
learning experiences.
I learned best about the role of con-
nections, interests, and passion in
learning from a 10-year-old "nonreader/
nonspeller," Rodney, who responded to
my question, "How is it that you know
how to spell 'horses' "? Rodney replied,
with his hands on his hips in utter dis-
gust at my naivete, "Because I love
them." He was right. This kind of per-
sonal connection to new learning ex-
periences almost guarantees what we
have come to call "generalization and
maintenance," what constructivists call
learning.
INTEGRITY OF THE MIND
(HOLISM)
A major attitudinal difference seen in
holistic/constructivist teachers is a result
of the acknowledgment that people are
always learning. It is a fervent faith in
the integrity of the human mind, all
human minds. This is incompatible with
the myriad manipulation techniques that
are used to force, coerce, or cajole
students to learn what others want them
to learn. These behavior management
systems are developed to assure that
students' behaviors are controlled while
"learning" is forced down passive,
uninterested throats. These methods in-
clude assertive discipline, clinical
teaching, response cost procedures, and
programmed learning.
Holistic educators, believing in the in-
tegrity of the human mind, encourage
schools to stress more varied intellectual
activities, some that are nonlinguistic in
nature. Howard Gardner (1983) delin-
eated seven different intelligences pres-
ent in all human beings: linguistic,
logico-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic,
visual-artistic, musical-artistic, inter-
personal, and intrapersonal. He hasten-
ed to point out that school activities
primarily encourage the development of
only two of these—linguistic and logico-
mathematical. Combining this idea with
the knowledge that people are always
searching and constructing new mean-
ings leads holistic/constructivist teachers
to emphasize the strengths and interests
of their students, making available to
them an enormous variety of learning
experiences from which to draw. The
fervent faith in the integrity of the
human brain to develop necessary new
abilities (through transformation and
self-regulation) as the appropriate
developmental time emerges encourages
this focus on the strengths rather than
the weaknesses of students with disabil-
ities.
In other words, the values and beliefs
inherent in holistic constructivism
change the focus of both diagnosis and
instruction from seeking disabilities to
searching for interests and strengths.
This perspective results in a very
dif-
ferent approach to reading instruction.
Rather than looking for small unlearned
subskills of reading, this new approach
leaves the love of learning (the romance)
intact and allows the student successful
school experiences upon which to build
a healthy self-concept. Patience, percep-
tiveness, and ingenuity become more
critical characteristics of constructivist
teachers than the abilities to diagnose
weakness and break skills into small se-
quential tasks.
REASONS FOR NOT
LEARNING
Oh yes, learning theories are fine, but
what about all those times things don't
Figure
6. Students' interests connect them to new
learning experiences.
"stick"
to the
spirals
of our
students?
What about students
we
call learning
disabled?
How do the
constructivists
ex-
plain
NOT
learning? There
are
basical-
ly five explanations
for why a
student
might fail
to
learn from classroom
ex-
periences: developmental unreadiness,
inactive teaching techniques, insufficient
previous and current experiences,
insuf-
ficient interest,
and
mismatch
of
pre-
vious experiences.
Perhaps
the
best known
and
most
be-
lieved premise
of why a
student learns
or fails
to
learn
is
developmental
readiness.
In
special education
we
often
refer
to
developmental lags,
developmental delays,
and so
forth.
Certainly
few
would argue that there are
developmental limitations that account
for students
not
being able
to
learn cer-
tain concepts regardless
of the ex-
perience
(see
debate between
Engelmann,
1971, and
Kamii
& Der-
man,
1971).
The social version
of
developmental
unreadiness sprang
up in the
1960s,
when many thought that persons from
other cultures lacked critical experiences
that made them ready
for
school. This
was unfortunately referred
to as
cultural
disadvantage
or
deprivation.
Now it is
more commonly called cultural
dif-
ference,
in
recognition that other
cultures
are
just
as
rich
and
advan-
tageous,
but
different
in the way
they
prepare their youngsters
for the
demands
of
American public schools.
