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April 21, 1996
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Developmentalism: An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction
on Educational ImprovementJ. E. Stone
East Tennessee State University
STONEJ@EDUSERV.EAST-TENN-ST.EDUAbstract
Despite continuing criticism of public education, experimentally demonstrated and field tested teaching methods have been ignored, rejected, and abandoned. Instead of a stable consensus regarding best teaching practices, there seems only an unending succession of innovations. A longstanding educational doctrine appears to underlie this anomalous state of affairs. Termed developmentalism, it presumes "natural" ontogenesis to be optimal and it requires experimentally demonstrated teaching practices to overcome a presumption that they interfere with an optimal developmental trajectory. It also discourages teachers and parents from asserting themselves with children. Instead of effective interventions, it seeks the preservation of a postulated natural perfection. Developmentalism's rich history is expressed in a literature extending over 400 years. Its notable exponents include Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget; and its most recent expressions include "developmentally appropriate practice" and "constructivism." In the years during which it gained ascendance, developmentalism served as a basis for rejecting harsh and inhumane teaching methods. Today it impedes efforts to hold schools accountable for student academic achievement.
Over the past thirteen years American public schools have been subjected to an increasing barrage of criticism. The chief object of complaint has been their continuing failure to equip students with the academic and workplace skills needed in an era of increasing economic competition. Recent expressions evidence a growing public impatience. In an April 1993 statement, U. S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley commented: "A watered down curriculum and low expectations for too many of our students prevent them from meeting high standards" (Riley, 1993). A September 1993 report by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 16 to 20 percent of the U. S. adults who perform at the lowest levels of reading, writing, and arithmetic were high school graduates (Kirsch, Jungblut, Jenkins & Kolstad, 1993). In November of 1993, the U. S. Department of Education reported that in comparison to their peers in other industrialized countries, gifted American students rank near the bottom in math and science achievement (Kantrowitz & Wingert, 1993). In September of 1994, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC, 1994) disclosed that since the Nation at Risk report in 1983 there has been little change in the achievement levels of public school students despite a 43% increase in real dollar expenditures. Near the end of 1994, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1994) described the quality of American education as a major threat to the future economic well- being, productivity, and competitiveness of the U. S. In April of 1995, Business Week (Mandel, Melcher, Yang & McNamee, 1995) declared that businesses find too many job applicants unable to read, write, or do simple arithmetic and that Americans are "fed up" with their public schools. Berliner and Biddle (1995) and various other commentators (Bracy, 1996; Westbury, 1992) have attempted to defend the public schools' record by offering a more sympathetic interpretation of the available evidence. However, a recent review of Berliner and Biddle (Stedman, 1996a) and the ensuing exchange between Berliner, Biddle and Stedman (Berliner & Biddle, 1996; Stedman, 1996b) demonstrates that reinterpretation of school and student performance data is unlikely to convince knowledgeable observers that the ongoing criticisms of public schooling are "manufactured" or otherwise off target. Despite these mounting concerns, schools have largely ignored the availability of a number of teaching methodologies that seem capable of producing the kind of achievement outcomes demanded by the public. They are experimentally validated, field tested, and known to produce significant improvements in learning. Instead, the schools have continued to employ a wide variety of untested and unproven practices which are said to be "innovative" (Carnine, 1995; Marshall, 1993). In particular, teaching practices such as mastery learning and Personalized System of Instruction (Bloom, 1976; Guskey & Pigott, 1988; Kulik, Kulik & Bangert-Drowns, 1990), direct instruction (Becker & Carnine, 1980; White, 1987), positive reinforcement (Lysakowski & Walberg; 1980, 1981), cues and feedback (Lysakowski & Walberg, 1982), and the variety of similar practices called "explicit teaching" (Rosenshine, 1986), are largely ignored despite reviews and meta- analyses strongly supportive of their effectiveness (Ellson, 1986; Walberg, 1990, 1992). Yet methodologies such as whole language instruction (Stahl & Miller, 1989), the open classroom (Giacomia & Hedges, 1982; Hetzel, Rasher, Butcher, & Walberg, 1980; Madamba, 1981; & Peterson, 1980), inquiry learning (El- Nemr, 1980), and a variety practices purporting to accommodate teaching to student diversity (Boykin, 1986; Dunn, Beaudrey, & Klavas, 1989; Shipman & Shipman, 1985; Thompson, Entwisle, Alexander, & Sundius, 1992) continue to be employed despite weak or unfavorable findings or simply a lack of empirical trials. Equally surprising is the observation that many of the ignored and rejected methodologies are quite similar to those that have been found effective and are routinely used by special educators and school psychologists (Hallahan, Kauffman, & Lloyd, 1985; Hammill & Bartel, 1990; Wang, Reynolds & Walberg, 1987). In many instances, the otherwise unused practices are successfully implemented but only after a student has been identified as disabled. Methods Texts and Experimental Research
A sampling of popular textbooks used in regular education teaching methods courses offers what may be a reason for this anomalous state of affairs. Widely used textbooks--in the present report, elementary, middle, and secondary teaching methods texts that have been revised repeatedly, some over thirty and forty years (Armstrong & Savage, 1994; Callahan, Clark, & Kellough, 1992; Clark & Starr, 1991; Henson, 1993; Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993; Kim & Kellough, 1995; Lemlech, 1994; Ornstein, 1992; Sheperd & Ragan, 1992)--give little weight to experimentally demonstrated results as a basis for identifying effective teaching practices. Instead, they present an eclectic assortment of approaches colored by distinct distaste for methods that are structured, teacher- directed, and result- oriented--characteristics that exemplify the experimentally vindicated approaches to teaching. Lemlech's (1994) account is typical:
In classrooms where students are given little opportunity to choose what they will learn, how they will learn, and the way in which they will be evaluated for learning, there is a greater likelihood that the classroom is structured through intrinsic rewards, incentive programs, and normative evaluation. As a consequence, learning will become joyless. There is also a tendency in these classrooms to overemphasize repetition, drill, and commercially produced dittos for practice materials. Some believe this to be prevalent in low socio-economic and low achieving classrooms, and as a consequence it may the cause of negative motivation patterns. (p. 91)
Instead of empirically grounded recommendations as to best practices, the methods texts suggest a personalized and intuitive approach to instruction built around teacher experience,circumstances, and sensitivity to student needs. Ornstein's (1992) advice exemplifies this view:
In considering what is best for you, you must consider your teaching style, your student's needs and abilities, and your school policies. Asyou narrow your choices, remember that approaches overlap and are not mutually exclusive. Also remember that more than one approach may work for you. You may borrow ideas from various approaches and construct your own hybrid. The approach you finally arrive at should make sense to you on an intuitive basis. Don' let someone impose his or her teaching style or disciplinary approach on you. Remember, what works for one person (in the same school, even with the same students) may not work for another person. (p. 129)
