Apprenticeship: a very old solution to the Great Schools Crisis
Imagine students as apprentices, gathered around their mentors to learn by example and through collaboration. The idea may be ancient, but it's suited to the 21st-century student.
Mrs. O’Leary’s cow didn’t start the Great Chicago Fire. Yet, my father insisted this was true 100 years after Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Ahern admitted he made up the story. Such is the power of myth.
Teachers didn’t create the Great Washington Schools Crisis, yet this myth has become the common meme of credulous legislators and school boards across our state.
Conspiracy theories abound amongst my teaching colleagues as to who is responsible for the “blame the teacher” dogma promulgated by the current crop of state and local education pols. Some point a finger at the privatizers like the Broad Foundation, while others accuse Charter School supporters or the Alliance for Education. I’ve even heard it said that the National Education Association is behind the move to replace veteran teachers with neophytes.
It doesn’t matter who is responsible. The entire red-herring argument is meshugas. Teachers are not guilty of creating the current education crisis, nor are administrators, parents, legislators, socio-economics, or video games (well, maybe video games).
The blame game is all hooey.
Here is the best-kept education secret of the decade: The 20th-century classroom is dead, but nobody is willing to hold a funeral. And any of the current, misguided attempts to resurrect the system are akin to rebuilding Galloping Gertie with her original blueprints. Like the bridge, the entire system needs redesign.
Unfortunately, education pols clutch worn-out ideologies because they don’t have the nerve to admit that public schools (by design) foster passive learners, discourage productivity, and fail to teach self-discipline. Such an admission would open them up to the scorn of angry parents asking, "Why has this been going on for so long?"
The Two-fold Path is Not Working
Contemporary schools saunter along two converging pathways to ensure students meet basic educational requirements. The first relies on the direct transfer of knowledge vis-à-vis printed (and electronic) media. Schools are repositories of accumulated information organized into 13 discrete subdivisions we call a K-12 education. From one grade to the next, students get their ticket punched until, by virtue of riding the system, they graduate (or drop out).
The other pathway to a well-rounded education is through classroom experiences. Teachers facilitate learning opportunities within a given school year based on material availability, time constraints, and professional creativity. An award-winning teacher like Rafe Esquith, willing to work 12+ hours per day, can be very successful at creating learning opportunities. However, the eight-hour workday is supposed to be the norm in this country, so don’t get your hopes up that every teacher will suddenly morph into an Esquith clone, giving up any personal life for your children. It will not happen.
Depending on the predilections of their students (and classroom composition), effective teachers strike the appropriate balance between direct transfer of knowledge and learning opportunities.
The twofold path used to work well. In fact, it’s ancient. Imagine yourself as a 12th-century Benedictine or Buddhist Monk seated in your cold monastery studying revered texts by candlelight or butter lamp. An Abbot is forever providing you with opportunities to study and illuminate text. The leap to modern schools is not a far cry, just add heat, lights, sheetrock, and flush toilets.
Students as Apprentices
An even older method to acquire and transfer new knowledge is the apprenticeship. Since the Middle Ages skills have been passed from master craftsman to pupil (apprentice) through the hands-on process of learning by doing. Education theorist John Dewey promoted this notion but failed to incorporate one essential element: All apprentices need a master craftsman as mentor and guide. Most skilled trades rely on this system to prepare journeymen or women for a professional life independent of the master craftsman’s tutelage. The efficacy of apprenticeships are evident anywhere humans have shaped and formed raw materials into art, machines, or useful structures.
In 20th-century classrooms the relationship between teacher and pupil is premised on a one-way, vertical transfer of knowledge, where the supremacy of the teacher is based on learning through observation. In the learn-by-doing apprenticeship, a classroom teacher demonstrates skills by doing them with and (prepare yourselves) for the student. A teacher in the role of master craftsman shows the apprentice the correct way to do a task. It’s a mentor relationship where the act of modeling skills is the fundamental instructional tool.
Ironically, industrialized factories replaced the craft guilds in the 19th Century, which seems an appropriate metaphor for how 20th-century schools were eventually configured for educational mass production.
Redesigning Classrooms and Teachers
We can all agree that classroom design has not changed much since monks sat cloistered, gilding holy texts. Typically, long rows of desks or personal workstations are placed in such a manner as to discourage interaction with the teacher or other students. In fact, the teacher holds the position of authority at the front of the room. Students must approach the teacher for information. Or, they are required to raise their hands, often in fear of saying something embarrassing. This hierarchical and antiquated system creates an invisible emotional barrier between student and teacher.