Though
I
believe that most construc-
tivists would
not
refuse
to
acknowledge
issues
of
brain damage
or
inherent
disability,
I do not
believe they find
knowledge
of
such issues particularly
enlightening
to the
teaching process.
Because
of the
faith
in the
integrity
of
the mind
(all
minds)
to
self-preserve,
to
learn,
to
grow,
and
because
of
their
belief in
the
self-regulatory nature
of all
structures, including neurological ones,
holistic constructivist teachers focus
on
getting students excited about learning
and trust that their processing will
follow their interests
and
needs
in due
developmental time.
The
notion that
we
can speed
up
natural development
through carefully structured methods
and materials
is not a
principle
of
con-
structivism. Holistic educators tend
to
de-emphasize developmental stage data
more than
do
many constructivists,
again feeling
the
data
is of
limited value
to
the
teacher,
who is
anxious
to
find
ways
of
engaging
the
students' interests
(see also Donaldson's,
1978, Children's
Minds).
One
of the
major tenets
of
construc-
tivist views
of
learning
is
that
in
order
to learn
new
information, learners must
be
actively involved in
the
learning
pro-
cess.
They must actively construct mean-
ings
for
themselves, rather than merely
passively accepting
the
information
de-
livered from outside. Constructivists
stress that
we
cannot
make
people learn
because learners must construct
new
meanings
for
themselves. Learners can-
not passively construct
new
meanings;
they
can
passively respond
to
lectures,
worksheets,
and
even passively apply
their short-term memories
or new
learn-
ing strategies.
For
example, many
students "learn"
new
vocabulary defini-
tions only until
the
test
is
over,
and
never integrate
the new
vocabulary into
their
own
language.
The
modification
of
a student's behavior
to
apply "active"
cognitive
or
learning strategies doesn't
work because
the
strategy
and the
con-
tent
is
rarely self-selected
or
meaningful
to
the
student
and the
methods used
to
teach strategies
are
ones drawn from
a
passive reductionistic learning theory.
The purpose
and
meaning
of the
strat-
egy must
be
constructed within
the
student,
not
externally imposed.
The
current application
of
cognitive learning
strategies
is no
different from
the
behavioral learning
of
objectives
for a
test —they both encourage superficial
learning
for
synthetic occasions (Poplin
& Gray, 1980).
A second explanation
for the
failure
to learn
new
information
is
that
the
learner
may
have
insufficient previous
experience
with necessary related infor-
mation
(see
Figure
7).
This
can be de-
velopmental
or
experimental.
My
favorite example
of
students having
in-
sufficient experience
is
phonics instruc-
tion with young students.
The
scenario
goes something like this:
Child Reading: They went
to the
store
to
buy
bread, catsup
and mmm
(meat).
Teacher: What's
the
sound
of the
first
letter?
C:
mmm.
T: That's right,
now
what's
the
sound
of
the last letter?
C:
t-t-t.
T: That's right,
and
what are
the two
let-
ters
in the
middle?
C:
Vowels.
T: Good,
and
what happens when
two
vowels
go
walking?
C:
The
first
one
does
the
talking.
T: Exactly!
Now
what's
the
word?
At that point
the
child generally gives
the teacher
a
look that roughly trans-
lated might mean —"so what does that
have
to do
with anything?"
Most young children,
and
those called
reading disabled,
do not
have enough
experience with language,
and
more
specifically, with written language,
to be
able
to
generalize vowel rules
to
their
reading
of
text.
In
fact, students who
de-
pend
too
much
on
phonics rules
in
tex-
tual reading
are
poorer readers. These
readers never seem
to
realize that
the
purpose
of
reading
is to
understand
written messages rather than sound
out
words.
If the
truth were known, many
of
us
remember learning
the
"two walk-
VOWEL
RULE
Figure
7.
Insufficient
previous experiences
make
learning
improbable.
Figure
8. Lack
of
interest accounts
for our not
learning from
new
experiences even though
developmental^ and experimentally we may have
the necessary knowledge to deal with the new situa-
tion.
The
spiral
is
focused elsewhere.
ing vowel rule"
as
young children,
but
few
of
us knew
how the
rule applied
un-
til
we met the two
vowels walking
together hand-in-hand
in our
teacher
education programs.