In essence, these methods texts acknowledge research as a foundation for educational practice but give it little weight in formulating a conclusion about the practices most likely to produce results. Neither do they encourage the reader to rely on research as a basis judging the quality of teaching practices. They seem to wear the mantle of science but oddly neglect its substance and purpose. The same emphasis on teaching shaped by innovation and sensitivity to student differences is quite evident in the catalogues of publishers that target teachers and teacher educators. The titles and descriptions of offerings by Heinemann (1995) and National Education Association (1995), for example, both reflect a market preference for the new and innovative and a market indifference to the empirically grounded or to the tried and true. The varied and ever-mutating body of scholarship referenced by the textbooks implies the kind of ongoing refinement and revitalization characteristic of scientifically informed practice. Yet their recommendations with respect to teaching do not reflect the kind of consensus that would be expected to emerge as recent advancements are built onto established findings (Stanovich, 1992, 1993). Empirical findings are at best an imperfect guide to practice; but as they cumulate and converge, they do yield important clues. At the least, they reveal that certain findings tend to repeat themselves. The impression conveyed by the present textbooks, however, is that learning's relationship to teaching is largely idiosyncratic and unpredictable. That which is true for one teacher, teaching one lesson, to one set of students is not a valid guide for others. Neither do these textbooks acknowledge the unique value of experimental trials. The distinctive value of experimental evidence is understood throughout the scientific community (Cook & Campbell, 1979), and experimentation as a guide to effective teaching practice has been recognized by the educational community for more than thirty years (Campbell & Stanley, 1963). Yet the methods texts are silent on the matter. Here again although the fallibility of empirical evidence must be acknowledged, it must also be said that the well conceived experiment offers more convincing evidence of whether a teaching method works than a report offering only description or correlation. Dismissing experimental findings on the grounds that offer only good but not certain evidence of pedagogical effectiveness is to fallaciously make the perfect the enemy of the good. Given the market success of these textbooks and the teaching profession's apparent comfort with such an orientation, it is not difficult to see how schools continue to respond to the public call for better results with untested innovations (Carnine, 1995). Seemingly the education community has neither a scientifically founded consensus about best practices nor a recognition that experimental evidence would be integral to the formation of such a consensus. In the absence of attention to experimental trials, teaching innovations lacking demonstrated effectiveness can come into vogue on the strength of publicity and marketing only to later be bypassed by more of the same (Armstrong, 1980; Carnine, 1993; Marshall, 1993). In truth, continual innovation may have become a way of coping with public criticism. New practices are incongruously piled onto the old as consultants, school boards, superintendents, and teachers come and go (Armstrong, 1980). Criticisms that are behind the curve can be ignored because they are no longer relevant. Criticisms of the latest innovations can be ignored because they are premature and intolerant of innovation. The Influence of Developmentalism
The thesis advanced in the following is that a longstanding but poorly recognized educational doctrine underpins the neglect of experimental evidence found inmethods textbooks and in the attempt to find more effective teaching methods. It is a doctrine that pervades teacher education and one that disposes the teaching profession to favor certain practices and to ignore others regardless of empirically demonstrated merit. Termed "developmentalism" (Stone, 1991, 1993a, 1994), it is a form of romantic naturalism that inspires teacher discomfort with any practice that is deemed incompatible with natural developmental processes (Binder & Watkins, 1989). It is a view that acquired popularity as a grounds for rejecting the often harsh formalist teaching methods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Ravitch, 1983; Riegel, 1972). Today it poses an obscure but powerful restriction on scientifically informed educational improvement and more broadly on teacher and parent efforts to influence the developing child. Developmentalism's clearest present-day expressions include the "child centered" or "progressive" teaching seen in Canadian schools (Freedman, 1993), the "progressivism" or "Plowdenism" seen in the British Primary Schools (Alexander, Rose, & Woodhead, 1992), and the "developmentally appropriate practice" advocated by early childhood educators (Carta, Schwartz, Atwater & McConnell,1991). The learner-centered teacher education favored by National Education Association is another expression, one that is widely known and well regarded in colleges of education (Darling-Hammond, Griffin & Wise, 1992). Discovery learning is predicated on developmentalism (Bruner, 1966) and so is the increasingly popular constructivism (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). Although constructivism employs a distinctive terminology and a more credible theoretical foundation, its major precepts are largely those advanced by John Dewey (1916/1963) at the turn of the century and discredited in the nineteen fifties. Dewey's "progressive education" (Dewey, 1938/1963) is the best known historic form of developmentalism and one whose present day influence is remarkably underestimated. "Reflective thinking," "authentic learning," "hands-on" experiences, "authentic assessment," and many other of today's best known pedagogical terms and concepts are rooted in Dewey's adaptation of developmentalism. Other recent (but now less popular) forms of developmentalism are the "third force" and "humanistic" psychologies on which the educational innovations of the nineteen sixties and seventies were based (Weber, 1972). A variety of other popular practices are less explicitly developmentalist but they share developmentalism's premises about the goodness of the natural--a characteristic that is key to their acceptance by the educational mainstream. Well known examples include the "whole language" and "language experience" approaches to reading (Altwerger, Edelsky & Flores, 1987), the closely related "emergent literacy" view of reading (Teal & Sulzby, 1987), and the "cognitive apprenticeship" approach to instruction (Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989). Stahl and Miller's (1989) discussion of whole language and language experience reading instruction highlights its appeal as a "natural" mode of instruction: "The goal of both approaches is to bring children into literacy in a 'natural' way [italics added], by bridging the gap between children's own language competencies and written language" (p. 88). Developmentalism: The Term and Its Referents
Although Stone (1991, 1993a, 1994) seems to have originated the use of "developmentalism" in reference to the doctrine discussed herein, similar terms have been used to denote developmentally informed educational practice. Sprinthall and Sprinthall (1987) used the term "developmentalists" in reference to educators who base their practices on developmental considerations. A similar term-- "philosophic-developmentalist"-- was used by Lawrence Kohlberg and Rochelle Mayer (1972) in reference to the views of John Dewey (1859-1952) and Jean Piaget (1896-1980). Dewey's and Piaget's views were termed "interactionist" and those of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), "maturationist." In contrast to these precedents, developmentalism as used by Stone (1991, 1993a, 1994) refers to a broad doctrine that presumes "natural" ontogenesis to be optimal. Such a presumption is common to both maturationist and interactionist views of development; and it is implicit in Dewey, Piaget, Rousseau, and the others here termed developmentalists. As the term is used here, the "ism" in developmentalism is the uncontested assumption that the "natural" course of development, however conceived in theory, is the optimal possibility. It is an obscure but vital form of romantic naturalism--one thoroughly embedded in the American culture. Stated broadly, developmentalism is the view of age- related social, emotional, and cognitive change that regards the optimal progression to be a fragile result of native tendencies emerging in a world congenial to their presumed wholesome nature. It emphasizes (a) the sufficiency of a natural inclination to learning, (b) the dangers of interference with native characteristics and proclivities, and (c) the desirability of learning experiences that emulate those thought to occur naturally. Social, emotional, and cognitive attributes that may be the unrecognized result of teacher and parent intervention are presumed by developmentalism to be manifestations of nature's normal trajectory. Man, his social contrivances, and indeed, civilization are seen as distinct from nature; and deliberate efforts to alter the course of child development are suspected of interfering with optimal developmental outcomes. Developmentalism assumes that the developmental directions issuing from the child's native tendencies and characteristics are optimal because they are a part of "nature." Although their concepts of development differed, Rousseau, Dewey, Piaget, and all other developmentalists share this premise. For Rousseau, nature was God's work untainted by human influence. In his view, the optimal developmental progression was simply the emergence of native tendencies and characteristics unfettered and unspoiled by society. By contrast, Dewey and Piaget considered the child's tendencies and characteristics to be the product of Darwinian evolution. Native tendencies and characteristics were desirable because they had survived the process of natural selection. Unlike Rousseau, Dewey and Piaget held that the optimal progression depended not only on successful maturation but on a natural process of interaction wherein the native characteristics selected-for by evolution were enhanced by the naturally occurring experiences to which they were fitted (Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972). Thus originated Dewey's emphasis on authentic educational experience. Evolution equipped humans to learn by solving problems, therefore learning in the context of problem solving was optimal. Although Rousseau's development was more exclusively a matter of maturation, he too treated social and educational influences as having the ability to either facilitate and nurture, or to corrupt and misdirect the optimal progression to which nature was postulated to tend.
