Contributed Commentary on
Volume 4 Number 8: Stone Developmentalism: An Obscure but
Pervasive Restriction on Educational Improvement
30 April 1996
John Stone
STONEJ@EDUSERV.EAST-TENN-ST.EDU
Sherman,
Thanks for posting a reaction. My hope had been to stimulate some thought
about developmentalism as one piece of the puzzle about how and why it is so
difficult to improve educational outcomes. In the following, I will try to
respond to your several points.
On April 29, 1996 Sherman writes:
Like Rick Garlikov, I found it appealing in
the sense that I have witnessed some of the dynamics which Stone claims
dominates teaching.
Yet ultimately I find the article unconvincing for several reasons.
1. In an article which espouses empiricism, Stone presents remarkably
little
concrete evidence that developmentalist philosophy is a primary barrier to
more effective teaching. The following are two generalizations which would
need evidence to convince me of Stone's thesis:
(a) Developmentalism has been important to teachers since the late 1960s
(when, if I recall correctly, the first studies of Direct Instruction and
other quasi-experimental intervention programs were published).
(b) Developmentalism has been a barrier to the use of research-based
interventions:
(1) A developmentalist philosophy has blocked the implementation of
research-based intervention programs in specific locations; or
(2) A substantial number of teachers across the country have considered
research-based intervention programs and have discarded them explicitly
because of developmentalist principles.
Evidence of these is nonexistent in the article. Instead, Stone presents
what some teacher education texts say about teaching, and what some
constructivist researchers have said about specific teaching methods (or
about reinforcement in general) -- which reflect on *those texts* but which
says little either about teacher education in general or about how teachers
make decisions in classrooms.
I agree that the present paper offers no empirical evidence of
developmentalism as a barrier. My primary aim was to bring into focus a
phenomenon that, in my view, pervades education in such a way that it has
veritably become part of the air we breathe. I have named it and sought to
show its educational significance. As to evidence of its existence or
studies showing how it has served as a barrier, I would hope that
individuals who have attempted to implement various experimentally
demonstrated interventions might assess their experiences in light of this
report.
Happily, one such a assessment came to my attention yesterday. The
following is a quote from an educational researcher who has been attempting
to implement technological improvements:
Prof. Stone:
Your recent article on Developmentalism is an excellent and instructive
contribution. I have circulated it to many of my colleagues who must
confront these questions daily. Would you please also send other of your
reprints that relate to the general topic?
We have worked for several years on the Florida Schoolyear 2000 Initiative,
the intention of which is to redesign public education in Florida. We find
it a daunting task, for all the reasons that you cited.
As to published reports of intervention oriented programs discarded or
rejected on account of differences with what seems to be developmentalist
thinking, I can refer you to the following off the top of my head:
Binder and Watkins (1989) Promoting effective instructional methods.
FUTURE CHOICES 1(3), 33-39.
If I recall correctly, Binder and Watkins make reference to a
"developmentalist bias" in the thinking of school personnel.
Watkins (1988, July) Project Follow Through: A story of the
identification
and neglect of effective instruction. YOUTH POLICY, pp. 7-11.
Herbert Walberg at U of IL Chicago has written a number of pieces on the
rejection and disuse of experimentally grounded interventions, notably those
employing a mastery learning approach.
Sherman writes:
2. Others are more persuasive in explaining why teachers don't
change
their methods much. Larry Cuban and Seymour Sarason have each argued that
teaching is innately conservative and that schools create a conservative
work culture. The most common teaching methods, especially in secondary
schools, have changed relatively little over the past century compared to
more experimental models which have existed side-by-side with more
"traditional" classes. In *every single case*, traditional classes are more
influential on the next generation of teachers and on teachers asked to
change. It hasn't really mattered whether those experimental models were
the Lab School run by Dewey or DISTAR, the Eight-Year project of the NEA or
something else. Schools and teachers just have not picked up on new methods
easily or faithfully. It does not require the inculcation of constructivism
to have continued that pattern in the last few decades.
I do not disagree with the observation that schools employ traditional
methods and are generally reluctant to adopt new approaches. As I indicated
yesterday in my reply to Rick Garlikov, I find teacher attitudes entirely
understandable. Teachers have to deal with classroom reality on a daily
basis and, in my opinion, it is the realities of this environment shapes
their practices. Much of that which they are taught by schools of education
or in the context of inservice training has not been well tested. Also much
of what they are expected to implement--even in those cases where the ideas
are workable--is not compatible with funding patterns or other
organizational arrangements. Teachers are frequently given a brief
introduction and left to fend for themselves. In an environment in which
there is no particular premium on consistently high educational outcomes and
given the dearth of realistic (cost-effective and labor saving) advice about
how to change, teachers stick with that which they are familiar--but with
one critical caveat: the strictures posed by developmentalism.
Developmentalism in its many incarnations has, in my opinion, succeeded in
restricting the practices that teachers consider to be acceptable. For
example, teachers believe that motivation to learn must stem from interest;
that pressure, demands, and expectations for performance are apt to be
harmful; and that punishment is to be avoided. Broadly speaking, my point
is not that developmentalism has influenced the schools through the
widespread adoption of progressive, constructivist, or other such programs.
Rather, I contend that in setting informal but virtually inviolable
strictures on teaching practice, developmentalism has impeded the adoption
of effective practices.Sherman writes:
3. Stone's chronology implies that Dewey and other
"developmentalists" were
far more influential on educators than they actually were. As Ellen
Lagemann wrote in Teachers College Record several years ago, Thorndike won
the battle of educational philosophies in the early twentieth century.
Dewey essentially lost, and it wasn't until decades later that someone else
(and you can argue whether it was Piaget, Robert Coles, or others) became an
effective rhetorical advocate of treating children as having mental lives of
their own. Stone cites Lawrence Cremin's history of progressivism but omits
a key message: while becoming a dominant professional force, the Progressive
Education Association lost virtually every connection it had with Dewey's
educational philosophy -- including, critically, the parts of Dewey which
Stone identifies as developmentalist.
Similarly, I have my doubts about the reaches of constructivism. Visible in
many schools of education, sure. Identifiable among individual teachers and
principals, absolutely. But right next to constructivists you'll find other
teachers who may fail their students *just as much* as constructivists and
refuse to change even more.
I am aware of Lagemann' view, but I am not sure she takes into account the
kind of strictures I believe result from Dewey's thinking.
As to Cremin's account of progressive education, it is reasonable to contend
that the Progressive Education Association did lose connection with Dewey's
philosophy--Counts' "Dare Progressive Education be Progressive" speech in
1932 being a watershed event (actually, of course, Counts' views were never
adopted). That the Association changed is one thing, that "progressive
education" changed is another. Citing Cremin: Pondering the relationship
between the PEA and progressive education and like pondering the
relationship between religion and a church or between ideology and a
political party. The PEA changed, but did "progressive education?"
More relevant to the matter of doctrine and the ideas imported to the
schools are the progressive and neo progressive nature of the
recommendations about sound teaching practice issued by the National
Education Association and the U. S. Office of Education (also by the U. S.
Bureau of Education). Although not developmentalist in the Rousseauian
sense (in later years), they were clearly premised on what I have termed
Dewey's interactionist form of developmentalism. One could argue that
Rousseauian views went into eclipse (only to reemerge in the late sixties),
but the "developmentalism" to which I refer is a broader doctrine.
Again, thanks for your comments.