As
adults
we
have
enough experience with
the
language
to
which
we can
link
the
meaning
of the
rules;
for
second language learners,
these phonic rules are even more remov-
ed from their
own
linguistic experiences
(spirals) and, thus, even more incompre-
hensible.
A third reason that
a
student
may
fail
to learn
new
information
is
because
of
a
lack of interest (see
Figure
8).
Lack
of
interest
is
allowed
if
you're
an
adult;
otherwise
we'd all be in the
same pro-
fession, have the same hobbies,
and
read
the same journals. However,
as
children
and adolescents, learning choices
are
largely made
for us.
Either
way, it is
very difficult
to get
someone
to
learn
something unless
you
first
can
interest
them
in the
subject;
we
are reminded
of
Whitehead's (1929) stage
of
romance.
In
my
own
research
on
women
who
were
high achievers
in
mathematics
and who
score
in the top
percentiles
on
computer
aptitude measures,
I
find that they
ac-
tively choose
not to
follow careers
in
math
and
computer science.
It
isn't that
these women have less aptitude
for
these
areas;
it's
that they
see it as
less relevant
to their
own
worldviews, less applicable
to
the
problems
and
issues that concern
them, and/or they
see
math
as
boring
and game-like.
If
you have very little
in-
terest
in a
topic,
you are not
likely
to
participate actively
or
voluntarily
in
learning
the
information. Someone
would have
to
apply strong external
reinforcers
to
force
you to
learn
the in-
formation, much
as we
seem
to do
with
students
in
schools with points, punish-
ments, grades,
and
social reinforcement.
The last example
of why a
student
might fail
to
learn specific material
is
due
to a
mismatch
of
previous
ex-
perience with
new
learning experiences
(see Figure
9). The
most prevalent
mismatch
in
many
U.S.
schools
is the
failure
of
most curriculums
to
take into
account perspectives
of
cultures other
than
the
standard middle class Anglo-
Saxon perspective.
It is not
surprising
that
so
many minorities
end up in
special
classes.
The
evidence
of our
ethnocen-
tricity
is
appalling
and can be
found
in
most teachers' guides.
The
construc-
tivists point
out
that
the
meaning
of a
text
is
constructed
by the
reader,
not
simply
by the
test
or
curriculum guide
author. This meaning, being personal
in
nature,
is
thus subject
to the
reader's
experiences.
One such observation
of
cultural
dif-
ferences
was the
stimulus
for the new
cooperative learning techniques
(Glasser,
1986;
Johnson
&
Johnson,
1984;
Slavin, 1983). Researchers Phillips
(1983)
and
Trueba (Trueba, Guthrie,
&
Au,
1981)
noted that non-Anglo
children were naturally more coopera-
tive
in
their learning environments than
the structure
of the
school allowed.
(A
similar finding
has
been noted
for
girls;
see Gilligan, 1982). Thus, non-Anglos
and girls
are
consistently defined
in
schools
as
"cheating." Their own percep-
tion
of
what they
are
doing
is
"helping
each other." This
is a
fairly substantial
mismatch
of
cultural definitions
for the
same behavior.
THE LEARNING
DISABILITIES TEACHER
Students with learning disabilities
come
to
school with
a
rich resource
of
past experience
and
current knowledge.
In some instances their previous
ex-
periences
may
differ
in
type
and
inten-
sity from those
of
other students
in the
schools,
but
they nevertheless bring
to
school
an
already complex spiral
of
knowledge. Under reductionistic learn-
ing theory, they
are met at the
door
of
the special and/or regular classroom
by
teachers
who
have inside
their
spirals
of
knowledge
(a) a
curriculum
of
study
broken into supposedly easily digested
skills
and
facts,
(b)
knowledge
of
various kinds
of
possible malfunctions
of cognitive and/or psychological pro-
cessing,
and (c) a
myriad
of
techniques
to encourage
the
reluctant learner
to
"learn" the already selected bits
of
infor-
mation.
The
learning experiences plan-
ned
for all
learners vary only slightly,
usually with time
of
presentation
or
variation
of
rate
of
presentation,
and
Figure
9.