A Brief History of Developmentalism Developmentalism's historic foundations go well beyond the writings of Rousseau, Dewey, and Piaget. Pedagogical theorists such as Johann Bernard Basedow (1724-1790), Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), William James (1842-1910), and G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924) are the best known proponents of the past 200 years. In general, their views were premised on either the maturation-only or the maturation/environmental- interaction schemes of development. The ascendance of developmentalism in America may be related to an early belief about education as a cause of madness. According to Makari (1993), Rousseau's "education naturelle" was presaged by the writings of John Locke in 1691 and Giambattista Vico in 1709. Vico believed that children develop through a series of immutable phases and he condemned educational practices not in harmony with the "natural" progression. He considered abstract Cartesian thought to be particularly harmful. Vico's supposition that that which appears to be unnatural is apt to harmful has been echoed repeatedly even to the present day. Proponents of "developmentally appropriate" teaching practice, for example, believe that the use of incentives with young children are likely to be damaging. Vico's belief was accepted within American psychiatry from its earliest years, and it persisted in the professional literature well into the late eighteen hundreds (Makari, 1993). The public and professional acceptance of such thinking as enlightened and informed clearly would have lent credibility to the criticisms of formalist teaching methods voiced by Dewey, James, and others. Also it would have bolstered the acceptance of the developmentalist schooling methods imported from Europe throughout the era. Rousseau and European Developmentalists
Rousseau argued that all that comes from the hand of the Creator must be good; and in doing so, he substituted a doctrine of original goodness for that of original sin. He believed that formal schooling was not only unnecessary (because children tend naturally to learn) but that it harms students by violating their natural propensities (Green, 1955). Classically premised on a romanticist faith in nature, Rousseau's Emile was a critique of educational practice in his day. Hegel embellished Rousseau's theme and described child development as a process of unfoldment toward a state of natural perfection (Bigge & Hunt, 1962). Basedow, Pestalozzi, and Froebel each articulated their unique vision of schooling based on Rousseau's and Hegel's concepts (Rusk, 1965). In each case, their conceptual framework required schooling to be fitted to the child in the interest of preserving the goodness inherent in nature, and in each case they were received by the European public as a welcome alternative to the often harsh teaching methods of the day. Teachers of the era typically were retired drill sergeants and their methods were adaptations of military training (Riegel, 1972). Herbert Spencer and William James
Spencer and James similarly argued that education must be fitted to the child but their ideas were premised on an evolutionary model of nature (Cremin, 1964). The vision of natural perfection suggested by evolutionary theory differed from that of Rousseau but the ideal of education in harmony with natural perfection again was perpetuated. Optimal educational results were those that arose from fulfillment of nature's inherent order--an order shaped by the workings of evolution. Although Spencer and James both relied on an evolutionary premise, their thinking diverged as to the relationship between the natural order and desirable educational outcomes. Spencer conceived of education as subordinate to and, ideally, accommodated to the broader evolutionary process. He held that men were "infinitely more creatures of history than its creators" (Cremin, 1964, p. 93). Thus educational practice fitted to nature's dictates was the arrangement most conducive to optimal enhancement of the species. In contrast, James conceived of the human mind as having an active role in shaping the natural order and; more than Spencer, Rousseau, or Dewey, he believed that teachers should instill good (i.e., adaptive) habits. James differed in other important ways from Dewey and other developmentalists. In contrast to Dewey, James conceived of educational outcomes as specific observable behavior change, not as a broad gaged and intangible intellectual growth. Also in contrast to Dewey and most other developmentalists, James believed that learned habits could serve to inhibit or overcome unfavorable natural tendencies. Thus he was he was not especially critical of recitation and the older "formalist" educational methods, and neither did he expect all learning to be motivated by a genuine personal interest. In James's words, the belief that learning should be motivated only by interest was "soft pedagogy" (James, 1899/1924, p. 109). As to the relationship between human development and learning, James held that evolution had endowed humans with naturally "ripening" instincts and native interests to which successful teaching should be fitted. Unlike Dewey and other developmentally informed theorists, however, he did not insist on adherence to nature's ripening process or on an approximation of nature's interaction patterns as the optimal means of educating. Rather James' Talks to Teachers (1899/1924) offered practical recommendations that could be implemented largely without reference to developmental considerations. Thus in spite of his attention to human development as an educational consideration, James, unlike Dewey, did not greatly contribute to the restrictive orthodoxy that is developmentalism. G. Stanley Hall and Arnold Gesell
G. Stanley Hall may have been the individual most responsible for infusing the American educational tradition with the maturation-only version of developmentalism (Strickland & Burgess, 1965). Hall believed that quality teaching was that which was fitted to what he termed a "saltatory" pattern of development--a pattern he believed to have been dictated by human evolutionary history (Hall, 1907). Hall's views are among the most explicitly developmentalist in the history of American education; and although his "general psychonomic law" (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny) was eventually rejected, his concept of improving the educational process through the study of child development became a mainstay educational orthodoxy (McCullers, 1969). In his essay "The Ideal School as Based on Child Study," Hall argued that contrary to accepted Western educational practice, the school should be fitted to the child rather than the child fitted to the school. Teachers, he believed,
. . . should strive first of all to keep out of nature's way, and to prevent harm, and should merit the proud title of defenders of the rights and happiness of children. They should feel profoundly that childhood, as it comes fresh from the hand of God, is not corrupt, but illustrates the survival of the most consummate thing in the world; they should be convinced that there is nothing else so worthy of love, reverence, and service as the body and soul of the growing child. (cited in Cremin, 1964, p. 103).
