David Berliner has devoted his life to the study of education. He has achieved the pinnacle of his profession as a researcher and statistician. He is currently Regents Professor Emeritus at the College of Education at Arizona State University. His list of honors is too long to mention. I welcome his original contributions to the blog and am honored to present them to you. His title for this post is: “Learning Losses Associated with the ‘Required Curriculum’ Can Be Easily Offset by Gains in Learning in the ‘Not-Required Curriculum.'”
Parents currently worry that their children have not or will not learn enough by participating in the non-standard styles of schooling associated with our pandemic. Some worry, particularly, that their children will not test well if they miss too much of what we have come to regard as “regular” schooling. The regular or standard school curriculum differs slightly by state, but it is what teachers try to deliver in each grade. It is the curriculum designed to prepare children for their states’ tests, and for the SATs and ACTs taken near the end of high school.
The pandemic also has teachers and administrators worrying about safety, and the arrangements needed for instruction as our crisis continues: In-class? On-line? Hybrid? What? Educators are afraid that the reputation of their schools could suffer, if their students don’t test well because of missed schooling, or because instruction appears not to be as effective on-line as it is when it occurs in classrooms, the historic and preferred mode of delivering instruction. In addition, a reduction in test scores could easily reduce housing values in the school catchment area, eventually changing the pool of students that they work with. Worry, worry, everywhere, and no solution apparent.
But much of this worrying can easily be relieved. Think of it this way: If we stop worrying about learning the “required stuff” in the ordinary, test-prep oriented curricula now in place in most American schools and districts, and instead started thinking about learning, just learning good stuff, the problem disappears. The issue for every parent and every educator should be about students learning. Period (cf. Westheimer, 2020).
Learning, growing, forming beliefs that are factually based, gaining deep insights into particular subject matters, extending ones’ horizons, and mastering something complex is really what is important. Surely, we can all agree that there is a plethora of ‘stuff’ worth learning out there, things that are of interest, utility, or beauty. Much of this is not found in the standard/ordinary school curriculum. If we can accept that there are countless worthwhile things to learn that are not in the accepted/normal/required/test-prep school curriculum, we might worry less about our students, as long as they are learning many of these other acceptable things. Actually, some of these other things may not just be acceptable, but quite desirable to learn.
I simply can’t get as distressed, as so many others do, when we believe kids are missing the “proper” time in their development to learn gerunds and the role of apostrophes, long division and simple algebra, or the date the constitution was signed. These certainly may all be worthy goals in our youths’ passage to a competent adulthood through our public schools. But what if a good part of the thinking and learning they are engaged in during these unusual times is, instead, based on a project the student chooses, or is assigned and willingly accepts? What if they had a topic to study and become highly knowledgeable about? And what if students must eventually report on their project or topic of study?
Even first graders are quite capable of learning sophisticated information about, say, dinosaurs. In fact, many of them do this spontaneously, and are quite capable of knowing more about dinosaurs and the lives they led than the vast majority of adults (Chi and Koeske, 1983). Sophisticated domain knowledge, the knowledge of experts, can easily be learned in a child’s study of rainfall, global warming, dog breeding, or a hundred other topics. What if our children began to learn these other good things, as well as whatever on-line instruction a teacher or school provides during the pandemic? Would America’s children lose anything? Or, might our students actually gain from such experiences?
On-line contact with their classroom teacher is likely not to be for the six hours per day that the child experiences during regular classroom instruction. But on-line contact about projects or topical areas will allow teachers to individually assist, tutor, critique, and advise on each project or topical area studied. After a semester or a school year, the child should be ready to present a project or topical inquiry to an audience of peers, teachers, and parents.
The beauty of these kinds of inquiries is that there would be little down time for students during education in this time of pandemic. Students will be learning about something of interest to them, though just not necessarily everything that is in the state required curriculum for their age group. Since not everyone is likely to have access to the full, required curriculum for their grade, the validity of any test scores at that grade level is greatly compromised and thus of little use. No attention should be given to invalid tests of the “required stuff” for students of a certain age and grade. But I certainly do want a way for students to learn “good stuff,” when limited in their getting access to the “required stuff”. Learning something in depth, and sharing it with others, may be an excellent replacement to the losses in learning the “required stuff” that are likely to occur in this pandemic.