A
mismatch
of
previous experience and
knowledge with
a new
experience.
occasionally —materials
or
presentation
styles.
The
learners, often interested
and
excited about things
not in the
cur-
riculum (e.g., friends,
hot
rods, heavy
metal groups,
or
going fishing), become
increasingly passive
and
uninvolved
in
the parts
of the
curriculum that either
make
no
sense
to
them, disinterest them,
and/or discourage them.
The
teacher
begins
to
apply ever more sophisticated
"modification" procedures
and to
seek,
test,
and
monitor
the
school objectives
that other students
of
their
age
have
mastered. This, then, becomes
the
focus
of their education, what others
can do
that they cannot.
The constructivist teacher meets
the
same learning disabled student
at the
door realizing that school
has
been
discouraging, uninteresting, and/or
possibly irrelevant
to the
pupil, thus
far.
She
or he
knows that
the
student
has
already learned
a
great deal
of
informa-
tion,
has likes and dislikes, already holds
certain values,
and has
certain strengths
that have probably
not
been exercised
in school. Finding these interests
and
talents
and
exploiting their every teach-
able moment becomes
the
purpose
of
education. Does
she or he not
teach
them
to
read?
On the
contrary, these
students learn
to
write about
and to
read
(often
in
that order)
the
things about
which they talk
and
think —personal
journals, science observation note-
books,
and
their
own
math "story"
problems,
for
example.
Although reading
and
writing
may
form
the
core
of
both teachers' instruc-
tion,
the
roads they follow have little
in
common.
To the
believer
in
reduction-
istic learning theory, sequentially
ordered materials (such
as
basals
and
worksheets)
and
rigid methods
of
con-
trol (reinforcement)
are
believed
to be
indispensable steps
in the
processes
of
learning
to
read
and
write.
To the
believer
of
constructivist learning
theory, there
are as
many variant roads
to reading
and
writing
as
there
are
peo-
ple
who
read
and
authors
who
write.
The best
way to
find that road
for any
student
is to
watch
the
student careful-
ly
and
follow
the
quiet workings
of a
mind trying
to
unravel
the
process
of
making meaning
for
itself.
The
mater-
ials this teacher uses
are
much simpler
and less expensive —library books
on all
topics
and in all
genres, blank paper
(lined, unlined, yellow, white...),
and
varieties
of
pens
and
pencils.3
The
stu-
dent,
not the
motor test, determines
the
writing instrument
and the
paper. Spell-
ing
is not
presented before
the
student
is writing fluently; indeed,
it is
rarely
ever presented outside
the
context
of
the
student's vocabulary.
There
are
many other differences
be-
tween teachers
who
believe
in
holistic/
constructivist theories
and
those
who
believe
in
reductionism. Most teachers
believe
a bit of
both,
but
are encouraged
and supported most
to use
reductionistic
practices.
The
most prevalent paradigm
in
the
schools
is
reductionism.
It has
been most fluently
and
frequently
ar-
ticulated.
It is
easier
to
write about,
to
develop materials
for,
and
to
"train" and
"assess" teachers
in
reductionistic prac-
tices.
It is so
pervasive
in our
school
structure
and
teacher education pro-
grams that
it is
difficult
to
perceive
its
presence. Schooling
is
reductionistic,
and
to see the
other side,
to
understand
a different perspective,
to
develop non-
reductionistic methods
is
extraordinarily
difficult. Though every time
I set
foot
in
a
school
I can
feel
the
holistic/con-
structivist presence emerging —in
the
growing doubt about
our
ability
to
radically alter things
for our
students;
in
the
growing unrest
in the
teaching
force;
in the
concern over dropout rates;
and behind
the
closed doors
of
good
teachers,
who
experiment with
and
develop
every day new
ways
of
seeing
and
new
methods
of
teaching.
Yet few
of them know
one
another,
and
most
report they feel alone
and
often
a
little
crazy.