In his definitive account of progressive education, Cremin (1964, p. 104) argues that the popularization of Hall's "pediocentric" view was "truly Copernician" because it shifted the "burden of proof" for learning from the student to the school. Coming at a time when compulsory education was becoming widespread, its impact on American education was enormous and continues to be felt. The aim of improving the educational process through child study was further popularized by Hall's student Arnold Gesell. Although not widely read today, Gesell's developmental concepts are consistent with popularly held views of early childhood development (cited in Bigge & Hunt, 1962):
As with a plant, so with a child. His mind grows by natural stages. A child creeps before he walks, sits before he stands, cries before he laughs, babbles before he talks, draws a circle before he draws a square, lies before he tells the truth, and is selfish before he is altruistic. Such sequences are part of the order of Nature. . . . Every child, therefore, has a unique pattern of growth, but that pattern is a variant of a basic ground plan. (p. 166) John Dewey and Progressive Education
John Dewey is another developmentalist who did not rely on a formally stated developmental sequence. Instead, Dewey believed that evolution had equipped man with characteristics fitted to certain types of naturally occurring experiences and that the learning that emerges as the individual encounters these experiences is optimal. Quality teaching was, therefore, the practice of fitting educational experiences to the emerging characteristics and proclivities of the child for the purpose of optimizing "growth." Optimal development was both driven by maturation and nurtured by experience. In contrast to Rousseau, Dewey did not consider maturation sufficient to guide the process. Instead, he was frequently critical of progressive educators who followed Rousseau's maturational precepts, referring to their " . . . idealizing of childhood [as] . . . lazy indulgence" (cited in Axtelle & Burnette, 1970, p. 260). Also contrary to popular belief, Dewey conceived of school as a structured experience in which teachers would ingeniously arrange student encounters with personally meaningful problems--problems which, if well chosen, would instigate self-directed learning experiences (Dewey, 1916/1963). The teacher's actions, however, were intended as a means of facilitating or enhancing a spontaneous learning process, not as a means of unnaturally or artificially inducing a preconceived outcome. In Dewey's words, the only proper aim of education is "growth" (Dewey, 1916/1963):
Since growth is the characteristic of life, education is all one with growing; it has no end beyond itself. The criterion of the value of school education is the extent in which it creates a desire for continued growth and supplies means for making the desire effective in fact. (p. 53)
Dewey argued that the right sort of experience would instigate "reflective" thinking and thereby move the student toward a meaningful and individually defined form of knowing. The problem solving experience was, in his view, nature's way of teaching--the way in which the species had been equipped for learning by virtue of natural selection. Dewey's prescriptions for teaching were designed to emulate nature's process. Because he believed that true understanding was personalized, Dewey held that educational aims could not be dictated by any agent external to the student (Dewey, 1916/1963, 1938/1963; Feldman, 1934/1968). For this reason, Dewey's concepts severely limited the ability of teachers to insure that students acquire any preconceived understanding or knowledge. Education was a process intended to enhance the student's reflective powers. That subject-matter which a student learned incidental to the educational process was the only important or expected kind of formal educational achievement--a view clearly at odds with traditional expectations for schooling and with the concept of teacher accountability for specific academic accomplishments. An individual's familiarity with the knowledge and insights gleaned by intellectual forebearers was of secondary importance in Dewey's thinking. Dewey's departure from traditional expectations for schooling was tied to his reliance on an evolutionary model of nature (Boydston, 1970). He believed that progressive schooling would produce varied outcomes; that the outcomes most advantageous to society would be selected for; and that society would be bettered by the process. Although he opposed preconceived outcomes as the aim of schooling, his faith in human rationality led him to expect that students would arrive at commonly held truths as a result of their personal explorations. A similarly founded departure from conventional expectations for schooling--Dewey's emphasis on student interest as the sole legitimate source of student motivation- -led to practical difficulties with his approach. Because student interests might be far removed from conventional academic pursuits, the time, effort, and resources necessary to elicit their emergence was destined to collide with economic reality. The cost-effectiveness of schooling was not a major consideration in Dewey's time. Neither was the availability of meaningful occupational opportunities for students whose natural thirst for learning was significantly delayed. Thus in spite of his pragmatic orientation, neither Dewey nor his followers seemed to appreciate the pedagogic and economic inefficiencies that would result as growing children became immersed in a world increasingly dominated by competing attractions. As to reliance on formal knowledge of human development, Dewey called for teachers to be guided by the emergence of the individual student but to be informed by known developmental considerations (1916/1963):
The method of [knowing and learning exhibited by an individual student] . . . will vary from that of another (and properly vary) as his original instinctive capacities vary, as his past experiences and his preferences vary. Those who have already studied these matters are in possession of information which will help teachers in understanding the responses different pupils make, and help them in guiding these responses to greater efficiency. Child-study, psychology, and a knowledge of the social environment supplement the personal acquaintance gained by the teacher. But methods remain the personal concern, approach, and attack of an individual, and no catalogue can ever exhaust their diversity of form and tint. (p. 173) In essence, the student's "needs" were to guide the selection and sequencing of educational experiences. Accordingly, Dewey's curriculum was comprised of the subject matter and experiences that fit the unique pursuits of the individual. Knowledge of formal subject matter was purely incidental to the educational process (Dewey, 1938/1963).
The fact of Dewey's long and prestigious career combined with the extensive influence of the progressive education movement resulted in Dewey's principles and its inherent developmentalism becoming a very potent educational orthodoxy. Cremin (1964) notes that by the late nineteen forties and early fifties, the language and concepts of progressive education were no longer thought of as representing a particular educational view. Rather they were simply considered good and sensible educational practice. For a period of fifty or so years following World War I, both the U. S. Office of Education and the National Education Association disseminated educational recommendations based on progressive principles as "best practices." Today, teaching practices inspired by Dewey's concepts continue to attract adherents despite discouraging empirical findings. The attempt to improve student achievement by matching teaching styles with learning styles and investigations of attribute- treatment interactions are examples of research that fail to support Dewey's recommendations for teaching (Slavin, 1991). Within teacher education, progressivists were extremely influential. William Heard Kilpatrick held the senior chair in social foundations of education at Teachers College, Columbia University from 1918 to 1938. During that time he is said to have taught 35,000 teachers (Cremin, 1964). Thus even though progressive education per se eventually fell into disrepute, its concepts and jargon were so thoroughly established as "conventional wisdom" that the reasonableness and intuitive appeal of all subsequent educational theorizing was largely governed by its compatibility with progressive concepts--concepts that for the most part embodied one or another version of developmentalism. Neoprogressive Theorists
Subsequent to progressive education's demise in the late nineteen fifties, a number of neoprogressive psychological theories, all possessing a strong developmentalist bent, gained widespread popularity within the teaching profession (Weber, 1972). Exemplars include Lawrence Frank, Daniel Prescott, Carl Rogers, Arthur Combs, Abraham Maslow, A. S. Neill, and Erik Erickson--all of whom viewed central aim of education as a broad gauged personal development. Although their theoretical foundations and emphases diverged from those of progressive education, (for example, the liberation of human potential, the enhancement of self-esteem, the achievement of self-actualization, etc.), their recommendations for teachers were plainly congruent with progressive education's focus on facilitation of naturally developing tendencies and processes. Other theorists emphasized narrower facets of development but they too were entirely compatible with developmentalism and progressive education (Weber, 1972). These include Paul Torrence who focused on the development of intellectual creativity and Lawrence Kohlberg who articulated a moral development progression based on Piaget's general framework. Of particular relevance to present day educational practice are the neoprogressive accounts of cognitive development that became popular in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies. Jerome Bruner and, especially, Jean Piaget are the best known exemplars in this area; and both are essentially compatible with Dewey, particularly in their emphasis of a natural, i.e., personal discovery, type of learning experience. Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky
As earlier noted, Kohlberg and Mayer (1972) identified both Piaget and Dewey as exponents of "philosophic- developmentalism"--a view that holds intellectual growth to be the only defensible aim of education. Piaget's theory was grounded in his extensive observations of his three children and in a host of more systematic investigations undertaken subsequently. By training a biologist, Piaget described what seemed to be a biologically shaped sequence of person/ environment interaction--one he believed necessary to the emergence of individual intelligence. Thus, in contrast to the commonsensical and anecdotal accounts of intellectual development offered by Dewey, Piaget's work provided educators an elaborate theoretical edifice based on legitimate scientific observation. The Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1987), a contemporary of Piaget, similarly conceived of a biologically shaped developmental progression but with an important differences in emphasis. In contrast to Piaget, Vygotsky argued that learning as a result of sociocultural experiences played a far greater role in the emergence of mature thinking and behavior. The influence of experience on behavior, however, was limited by a biologically governed zone of proximal development. Of the two theorists, Piaget was far better known and thus exerted far greater influence on educational practice. Given the credibility of his findings, Piaget's educational recommendations were taken as substantially more authoritative and convincing than those of Rousseau, Dewey, and the others. Yet, despite its merits, Piaget's theorizing did not escape the preconceptions of its predecessors. As had Dewey and Rousseau, Piaget surveyed that which he took to be the naturally occurring developmental progression and presumed it optimal. Thus his conclusions--ones buttressed by impressive theoretical and empirical refinements-- conferred a predictable and welcome affirmation of developmentalist beliefs. Piaget's educational recommendations were intended to preserve "natural" experiences and to facilitate that which is unique to the individual. According to Kohlberg and Mayer (1972) they include:
. . . (1) attention to the child's mode or style of thought, i.e., stage; (2) match of stimulation to that stage, e.g., exposure to modes of reasoning one stage above the child's own; (3) arousal, among children, of genuine cognitive and social conflict and disagreement about problematic situations (in contrast to traditional education which has stressed adult "right answers" and has reinforced "behaving well"); and (4) exposure to stimuli toward which the child can be active, in which assimilatory response to the stimulus-situation is associated with "natural" feedback. (p. 462 )
Although the empirical underpinnings of Piaget's framework have been undermined by subsequent research (Siegler, 1991) and his theory significantly revised (Case, 1991), Piaget's thinking remains highly influential with mainstream educators. Its recent educational expression is the increasingly well known "constructivism" (Brooks & Brooks, 1993); and as with virtually all popular educational doctrines, its acceptance by the educational mainstream reflects its compatibility with Dewey and developmentalism. Overton (1972) acknowledges the mutually supportive relationship between Piagetian developmental concepts and Dewey. In essence, Dewey enabled popularization of Piaget, and Piaget has provided a seemingly unassailable rationale for Dewey's educational prescriptions:
. . . Piaget's functional position contributes primarily to educational foundations and methods. The implications of his major emphasis upon activity echo progressive education's assertions of intrinsic motivation, self-direction, and freedom of the learner. The detailed analysis of the nature of the activities involved in adaptation stresses the significance of discovery-oriented methods in which the teacher actively participates by presenting appropriate materials and setting appropriate problems over methods of rote drill, training, or enriched environments. Above all, there is the point shared with progressive education that learning and development occur through the experience of the child's actively confronting his social and physical world. (Overton, 1972, p. 113-114)
Thus the theoretical and empirical expressions of present day (mainly Piagetian) developmentalism may not be Dewey's but its conclusions about educational practice are largely the same (Reschly & Sabers, 1974). Although today viewed principally as guide to teaching at the primary school level, developmentalism serves as a conceptual foundation for educational practice at all levels (Clark & Starr, 1991; Sprinthall & Sprinthall, 1987; Squire, 1972; Wlodkowski, 1986). At the preschool and K-3 levels, the "developmentally appropriate instruction" concept has so thoroughly penetrated educational thinking that it is included in the "America 2000" statement of national educational goals (U.S. Department of Education [USDOE], 1991); it is acknowledged in the school reform principles formulated by business leaders (Committee for Economic Development, 1991); and it is explicitly cited in school reform legislation (Kentucky Education Reform Act, 1990; Stone, 1993). Developmentalism's Restrictions on Teaching and Parenting
Developmentalism's effect on educational reform must be understood in the context of its influence on teaching, parenting, and socialization as a whole. As the now popular African proverb suggests, "it takes a village to raise a child," thus the influence developmentalism's strictures and recommendations on the actions of both parents and teachers are critical to schooling outcomes. In general, developmentalist guidance has encouraged parents and teachers to be less assertive and to afford children greater freedom. In particular, it has encouraged lessened parent insistence on study and effort in school and on mature and responsible behavior generally. Parents are given to believe that in a developmentally accommodative world, frustration and delayed gratification are to be minimized while immediate success and satisfaction are to be maximized. For example, an NEA publication by Wlodkowski (1986), discourages teachers' from insisting on results:
We need to look more at the process and performance of our students and less at the more narrow and self- defeating emphasis of product or acquisition. If a student is responding with enthusiasm and interest, she/he will probably learn, but often without a neat, continuous, daily progress line. To lose our students' excitement and involvement for lack of immediate learning is not only a waste of effort but also a danger to the ultimate goal of any teacher--a student who is on the road to becoming a lifelong learner. (p. 16)
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is more specific. Its policy statement on "developmentally appropriate practice" identifies that the following actions to be inappropriate (Bredekamp, 1988):
The teacher's role is to correct errors and make sure the child knows the right answer in all subject areas. Teachers reward children for correct answers with stickers or privileges, praise them in front of the group, and hold them up as examples. (p. 76)
Broadly speaking, developmentalism and its restrictions on teaching practice argue against intervention and, instead, favor the kind of premissiveness found in the child-rearing recommendations of Dr. Benjamin Spock (1976) and others (Brazelton, 1974; Gessell & Ilg, 1943; Warner & Rosenberg, 1976). In truth, Spock, et al and the educational developmentalists rely on many of the same theoretical foundations. Developmentalism suggests that both teacher and parent expectations for behavior or achievement must be subordinated to concerns about optimal development. Rather than seek to shape the child to social or academic norms, developmentally informed teachers and parents are deemed responsible for affording experiences and opportunities that are compatible with the child's current proclivities. That such experiences will result in effort and achievement commensurate with individual potential is simply taken for granted. Clark and Starr (1991, p.37) exemplify this view in their textbook on secondary and middle school teaching methods: "Because learning is developmental, it follows that one learns better when one is ready to learn." Bigge and Hunt's (1962, p. 377) text is more explicit: "A young person is ready to learn something when he has achieved sufficient physiological maturation and experiential background so that he not only can learn but wants to." Whatever the measurable impact of developmentally informed teaching and parenting on the course of child development (a remarkably little examined topic), its immediate impact on teacher and parent attempts to instruct and discipline are entirely foreseeable. Developmentalism gives rise to a disabling hesitancy and uncertainty about how or whether adults should attempt to influence children. It strongly suggests the possibility of harm, but it offers no clear guidance as to a safe and effective course of action. It requires an estimation of a child's developmental status as a prerequisite to action yet it offers no workable means of ascertaining that status. The requirement of correctly inferring individual development presents a substantial obstacle to the application of developmental theory. The prototypic studies of human development by Gessell (1940, 1943, 1946), Gesell, Ilg, and Ames (1956), and McGraw (1945/1969) tracked physical and motor development--both low inference constructs. The indicators of development--height, weight, number of teeth, number of steps, etc.--were visible and readily quantifiable. By contrast, the phases of social, emotional, and cognitive development to which developmentally appropriate teaching and parenting must be fitted are high inference constructs, i.e., ones said to be manifested by complex patterns of behavior. The inherent observational problem is evident in Piaget's concept of intelligence (Furth & Wachs, 1975):