Let us take a closer look at project based learning. Imagine if one or a few students had some months to turn in a project on whether: the climate is changing in their community, the air or water in their community is breathable or drinkable, their schools are adequately funded, their food is safe to eat, or a robot could be built to help the school cafeteria staff. Or the students investigated the causes of homelessness or asthma, or the need for public transportation in their community. There exists an endless supply of challenging projects, local and otherwise, worthy of study. Many will be appropriate for a particular age group, and some will require sustained effort over a moderately long time period to master the material at an age appropriate level.
A project not only teaches an individual, but if done with another it can substantially remove the feelings of loneliness that many of our students are feeling because of virus-caused school shutdowns. Moreover, two things are frequently noticed when students present their research projects or topical research to peers, teachers, and parents. First, students show evidence that they have learned how to organize and reorganize their ideas to prepare presentations from which others could learn. Second, their presentations regularly demonstrated that deep learning in the domain of study had taken place. The remarkable educator Debbie Meier (1995) describes successful schools where this has happened on a regular basis. The schools she describes didn’t wait for a crisis to incorporate the idea that children can direct their own learning with some adult scaffolding. Her experience and the testimony of others who studied her schools, convincingly established that students can and do dig deeply and happily into subject matter that they want to learn and share with others!
Topics to study. What if students negotiated with their teachers a topic: Birds, automobiles, penguins, glaciers, honey bees, artificial intelligence, the civil rights movement, internment camps during WWII, comets, and so forth. The topics investigated by a particular student might be of interest for them, or even assigned. The students’ job is to become expert in that topic and present a talk on that topic at the end of the school year, conveying to their classmates and others what is exciting and important to know about that topic. A version of how this approach might work schoolwide and across grades is described by Kieran Egan (2011), a most creative philosopher of education.
If learning from projects and topical studies as I have described was made more salient in the educational experiences of our youth, while the ordinary/standard curriculum was taught whenever and however it could be taught, what might happen?
We actually have some data related to this kind of arrangement. It comes from a classic, long-term, highly creative study conducted many years ago (Aikin, 1942). As the push to standardize the American curriculum gained traction, history has forgotten this study. But it is still quite instructive.
Students in 30 unique high schools, “progressive” schools, were studied. These 30 schools had agreed to let their students take a non-standard curriculum. The students studied some of what the school wanted them to, as current on-line instruction is meant to do. But these students also received high-school credits for choosing to study, think, write about, and to build, almost anything they wanted. The high school gave them credits for doing some highly unusual, self-determined projects and papers, few of which would have been approved had these students been subject to the standard high school curriculum of their time.
The students of these progressive schools, taking a very non-standard high school curriculum, went on to about 300 colleges and universities that had agreed to monitor and document their progress and achievements. They were also to monitor students’ deficits as well, since they had not been “properly prepared” for their college experience. They clearly had not studied the regular, standard, state sanctioned curriculum, so how could they compete in college?
From Aiken (1942) and the High School Journal (November-December, 1942), we learn that when each of the progressive school graduates was matched with a traditional school graduate who shared many similar background characteristics, the graduates of “progressive” schools showed: more leadership; joined and led more clubs; were rated as thinking more clearly; demonstrated a better understanding of democracy; had greater interest in good books, music, and art; got slightly better grades in college than those from traditional schools; and won more academic honors (e.g. Phi Beta Kappa, and honor roll designations). A special sub-study of the graduates of the six most progressive schools, what traditionalists thought of as the “wildest”, revealed that those students were superior to their peers from the other progressive schools! Thus, they scored well above the traditionally educated students on all the indices used for comparison. These poor students, deprived of the regular curriculum, achieved the highest college grades, and were rated the highest in intellectual drive, highest in thinking ability, and highest in extracurricular activity participation.
All I have written on this topic, above, now comes to this: The scholars reporting on the 8-year study said that the belief that students must have a prescribed school curriculum is not tenable. Studying almost anything in depth and breadth, with some (but not necessarily a lot of) teacher support, and reporting it out, prepares a child for the highest levels of scholarship at the next levels of their learning. There were no apparent negative effects from studying “this”, instead of “that”, if it was studied well. Learning seriously, deeply, and sharing that knowledge through papers and presentations (perhaps with power-points and YouTubes, maybe via film, television, music or art,) to one’s peers, parents, and the school faculty, apparently has no long-term ill effects, when compared to learning the “required” curriculum.