A
description
of all the
dif-
ferences between holistic/constructivist
teachers
and
reductionistic teachers
and
the classrooms they each shape
is yet
another article,
one I am not
sure
I am
ready
to
write. Many teachers have
begun
to
write about their practices,
and
in
so
doing,
to
reveal
the
essence
of
con-
structivism
far
more clearly than theo-
retical description
can do.
Waters (1987,
pp.
17-18),
a
secondary
ESL
teacher,
discusses practice
and
unravels some
of
the mystery surrounding attempts
to
describe constructivist teachers:
All the other core activities mentioned here,
represent
my own
attempts
as
teacher/
learner using constructivist theories
of
educa-
tion.
Rather than
to
staunch the natural flow
of interests, abilities and developmental tasks
of
both
teacher and learner, constructivism
capitalizes upon these. Thus in laying before
you my classroom activities,
I
expose my per-
sonal interests
and
those
of my
students
as
they flow into
the
task
of
language
development.
The notion
of
making
of
personal history,
fundamental
to
constructivism,
is the
most
difficult tenet
to
convey
and to
grasp.
In
practice
it
means that my classroom, my ac-
tivities belong
to me and to my
students.
They can be replicated only
by
the extent
of
another teacher's love
of
classical music,
myth, biography
and by
another teacher's
world view
of
culture as purveyor
of
univer-
sal human experience. The faith I have in my
students
to
learn from each other, from
me
and I from them (faith hard won) is my faith;
the look
of
another constructivist teacher's
classroom, teaching the same subjects,
may
look quite different in form. The fact, how-
ever,
of
tying learning
to the
personal
in-
terests, abilities and developmental tasks
of
both student
and
teacher should
be
visible.
Also,
a
letting
go of
paternalistic practices
of education should be visible. The construc-
tion
of
personal meanings must be just that,
personal. Students must
be
afforded
the
respect
of
one whose personal experiences,
expressions and beliefs have value. Students
stand
not
before
or
beneath
a
teacher,
but
students
and
teachers stand side
by
side
so
as
to
give and take
an
education,
one
from
the other. Control
of
the classroom
is
not the
right
of
the teacher
nor of the
student,
but
of learning.
SUMMARY
The paradigmatic shift instigated
by
the changing view
of
learning
and
learn-
ing disabilities alters
our
fundamental
values
and
beliefs about
the
teaching/
learning process.
In the
United States,
Piagetian
stages
were relatively easy
to
integrate into
our
existing reductionistic
learning theory, fitting nicely into
se-
A major opposition
to
holistic/constructivist practices will
be the
multi-million dollar textbook industry.
Perhaps this industry stands
the
most
to
lose from
the
adoption
of
nonreductionistic school practices,
as
basals
and worksheets would become unnecessary.
quential, hierarchical steps
and
scope
and sequence charts. Thus Piagetian
stages
are
the
part
of
the
Geneva theory
we know best. However,
the
larger con-
cepts
of
structuralism, constructivism,
and holism
so
challenge
our own
fund-
amental beliefs about learning that
the
limitations imposed
by
reductionistic
views
and
reductionistic education
systems lead
us to
self-regulate,
self-
preserve,
to
hold more staunchly
to our
old value structure.
And
so it is
that con-
structivism
and
holism thus
far
have
been primarily ignored and/or rejected.
This view
of
the
teaching/learning pro-
cess shakes
the
very foundation
of all
we
have built
in
learning disabilities.
The
new principles
of
learning attack
all the
models
of our
field equally —medical,
psychological process, behavioral,
and
cognitive learning strategies.
The
challenges
to our
current beliefs
and
practices
are
more than
a
little discon-
certing. Accepting
a
nonreductionistic
view
of
ourselves,
our
students,
and our
schools will prove
to be a
much more
significant change
and
more painful
process than
any of our
model changes
have been
to
date. Accepting this view
will
gradually transform
what
we
know
now about learning
and
will cause
us to
gradually reject
much
of
what
we now
accept
(see
Figure
10). (The
process
is
gradual because
of the
process
of
self-
regulation
and
self-preservation). There
is much work
to be
done
in
articulating
the
new
paradigm
in
special
(and
regular) education. This article,
I
hope,
represents
one
small piece
of a
small
beginning.