For Piaget, intelligence is constructive and creative; in fact, development of intelligence is but the gradual creation of new mechanisms of thinking. It is creation because it is not the discovery or the copy of anything that is physically present. Classes and probability cannot be found in the physical world. They are concepts constructed creatively by human intelligence and cannot be handed down by means of language or other symbols. (pp. 25-26)
To add to the imprecision and uncertainty of the required inference, Piaget's theory holds that the relationship between current behavior and developmental status is neither fixed nor self-evident and that the underlying developmental progression is characterized by spurts, lulls, and uneven dispersion across the various behavioral, emotional, and intellectual domains. Again in reference to Piaget (Furth & Wachs, 1975):
This variability takes three forms, each of which is contrary to a normative ideal. First, different individuals differ on the same task and much more than an IQ mentality would have us believe. . . . A second type of variability is found within a certain individual (intraindividual variability) as he performs on a variety of different tasks [tasks requiring the same underlying intellectual capability]. . . . A third type of variability is observed both within the same individual and on the same task. In other words, the performance of a child fluctuates from day to day--an entirely normal phenomenon that all of us experience. . . . Recognition and acceptance of this variability is particularly important in the case of mechanisms of thinking which develop gradually and almost imperceptibly [italics added]. (pp. 28-29)
In addition to their ambiguity, estimates of developmental status are inherently conservative and restrictive of adult action. Conceptually, current levels of intellectual performance, effort, maturity, achievement, and other indicators can understate but not exceed present levels of development. For example, a child whose reasoning is concrete operational may exhibit skills indicative of the earlier preoperational level but they would never misleadingly exhibit skills appropriate to the more mature formal operations level. Thus assessments of development based on a child's current behavior may underestimate but not overestimate present developmental status. Given that developmentally appropriate teaching and parenting must be fitted to the child's current developmental status, and given that efforts to exhort or otherwise induce advancement beyond the child's developmentally governed potentialities are considered risky at best, teachers and parents are given to understand that expecting too little is a much better choice than expecting too much. From a developmentalist perspective, if opportunity and conditions conducive to developmental advancement have been maximized, the developmentally guided teacher or parent has done all that can safely be done. In effect, developmentalism discourages teachers and parents from asserting expectations or otherwise acting to induce more mature behavior. Even in the face of noticeable deficiencies or problematic conduct, the developmentally appropriate course of action is that which is congenial to the child's apparent developmental status, i.e., his or her present behavior and inclinations. Continuing lack of advancement in spite of suitable facilitating conditions is taken to reflect delayed emergence of developmentally governed potentialities, not ineffective teaching or parenting. Personal, Social, and Cultural Implications
The implications of such a perspective are far-reaching and they may be relevant to the well known concerns about the waning influence of homes and schools. In a world that affords few immediate incentives for responsible and constructive behavior, children whose teachers and parents are captivated by developmentalism may be significantly disadvantaged: They are too little influenced by those adults who have the greatest interest in their well being. To the extent that teachers, parents, and other socially ordained influences are withheld, "default contingencies" (John Eshleman, personal communication, February 26, 1993)-- i.e., influences arranged by peers, by the entertainment and recreation industries, etc.--are empowered. Not only does developmentalism appear to undermine teacher and parent assertiveness, the view of children inherent in developmentalism may be negatively linked to the "growth" of maturity, character, and a sense of personal responsibility. Rather than encouraging parents to treat children and youth as individuals responsible for their own behavior, developmentalism encourages tolerance and acceptance of immaturity, irresponsibility, and failure. And given the belief that mature and responsible behavior simply emerges if properly facilitated, the child who fails to exhibit expected social and academic progress is excused as a victim of adverse circumstances--a rationale for individual shortcomings that has become a cultural archetype (Birnbaum, 1991). The influence of developmentalism and its philosophic foundation, romantic naturalism, may extend far beyond teaching and parenting practices. For example, the growth of so called "anti-science" (Holton, 1993; Kurtz, 1993) and of certain forms of environmentalism seem to be linked to the same romantic assumptions about the wholesomeness of nature that are integral to developmentalism. Over a 75 year period developmentalism has been a prominent feature of educational practice, and from this venue, it has had opportunity to thoroughly infuse the American culture. The degree to which popular thought in America may have been influenced by romanticist leanings within the public schools, however, is well beyond the present analysis. Implications for Schoolwork
Learning of the kind sought by schools inevitably requires very substantial commitments of student time and effort (Tomlinson, 1992). Developmentalism, however, discourages teachers from any attempt to directly induce it. Instead, developmentalism requires that teachers endeavor to produce "learning in ways that are stimulating yet minimally obtrusive, challenging yet requiring only comfortable levels of exertion" (Stone, 1994, p. 65). An anomaly becomes apparent (Stone, 1994):
. . . schools [are encouraged] to spare neither effort nor resources in fitting instruction to students while expecting little from them in return. Student inattention and apathy are met with herculean efforts to stimulate interest and enthusiasm. Deficient outcomes are countered by reducing expectations to the level of whatever the student seems willing to do. Even the practice of [motivating students by] affording . . . accurate feedback about accomplishments is deemed questionable because of its purported detrimental effect on intrinsic motivation and self esteem. . . . recurrent failure to attain even minimal achievement is accepted as lamentable but unavoidable and treated accordingly. In short, developmentalism requires only the teacher to work, not the student. (p. 62)
In essence, developmentalism leads to schools in which attendance is compulsory but study is not. Students are expected to make an effort only if they feel interested and enthused. Study is expected to be more like fun than work. If students waste time and educational opportunity because they find schoolwork boring, their behavior is not merely tolerated, it is understood and excused as the product of insufficiently stimulating instruction, i.e., instruction that fails to facilitate the emergence of the postulated ideal. In the end, teachers are burdened with an unattainable expectation. They, their employers, and the public are encouraged to believe that if a teacher is sufficiently creative and ingenious in harnessing each individual student's potentialities, expected learning outcomes will emerge in a way that the student will experience as spontaneous, natural, and comfortable. It is an ideal founded wholly on developmentalist supposition but it has come to define good teaching. Developmentalism's ideal of taking the work out of schoolwork may be responsible not only for poor work habits and attitudes beyond the classroom--a problem widely noted by employers (Mandel, Melcher, Yang & McNamee, 1995; Survey, 1991). So long as study and effort are expected only if the student feels so inclined, the self discipline necessary to putting school "work before pleasure" is largely omitted from the academic regimen. Instead of a work ethic, students are given to expect significant accomplishments with minimal effort (Shine, 1993). Educationally Appropriate Practice