So to all the worried parents, teachers, and school administrators concerned that our youth will not learn about gerunds and the role of apostrophes, or long division and simple algebra, or the date the constitution was signed, “on time,” relax! Let us instead make sure our children are learning though projects and topics that capture their fancy during the time they have open. That should more than suffice for what they might miss of the traditional curriculum.
Aikin, W. (1942). The Story of the Eight-Year Study. New York: Harper.
Chi, M. T. H., & Koeske, R. D. (1983). Network representation of a child’s dinosaur knowledge. Developmental Psychology, 19(1), 29–39. https://doi.org/1031037/0012-1649.19.1.29
Egan, K. (2011). Learning in Depth. A Simple Innovation That Can Transform Schooling. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Meier, D. (1995). The power of their ideas: Lessons from a small school in Harlem. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
The High School Journal, Nov.-Dec., 1942), 25 (7), 305-309.
Westheimer, J. (2020, March 21). Westheimer: Forget trying
to be your kid’s substitute school teacher during
COVID-19. Ottawa, Canada: Ottawa Citizen.
“But what if a good part of the thinking and learning they are engaged in during these unusual times is, instead, based on a project the student chooses, or is assigned and willingly accepts? What if they had a topic to study and become highly knowledgeable about? And what if students must eventually report on their project or topic of study?”
What a concept. CBK
The Big Standardized Testing (thanks, Peter Greene) needs to be cancelled. NOW. I just learned we are going hybrid, possibly through winter break. That’s better than the alternative that we were supposed to do—all day, all kids–but there’s no way we can teach all the “curriculum” in that short space of time.
The BS Test is, well, BS, anyway, but with the weirdness this year will bring (who knows if we’re going to be back on all online or what?), the test just needs to be cancelled. Use the money and time for far more important things–REAL learning.
likely the big problem is that much money has already been sent to the test companies: will test companies reimburse anyone at all?
Love Berliner. Berliner’s piece is a delight to read.
Been saying this to parents, colleagues, and friends.
This time is an OPPORTUNITY …. for students, teachers, and parents if people can think out of the perennial box.
Taking “bubble and fill in the blanks” activities and those awful, awful tests = NOT learning.
It really was a delight to read. Ahh, real footnotes! And a bibliography! Remember those? It was a relief seeing them. I haven’t seen a footnote in all the years since February. Imagine that, basing your ideas on research instead of Bill Gates’ data fantasies.
Thanks–Like you, where appropriate, I think citations are important. They provide some backup to ones views and statements. I try to use them if I can.
David
Thanks. There sure is more in life to learn than what can ever be assessed on a test.
First, thank you, Dr. Berliner! Great advice! Teachers, dump the canned online curricula, with its pretests and modules and numerology, uh, data. And have the kids do projects about topics that both you and they care about.
Second, a comment about this, from Dr. Berliner’s piece:
The regular or standard school curriculum differs slightly by state, but it is what teachers try to deliver in each grade. It is the curriculum designed to prepare children for their states’ tests, and for the SATs and ACTs taken near the end of high school.
What’s often missing from discussions of standardized testing is the extent to which the tests have caused a devolution in our curricula and pedagogy.
BTW, Randi had a Q&A with Dr. Fauci who does his best to address AFT members questions and concerns. It was on social media last night. https://www.facebook.com/AFTunion/videos/639013063380482
I sent this article to the Boulder Valley Public Schools Board of Education.
Let’s hope they pay attention.
Two studies from Monday, in JAMA Cardiology Studies, indicate that Covid-19 causes long-term heart damage in MOST patients. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/health/covid-heart-damage-two-studies/index.html
Reopening schools now is Trump-level insane. This is precisely the sort of discussion we should be having–one about what we can do in the meantime, until it is in fact safe to reopen for in-person, in-classroom learning.
I don’t want to be hearing or reading, five years from now, after the catastrophe that results from reopening in the middle of this pandemic, “Oh, but we didn’t know.”
We know enough. This is not time for magical thinking. Reopening now is insane. A lot of people will die, and a lot more–most, it seems–who caught the disease will suffer severe long-term consequences.