In the apprenticeship classroom, large layout or library tables replace individual desks, and the central classroom focus is toward the middle of the room (or varying walls and windows). This “fishbowl” design forces teachers to actively engage students close up. At each table there is an empty space for the teacher to sit, model, and perform the same tasks as the students. Students work independently or collaboratively depending on the task. If illustrative materials are necessary to make a point, teachers can move themselves, the students, or projection units. In an ideal classroom, multiple flat-screen monitors are strategically mounted, and fed by a technologically savvy teacher, employing 21st-century visual media techniques.
Another argument for reconfiguring classrooms is that proximity allows students to closely observe how mentors solve problems. This is the essence of apprenticeship. Contemporary teachers are imprisoned by their resources at the front of classrooms. Students, then, are compelled to focus on one visual space day after day. While some teachers will argue that this facilitates ease in classroom management, it’s a false premise. In a traditional classroom the best you can hope for from "upfront teaching" is learning by absorption — that is, as long as students are paying attention. Drifting students are the victims of featureless visual information. They have the right to be bored.
Most teachers are guilty of proffering what I refer to as "junk lessons." We all do it. Because we are notorious pack rats, there is the tendency to dust off the same old lessons each year. The goal is noble — to address the grade-level requirements of our pupils. Nevertheless, innovation rarely hails from a filing cabinet. In fact, innovation is frequently spontaneous. To alleviate this bad habit, teachers must be paid for redesigning their curriculum to ensure it is fresh and compelling. This should be done on a three-year cycle in collaboration with colleagues. And I emphasize: The operative word is “paid.” There is no free lunch if you want to redesign schools.
Finally, parents and teachers must address a leviathan cultural phenomenon that has finally come up and bitten us in our collective butts. For younger children we can call it “poor work habits,” and for grades 4-12 let’s view it as the “the lack of self-discipline.”
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Apr 28, 10:03 a.m. Inappropriate
"When the student is ready, the Master will appear"
http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/00000/6000/400/6446/6446.strip.zoom.gif
What's actually interesting that in the business world, even for things like engineering the amount of time a student spends doing a task while in school is less than 6 months of 40hr weeks of work.
And for most other jobs an apprenticeship while not formally setup is required for any new hire.
In the trades of course, apprenticeship is the norm, one doesn't get to be a master carpenter or plumber or whatever without being an apprentice, and then a journeyman.
As for schools beating the creativity out of the students by years of drudgery is a crime. To an enlightened person, it's amazing how a poorly taught curriculum can make the most interesting topic boring causing students to checkout.
In addition, while I'm on my soapbox, poor kids who quickly figure out that they have no chance in going to college no matter how smart they are, need to be given the opportunity to go no matter what their economic circumstances are. Get these grade, pass this entrance exam, and we'll setup a package of loans and grants to guarantee you an education.
This nation cannot afford to lose one genius just because their parents were poor.
Posted Thu, Apr 28, 1:29 p.m. Inappropriate
The author presents an interesting view of educational Utopia; however I beg to quibble with the pragmatism and the effectiveness of the examples already evidence:
Years ago, I responded to an invitation to visit my daughter's classes on "Parents' Day" at Garfield High School, thus totally mortifying her, but it was very instructive for me. Two boys in one class I will never forget completely disrupted the room by fooling around, making noise, making faces and being totally obnoxious. The teacher totally ignored them for reasons I can only speculate about, but I am only glad that it occurred before I reached the "Really Grumpy Age". Today I would likely have grabbed both of them by their collars and physically dragged them to the Principal's office, if not actually punting them in that direction, thus probably landing myself in court with an Assault charge. This is reality, folks. You want to try the wandering-teacher-focusing-on-small-groups-at-a-time m/o in that sort of environment? Have things changed or have they proceeded further downhill he asks rhetorically? Unfortunately today, teachers cannot afford to let such asses sink of their own volition, since they will pull the teachers under with them when they flunk the absurdly incessant testing.
Students raised with the expectations of such hand-holding, effective or not, will receive a true culture shock when entering a university lecture hall with thee hundred of their closest friends and being expected to fend for themselves. Is that situation going to change given the economic imperatives of the day? Not in our lifetimes. And that is not even what I understand is the European university model of: Here are some books; read them and we will talk about them ex post facto. Even the break-out classes after the large lectures I attended at Princeton were taught in the teacher-at-the-head-of-the-class model, and I understand that the educations provided there are widely viewed as of superior quality (better than Harvard or Yale anyway). I will concede that the instructors in the break-out classes were mostly doctoral students and were pretty available for individual help should one solicit it. Also, some liberal arts classes included "Precepts", which were small (maybe 8 student) group discussion sessions with an instructor, but they were going down as too expensive.