A vital distinction must be drawn between developmentally appropriate instruction and educationally appropriate instruction, i.e., those teaching practices that accommodate teaching to the learner without regard to the hypothetical constraints posed by developmental theory. Developmentally appropriate instruction (a.k.a. developmentally appropriate practice) seeks to optimize the development of the "whole child" (Johnson & Johnson, 1992) irrespective of academic norms. It is a "learner centered" (a.k.a. "student centered" or "child centered") approach to teaching (Darling- Hammond, Griffin and Wise, 1992) meaning that the teaching process is constrained by developmental considerations but the product is open ended. It is an approach that rejects both expectations for accomplishment based on curricular benchmarks or peer referenced norms as well as any "artificial" means of insuring that they materialize. In contrast, "educationally appropriate" instruction (Stone, 1994) seeks to meet recognized standards and to otherwise maximize academic achievement. Both developmentally appropriate and educationally appropriate instruction rely on present levels of demonstrated performance as a starting point for instruction and both seek to optimize intellectual advancement. Educationally appropriate teaching (or practice), however, does not treat present performance as a marker for a child's developmental limits. It is "learning centered" in the sense that observed performance, not presumed developmental limitations, guides academic advancement. Although sensitive to student comfort with teaching practice, educationally appropriate practice holds achievement, not developmental suitability, to be its top priority and neither does it presume high expectations or teacher insistence on effort to be developmentally hazardous. In conclusion, developmentalism appears to discourage teacher and parent intervention while simultaneously promoting the belief that academic achievement and responsible behavior will spontaneously emerge if only given time and facilitating conditions. Contrary to developmentalist expectations, however, it may be that awaiting the emergence of wholesome behavior is an open invitation to default contingencies and the growth of unfavorable habits--ones that might have been precluded by the acquisition of appropriate patterns. By the time the realities of such deficits and/or inappropriate conduct make the need for action inarguable, remediation is likely to be more difficult. Well ingrained patterns of faulty behavior must first be eliminated before constructive alternatives can be established--a situation all too familiar to special educators and school psychologists. The Developmentalist Neglect of Experimentally Vindicated Teaching Practices
Developmentalism influences teacher acceptance of experimentally demonstrated teaching practices in much the same way it impacts teaching and parenting generally. It argues against intervention on the grounds that it is likely to detract from the more optimal outcome that presumably will emerge when natural developmental processes are permitted to run their course. Some Neglected Methodologies
Over the last thirty years, a variety of experimentally vindicated teaching methods have been developed and disseminated only to be ignored or discarded in favor of less well tested practices that better fit developmental thinking. Mastery learning and Personalized System of Instruction may be the best known examples (Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Drowns, 1990). Direct Instruction (Becker & Carnine, 1980)--also known as DISTAR (Kim, Berger, & Kratochvil, 1972) and as "systematic instruction" (Slavin, 1994)--is another. Direct Instruction is little used despite having been as thoroughly validated and field tested as any methodology in the history of education (Watkins, 1988). These and a large group of structured and sequenced teaching methodologies termed "explicit teaching" (Rosenshine, 1986) are among the most clear instances of experimentally supported approaches to teaching that have failed to gain widespread acceptance and/or have been abandoned. Programmed instruction (Skinner, 1958) is another example of an abandoned methodology and one that uniquely appears to demonstrate how developmentalism's hold on the teaching profession influences teaching practices in public schools. Despite its initial acceptance and evident promise, K-12 educators rejected programmed instruction in favor of less structured, more naturalistic, "real-world," "hands-on" approaches (Skinner, 1986). However, among educators less influenced by developmentalism, i.e., private sector business and industrial trainers, military trainers, designers of computer-based instruction, etc., it remained well established (Ellson, 1986; Vargas & Vargas, 1992). Many of the experimentally validated methodologies are behavioral because behavioral approaches to teaching and learning are derived from the experimental analysis of behavior. However, mastery learning (Bloom, 1976) and the "explicit teaching" methodologies discussed by Rosenshine (1986) are not behavioral and the same can be said for most of the "productive" methodologies discussed by Ellson (1986) and Walberg (1990, 1992). Ellson (1986) listed seventy-five studies of teaching methods all of which report learning effects that are at least twice as great as control comparisons. Most of these methods were popular at one time but none are in widespread use today. Walberg (1990, 1992) summarized the results of nearly 8000 studies that point to the efficacy of a brief list of powerful and teacher- alterable classroom interventions, most of which are supported by experimental evidence. High expectations for effort and achievement is one, the use of incentives is another. In general, the neglected methodologies identified by Walberg and Ellson are structured and teacher directed; they aim to instill preconceived academic and intellectual outcomes; and most of them employ practice, feedback, and incentives. Developmentally Inspired Concerns, Reservations, and Objections
Teaching methods textbooks and other sources of recommendations about teaching practice seem to sanction the disuse of experimentally vindicated methodologies either by giving them little or no attention or by discussing them in the context of various concerns, objections, and reservations (Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993; Ornstein, 1992; Wlodkowski, 1986). These remarks are especially noticeable when contrasted to the uncritical treatment given developmentally compatible methodologies. Typical cautions and criticisms involve claims that the experimentally vindicated methods are insufficiently individualized (Armstrong, 1980), too artificial and mechanical (Bailey, 1991), excessively reliant on extrinsic motivation (Kohn, 1993a, 1993b), suited only to lower forms of learning (Ornstein, 1992), or simply boring (Henson, 1993; Lemlech, 1994). Virtually all of these reservations and objections are premised on a developmentalist view of learning. Developmentalists hold that adherence to that which is developmentally appropriate is more important than educational achievement thus they favor educational experiences that are well accepted by students over those that are known to produce results. In the developmentalist view, teachers should seek methods that produce results but they should select them only from among those methods that maximize student satisfaction. Judged by priorities so ordered, experimentally vindicated teaching methodologies are suspect at best because they are built around the notion that learning is the primary consideration. If the authors of methods textbooks were to suggest that teachers should prefer methodologies that have been experimentally vindicated, they would be in disagreement with developmentalist doctrine, i.e., with the view that student satisfaction is primary and learning secondary. The same consideration applies to teacher expectations for student effort and achievement. Developmentalism suggests that teachers should expect a commitment to schoolwork that is commensurate with the student's lifestyle and developmentally determined inclinations, not with external and artificial requirements that are based on arbitrary or socially derived academic standards. In effect, developmentalism requires experimentally vindicated practices not only to be attractive, interesting, and engaging, it obliges them to overcome the belief that they are likely to be risky or harmful, i.e. that they interfere in unknown or unsuspected ways with a virtually boundless range of developmental considerations (Elkind, 1981). The test of usefulness to which demonstrably effective interventions are subjected is not one of observed cost and benefit compared to the observed cost and benefit of an existing alternative, it is one that entails suspected hidden cost versus the perfection that hypothetically emerges in the absence of human interference. For example, when "whole language" proponents express concern about skill-sequence approaches to reading (Goodman & Goodman, 1979), they worry that the interest in reading that otherwise naturally emerges might be lessened. Criticisms of drill, corrective feedback, and the use of incentives are typically founded on the same argument. If, however, nature is permitted the opportunity (i.e., a "developmentally appropriate" opportunity) to work its effects, developmentalists assume that the expected skills and interest will emerge and without exposure to the hazards inherent in intervention (Clark & Starr, 1991; Lemlech, 1994; Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993; Stone, 1995). The Alleged Threat to Intrinsic Motivation.