Just as Trump the Heedless missed the opportunity, back in February, to set in motion creation of testing and tracing capability and PPE, we are missing the opportunity, right now, to be holding the national discussion of what we can do, in the meantime, about conducting learning safely, at a distance, outside school. We need to be addressing what can and cannot be done well online, how to support parents who have kids but have to work, how to supply internet service and computers and meals to poor kids. But we’re going to imitate IQ45 and downplay the problem until the disaster is upon us, finding us, like the grasshopper in the children’s story, completely unprepared.
Wow, indeed, Mamie. The precautionary principle alone militates against reopening schools now. This is just not a risk we should be taking. Not. With. Our. Children.
I just heard Dr. Fauci say on tv that, “Getting infected is not a trivial issue because we don’t know what the long term consequences are.” WOW.
Good morning Diane and everyone,
Berliner says, “Educators are afraid that the reputation of their schools could suffer, if their students don’t test well because of missed schooling…”
Not only that, but teacher evaluation and performance are based on student outcomes on tests. 😦 Here in New York, it’s usually the Regents exams. So, if we are going to get rid of the tests, there is going to have to be another way to “rate” teachers. That’s as frightening a thought as having teacher evaluation tied to test scores. I guess what I’m saying is that teachers also have to be evaluated on different criteria. The old Danielson rubric might not work anymore- not that it ever did.
I’ve also always thought that creativity in teaching should be the cornerstone of teacher evaluation. Imagine that! What if teachers were “evaluated” on the new methods they brought to the classroom that seemed to work. Or what about how they brought their own scholarship and interests to the classroom? What about working with a teacher in another subject to create some interdisciplinary projects or classes? What about studying one book as a foundation to a project that touched upon 2-3 disciplines? For example, using Richard Tarnas’ book The Passion of the Western Mind as a foundation for students to then choose a topic on philosophy, history and science and see how they all relate to one another? How about using Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth as a basis for students to choose a topic on psychology, mythology, literature and history? I tried to do some of these things in my teaching. But we were always constricted by the schedule or the planning time or other waste of time things that had to be done. The sad truth is that neither teaching or learning is of REAL importance to schools systems. We are stumbling around in a box that hinders student joy of learning and teacher growth. 😦
How about we don’t “rate” teachers at all? How about the Principal comes into the room (unannounced) and observes the classroom for a few hours……are students happy? are students engaged? is the teacher kind? is the teacher helpful? How about kids filling out anonymous surveys for MS and HS teachers?…….teens are quite honest and it’s really easy to pick out the kids who are vindictive vs. the students who are at school to learn (go to ratemyteacher.com to see).
Hello Lisa M,
In my almost 30 years of teaching, it was very rare that a student gave feedback that was extremely well thought out and helped me to make profound changes to my teaching. Usually they wanted “more fun” or a food day or a day to go on their phones and play or to watch movies. They often could say what they didn’t like but they couldn’t say what might replace it. Outstanding students would often say they wanted “more” or they wanted to move faster through the material. I’m not saying students shouldn’t be asked about the teacher, but I think we do have to take their observations with the knowledge that they are kids and see things from a different perspective.
I’ve got nothing against physical education teachers. I also have to say that in almost 30 years of teaching, I haven’t had ANY secondary school administrator give me insightful feedback on my teaching. The person who gave me the best feedback was a French professor who was my supervisor when I was a Teaching Assistant during my M.A. and Ph.D. studies. I’ve also had some good feedback from professors who observed me when I taught at the college level.
I think kids give very good indications of what they don’t like. Good teachers will take that information and change their teaching technique. It does help teachers. Happy kids are more cooperative kids in the classroom. If the only thing you are trying to do is extract skill/drill knowledge from teens, they will make life hell for everyone in the classroom.
Lisa, your second sentence describes the first school in which I taught. I was too young and stupid to realize how good I had it (plus too poor, which probably influenced my thinking at the time). I agree with most of what Berliner writes as long as “What if students negotiated with their teachers a topic…” means independent study. But to apply it to classroom instruction–not what he does, but I fear some readers of this blog will–not so much. A good teacher listens and figures out what his/her students may need to learn. But to have them dictate curriculum borders on cultural revolution stuff to me.
Good morning, Mamie! We need building-level evaluation by administrators AND peers AND students. And to send the data-mongering numerologists packing.