We also have the more individual teaching hands-on model in some classrooms already. They are called "laboratories", which inherently exist in the sciences -- biology, chemistry, physics, etc. Note how well students have taken advantage of these benefits to excel in those subjects NOT.
Posted Thu, Apr 28, 5:32 p.m. Inappropriate
First, check out The NOVA Project.
Second, consider the two models for educational structure offered this week at www.saveseattleschools.blogspot.com:
Education Reform version
and
Professional Teacher version
Posted Fri, Apr 29, 10:10 a.m. Inappropriate
There is much to be said for imitation in education. The practice goes far beyond medieval vocational education back to a standard of Greek and Roman education. Yet, imitation is (and was) but one educational tool. I would suggest that in the effort to value an apprentice model of education, the author has cast lecturing as a bit of a straw man. Certain ideas and practices are better suited to lecturing and others to imitation (and more often a combination of both).
A fourth grade lesson on photosynthesis delivered purely by lecture? Misguided. A laboratory session on the historical themes of Johnny Tremain? Also, probably misguided. I think the author is correct in reminding teachers that imitation is a tremendously valuable (and time-intensive) teaching tool. Dewey favored laboratory learning because he was interested in how the learner and the context influence each other. The teacher should be able to plan for the most appropriate learning context, which might include a mix of lecture, imitation, lab, and discussion.
By the way, we have models for the types of classrooms premised upon this model at lower grades. Montessori classrooms. Typically, we see more student engagement and self-discipline in such classes. The Wall street Journal just did a fairly interesting piece on this: http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/04/05/the-montessori-mafia/.
The article is interesting and I agree with many of the arguments here, but I am wary of the general education-reform framework that posits “the problem is X and thus the solution is Y (or not-X).” In many ways, the discussion of a teaching strategy here is almost inappropriate to frame as a matter of educational reform. There are little policy demands (apart from physical classroom design) that flow from a willingness to include more modeling in classrooms.
Posted Tue, May 3, 8:40 a.m. Inappropriate
As a high school English teacher, I agree with much of Paisley's critique of the education paradigm and its shortcomings. I see a growing schism, at least in the district where I teach, between the ground troops in the classrooms -- teachers -- and "the brass" in administrative offices at the district (and state) levels.
The message from admin is that teachers must provide quantifiable assessment data on a regular basis that can be used to measure improvement across the curriculum according to standardized tests and common assessments -- identical tests created and administered by teachers in their departments and among different schools. Hghly-paid data-crunchers provide numbers that shape school policies and priorities, always with an eye on the "upper line" -- the yearly score improvements mandated by the Feds. Terrified of losing funding or face, administrators ratchet up demands for "good data," and allocate funding like investment bankers, looking for the quickest payback -- profits they can point to on a graph. The cost, as in society as a whole, is largely borne by the weakest elements; in the schools, this means loss of funding for elective classes, arts programs, cultural enrichment, and -- yes -- teachers, leading to larger classes of fewer subjects.
Meanwhile, teachers who face the realities of the classroom struggle to manage the human minds, bodies, and souls with whom they share an ongoing messy, imperfect, dynamic struggle toward learning. The standard classroom model described in Paisley's article is prevalent, though in my district an emphasis on cooperative learning and group projects is evident through all 12 years. Teachers are faced with enormous challenges: classrooms of anywhere from 25 (a rare "small class") up to a norm of 30 to 35 students per class; hectic days filled with competing demands and insufficient planning time; students with Individualized Education Plans (IEP's) based on diagnosed learning disorders or disabilities, 504 plans based on diagnosed health issues, and students from every point on the spectrum of maturity, motivation, ability, commitment, mental and physical health, family background, language background, and behavior.
Through this hurricane of real life, teachers are struggling to find a path that meets (or successfully resists) demands from upper echelons of the bureaucracy while hopefully leading students into learning, growth, curiosity, breadth of experience, critical thinking, and good life/learning habits. Many teachers strive for a shift toward apprenticeship, modeling, real-life learning situations, and meaningful engagement with the environment; sailing their frail ships of reform into the typhoon of data-driven mandates is a burn-out scenario.
Readers might be interested in the work of the German pedagogue Martin Wagenschein, whose work on inquiry learning is widely known and practiced in Europe -- the Ecole d'Humanité in Switzerland being one K-12 international school that puts his and other "active learning" ideas into daily practice. See some of Wagenschein's work in English translation here: http://tinyurl.com/3uadkqk
and learn more about the Ecole d'Humanité at www.ecole.ch
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