Some developmentally inspired reservations about experimentally vindicated methodologies are based on more than theoretical extrapolations. For example, the concerns about reductions in intrinsic motivation due to positive reinforcement reported by Deci & Ryan (1985), Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett (1973), and Schwartz (1990) appear to be supported by credible empirical findings. Even these claims, however, seem to have been exaggerated without challenge perhaps as a result of developmentalism's enormous influence within the educational community. For the past seventy-five or so years, the teaching profession has idealized learning that is motivated by interest as the only "true" learning. Led by Dewey (1916/1963; 1938/1963), the mainstream teaching profession has held that such "intrinsic" or naturally occurring interest will express itself provided that the student is confronted with a sufficiently meaningful or relevant or lifelike problem. Thus teaching that relies on extrinsic sources of motivation is, according to Dewey's concept, inherently poor teaching, i.e., insufficiently creative, innovative, and stimulating, and its use of extrinsic incentives a concession to faulty educational practice. The widespread acceptance of Dewey's developmentally informed vision seems likely to have contributed to the positive reception given the reports of Deci, Ryan, Lepper, et al. and, more recently, to Kohn's (1993a, 1993b) wholesale derogation of positive reinforcement, incentives, rewards, and competition. The technical foundations of these reports, however, have been the subject of scholarly disagreement, and the exaggerated nature of their claims has become evident in the recent meta-analysis by Cameron and Pierce (1994). Reviewing the literature from 1971 to the present, they conclude that the empirical findings with respect to intrinsic motivation simply do not warrant exclusion of incentives from the classroom. One other telling observation may be made about Kohn's (1993a, 1993b) criticisms. Positive reinforcement and other extrinsic sources of motivation have been successfully employed by school psychologists, special educators, and teachers of remedial and "at risk" students for many years (Hallahan, Kauffman, & Lloyd, 1985; Hammill & Bartel, 1990). Apparently that evidence has been overlooked or discounted. Perhaps such applications are considered exempt from developmentalist strictures because students to whom they are applied have acknowledged developmental imperfections. Despite their success, however, interventions that are known to benefit the disabled are not entirely immune from criticism. For example, there is ongoing debate among early childhood special educators regarding "early intervention" versus "developmentally appropriate practice." Again, the question is one of whether successful experimentally founded intervention strategies are producing some subtle but as-yet- unnoticed developmental harm (Carta, Schwartz, Atwater & McConnell, 1991; Johnson & Johnson, 1992). The Alleged Inattention to Thinking.
Of the developmentally inspired concerns pertaining to experimentally vindicated teaching methods, their alleged neglect of student thinking is, by far, the most frequent criticism (Armstrong & Savage, 1994; Callahan, Clark, & Kellough, 1992; Clark & Starr, 1991; Henson, 1993; Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1993; Kim & Kellough, 1995; Lemlech, 1994; Ornstein, 1992; Sheperd & Ragan, 1992). These concerns and the current pedagogical emphasis on cognitive processes, higher-order intellectual skills, critical thinking, reflective thinking, etc., again, reflect Dewey's (1916/1963) view of learning:
The sole direct path to enduring improvement in the methods of instruction and learning consists in centering upon the conditions which exact, promote, and test thinking. Thinking is the method of intelligent learning, of learning that employs and rewards the mind. (p. 153) The same can be said of the present day emphasis on hands-on, authentic, real-world learning experiences as a means of facilitating learning:
Only by wrestling with the conditions of . . . [a] problem at first hand, seeking and finding his own way out, does . . . [the student] think. When the parent or teacher has provided the conditions which stimulate thinking and has taken a sympathetic attitude toward the activities of the learner by entering into a common or conjoint experience, all has been done which a second party can do to instigate learning. The rest lies with the one directly concerned. (Dewey, 1916/1963, p. 160)
Both Dewey (1916/1963) and Piaget (Siegler, 1991) considered human learning capabilities the product of evolutionary demands for intellectual adaptation to the natural world. Formal knowledge and skills were held to be important only to the extent that they were integrated with applications to problem solving. If natural circumstances required humans to learn and employ knowledge in the context of problem solving, Dewey reasoned that schools would optimize learning by doing the same. Thus in Dewey's scheme of education, thinking in service of problem solving is primary to education and acquisition of formal knowledge and competencies is secondary and incidental. What Dewey may not have adequately considered is that traits evolved under one set of conditions can prove useful under other conditions and in service of entirely different ends. For example, human hands were not initially selected- for because of their usefulness in writing or musical performance but they subsequently served that purpose. Analogously, the ability to acquire and retain knowledge may have been selected-for under conditions where knowledge was wholly contextualized, yet today the same ability can be usefully employed to acquire knowledge that is partly or wholly decontextualized. Given the advantages that industrial and technological cultures appear to derive from formal instruction afforded in a classroom setting, it seems evident that a profitable use has been found for the human ability to acquire factual, abstract, and decontextualized knowledge and that acquisition of such knowledge is a useful prerequisite to real-world, problem solving experiences. In fact, it would seem that schooling in societies which make use of the formal knowledge cumulated from the experiences of innumerable ancestors would necessarily entail a substantial amount of decontextualized learning. Thus the achievement of preconceived objectives through experimentally vindicated teaching methodologies may afford socially, economically, and pedagogically advantageous gains in educational efficiency despite its inconsistency with the ideals inherent in Dewey, Piaget, and other popular theorists. Why Non-experimental Research is Better Accepted
In contrast to the skepticism typically encountered by experimentally founded interventions, teaching practices informed by studies of naturally occurring social and educational processes are relatively well received by the educational community. Even if not adapted to developmental considerations, such practices do not suggest artificially imposed alterations of "natural" conditions. Thus if peer interaction processes or certain teacher or student characteristics are found to be correlated with student achievement, teachers can be safely encouraged to take advantage of these "natural" (and presumably causal) relationships by creatively interpreting and selectively employing them as developmental considerations permit. Studies of relationships between educational outcomes and student learning styles (Dunn, Beaudrey, & Klavas, 1989; Shipman & Shipman, 1985) are a good example. The recent surge of recommendations favoring greater sensitivity to multicultural diversity in the schools also seem founded on this type of research (Boykin, 1986; Thompson, Entwisle, Alexander, & Sundius, 1992). In each case, these studies encourage teachers to shape instruction to the preferences and inclinations of the student in order to enhance achievement to the extent that student proclivities will permit. Unfortunately, of course, the causal inferences suggested by descriptive and correlational studies can be grossly misleading and their misinterpretation has lead to some of the most egregious instances of faulty teaching practice. The attempt to improve learning by boosting self- esteem is a prime example (Scheirer & Kraut, 1979). The Incompatibility of Developmental and Experimental Views
Given the nature of the developmentalist view, experimentally demonstrated teaching practices are bound to invite a great degree of skepticism. The object of experimental research is to demonstrate the impact of an independent variable as an agent of change. Contrary to such an objective, developmentalism requires that social, emotional, and cognitive change emerge, not as an effect induced by an external agent, but as an independent expression of the student. Thus experimentally tested methodologies are automatically considered suspect if not outrightly objectionable depending on which developmental limitations are presumed applicable. In effect, developmentalist doctrine discourages reliance on the most important and most credible research educators have at their disposal (Bloom, 1980 as cited in Gage & Berliner, 1992; Cook & Campbell, 1979). Because they claim an applicability that never seems adequately tempered by developmental considerations, experimentally validated methods tend to encounter an impassable gauntlet of questions and reservations. In a reference to Walberg's (1984) report of generalizable, robust, and teacher- alterable influences on learning, Ralph Tyler (1984) expressed the forlorn hope that the (developmentalist) notion that each student and each circumstance is so unique that it can only be understood (i.e., effectively taught) by a teacher deeply immersed in the situation would be dispelled.