Hello Bob,
It always really stuck in my craw when I was being evaluated by an administrator who used to be a gym teacher.
Somehow, with bubble testing, students know that no one really cares what they think. And it gets worse when no one tells them what they missed or what the “right answer” was. The implication is that it doesn’t matter. CBK
It’s like having plumbers evaluating cardiologists.
. . . or cardiac specialists evaluate plumbers. CBK
Hi Bob,
My reply at 12:16pm was meant for you. It went under the wrong “reply.” Thanks!
Bingo, Bango, Boingo!! Give that gentleman a Kewpie doll!
FREE THE CHILDREN!
Students can learn both inside the box of the CCSS and outside of it. In all my years of working with ELLs that have both language and academic needs, what has impressed me the most was their resilience and natural curiosity. I have taught all levels, high and middle school and elementary. I felt I could do the most for ELL students at the elementary level because they had the time to learn and grow. I have seen students overcome extreme educational deficits, go on to college and have middle class careers. I remember that those same students came in 3th or 4th grade with zero English and maybe a first grade level of academics. Yet, they managed to graduate with honors and go to college. These accomplishments had nothing to do with standardized testing.
This is great advice for teachers, parents, and students. I’d like to put in a plug for my favorite academic project available to upper elementary through high school seniors: National History Day. Students can work individually or in groups, and explore, in depth, just about any topic that interests them. NHD has a great website, and I know there are lots of teachers out there who already participate in NHD but many who would do well to take a look at it right now for the upcoming school year.
UGH!!! Maybe NHD started out as great thing, but it is so Common Cored, standardized and sanitized that it’s just a drag sold as a fun learning project. 2 kids in public MS for 3 years and every year it was dreaded by the kids and the parents. The only kids who got anything out of it (and I doubt that they did?) were the kids with the over zealous parents who had the great project board and the student/parent written writing assignment. Same thing with the dreaded Science Fair and the Rube Goldberg Inventions. Competition killed the learning experience and the fun.
I’m sorry to hear about your and your children’s negative experiences. I had students participate in the program for over 20 years, and students told me it was the main thing that prepared them for college. It’s an independent research project and the goal is to dig deeply into a topic, explore primary and secondary sources, and present those findings to people other than their regular teacher. I found that competition inspired students to take their research more seriously, and to not pitch everything to their classroom teachers, which elevated their work. Any links to Common Core are strictly political, as the organization tries ways to get funding for the program. Yes, it involves literacy, very much so, but since only literacy gets funded, not history, that’s when organizers and promoters began pitching it that way.
Agreed, Leigh. National History Day is a great project-based program. My 7th grader participated through our state historical society this year and it was a tremendous learning experience for her. And, perhaps because it was through a non-school sponsoring organization, there was no overt common core bent.
As an undergraduate preparing to teach I was required to learn about the Eight-year Study. Progressivism was still alive in teacher education and in schools, with theme-based instruction a commonplace. Teachers would start inquiry with big ideas and questions, students elaborating on these. They pursued their interests in small groups or individually with the teacher a guide on the side. Remnants of this idea for middle schools influenced school architecture with connected pods designed for studies in the sciences, the arts, and the use of the library for research. Home rooms where setup for some counseling and for students to participate in school governance.
Ah yes. There was a time, before the standards-and-testing crowd occupied US schools, when innovation was common.
Exactly!
I was away from the internet a good chunk of yesterday so I missed this one. Catching up.
Thanks, Mr. Berliner.
Morning, John.
Glad you thought well of my piece.
My best to you,
David
Those high schoolers weren’t drowning in a pacifying sea of computerized worksheets. Instead they made models of functioning, pressurized artesian wells. They built amphibious airplanes. There were mock-ups of plumbing traps used for baths, tubs, sinks and showers. Boats were designed and water displacement was measured. Bird baths were manufactured. There was a crew making their own “ancient” porous, clay pot Ollas for irrigating olive groves, citrus groves or gardens. Water was tested for temperature, pH, chloride, salinity, turbidity, bacteria, mineral content, pesticides, nitrate and phosphate. They carbonated water. Water got removed from crystallization. It was used to act on metals, and oxides.
The desert of Southern California classrooms became a Garden Of Paradise for those who had been hammered by forces of world destruction 1930’s style. It was called The Eight-Year Study.”