The tenets
of
constructivist/holistic
theory include,
but are not
limited
to,
the following:
1.
New
experiences
are
integrated
in-
to
the
whole (spiral
of
knowledge)
such that
the new
pieces
of
knowl-
edge,
the new
meanings,
are
much
larger than
the sum of
their parts;
2.
Two or
more learning experiences
transform
one
another
and
trans-
form
the
structure
of
present knowl-
edge. Thus, learning
is not
merely
additive,
it is
transformative;
3
. The
learner
is always
learning,
and
the process
of
self-regulation,
not
reinforcement theory, determines
best when, what,
and
how
things
are
learned;
4.
Instruction
is
best derived from stu-
dent interest
and
talent
and not
from deficits
or
curriculum mater-
ials;
5
. The
assessment
of
student develop-
ment, interests,
and
involvement
is
more important
to
teachers than
student performance
on
reduction-
istic subskills
and
subprocesses;
6. Good teaching
is
interactive rather
than unidirectional;
7. Real-life activities form better
educational experiences than syn-
thetically contrived ones;
8
.
Errors
are
necessary,
and
should
not
be penalized;
9. Goals
of
instruction should
be
more
life related (such
as
literacy
and
cooperative learning) than school
related (such
as
reading basals,
worksheets,
and
textbooks);
10.
Reflection, creation
of
questions,
and construction
of
personal inter-
pretations
are
more critical than
"correct," "accurate," "right"
answers
to
prepared questions;
11.
Problems
in
learning
are the
result
of interactions
of
personalities,
in-
terests, development, expectations,
and previous experiences;
12.
Learning involves
a
process
of go-
ing from whole
to
part
to
whole
with accurate forms (parts) being
secondary
to the
whole;
13.
Form follows purpose (function)
and meaning,
and
premature
in-
struction
in
accurate forms will
in-
hibit fluency;
14.
Passion, trust,
and
interest
are
paramount —subjectivity surrounds
learning,
and
cognitive processes
are
only
one
part
of the
picture.
Looking
at
the
teaching/learning pro-
cess
(and
at
learning disabilities) through
a holistic/constructivist lens reveals
a
different view
of the
classroom
and of
the interaction
of
teacher
and
student,
Instruction
in
specific stragegies
Task
Analysis
Belief
in
tests
Controlled
and programmed
learning systems
Point-systems
Workbooks
Basal textbook
Scope
and
Sequence charts
Figure
10.
Accepting constructivist positions
on
learning causes
us to
transform what
we
currently
know
and
believe about teaching
and
learning, leading
to the
rejection
of
much
of
what
we
currently
do
in our
classroom.
much like changing the focus on a tele-
photo lens from near to far would
change two pictures. The same elements
would exist in both, but the two pictures
would have dramatically different ef-
fects on the viewer and come from
dramatically different intentions and
meanings of the photographer. From a
holistic/constructivist perspective,
knowledge of disability, behavior
management, sequentially ordered com-
mercial materials, and tightly controlled
direct instruction pale in comparison to
knowledge of the student and the know-
ledge of how to design meaningful ex-
periences around who they are rather
than who they are not.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Simpson Poplin received her PhD from The
University of Texas at Austin in education. She
is associate professor of education and director of
teacher education at The Ciaremont Graduate
School. In addition, she is director of the Center
for Schools in Transformation. Her research in-
terests include learning disabilities, constructivist
learning theory, feminist theory, school transfor-
mation, and teacher education. Address: Mary
Poplin, Faculty in Education, Harper Hall, Ciare-
mont Graduate School, Ciaremont, CA
91711-6160.
A CKNO WLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Lous Heshusius of York Univer-
sity for her insightful comments, additional
references, and, as always, for the delightful
meetings of the
mind.
Also special thanks to Pro-
fessor Malcolm Douglass, who, through the 1986
Ciaremont Reading Conference, provided me the
opportunity and encouragement to develop these
ideas in "The Quest for Meaning." My apprecia-
tion also goes to Martha Estus and Dani Aurouze
for their assistance in the preparation of the
graphics.
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