#learning diversity

Infinite Learning Diversity

The Vanguard School is an independent, co-educational boarding and day school for students who learn differently. Vanguard strives to ensure each student aspires to higher educational opportunities and independent life.

Eagle Hill School believes:

• that every student can learn.

• that every person who interacts with a student is a teacher.

• that learning differently demands teaching differently.

• that the foremost responsibility for pedagogical decisions lies with individual teachers.

• that all teachers should have the necessary resources for implementing the curriculum.

• that parent partnerships are an essential component in the pursuit of academic and social development.

• that we must encourage students to learn about learning and to form their own beliefs in a search for intellectual autonomy.

• that personal and social growth must be nurtured alongside intellectual development.

• that the exploration of the arts and exposure to athletics and physical fitness are essential components in the development of independent, curious, and critical thinkers.

• that we should cultivate in our students a sense of moral responsibility for their thoughts and actions.

• that we should inspire our students to be global students who embrace the differences in the world that they will inherit.

Creativity: Is It Quantifiable?

I am struck, lately, by the emphasis in academia on and about social and environmental determinants that have been implemented for the sole purpose of regarding the assessment of creativity in relation to novelty and originality.  Yet for application purposes, I am curious about the distinction between major creative products like notable works of art or technology, and “lesser” creative products…

Sometimes it’s hard to see how our beliefs confine us or funnel us in a certain direction, especially when those beliefs are widely shared. Like invisible tracks our unexamined beliefs about all kinds of things lead us inexorably to preconceived ends thus reinforcing the belief. What’s kind of sneaky about beliefs is that we are often oblivious not only to that very process but also to the fact that we even hold a particular belief at all. Take for example the ubiquitous latent math-phobe. He has an unnamed inkling that math is not for him. When the time of the unwelcome math test rolls around he feels uncomfortably disarmed but briefly opens the textbook to study. Quickly frustrated by the intimidating look of the problems he halfheartedly scratches out a few exercises and resigns himself to his fate. Next day he does poorly on the test: Fear confirmed. Our latent math-phobe is on the long, familiar road to mathematical mediocrity. Now, imagine the effects of a more generalized belief, like say the widely held belief among secondary school students that school is “bad.” When one of the many adherents of this belief is pressed to explain further, she might be apt to say, “School is boring,” or “Teachers are mean,” “It’s a waste of time.” And so she ambles along the broad, unwinding path of academic apathy, confirmed at every sign post that indeed this is her destined route. It’s easy enough for us to see how someone else’s beliefs can have a cumulative effect on that person’s long-term prospects of defining or reaching goals. What’s harder is to examine and question our own beliefs that are often so ingrained that we can only with difficulty distinguish them from facts.

When it comes to education, most of us would probably subscribe to the belief that smart people succeed and less-than-smart people fall short. And in this case, when we say “smart” we mean possessing some innate capacity to do well at performing certain mental tasks; remembering facts, manipulating ideas, applying rules in a variety of circumstances, reading, writing, calculating, etc. There seems little doubt that some folks possess greater facility for performing these tasks than others. The correlation between (one way of looking at) academic achievement and intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, is in fact well established: No surprise since intelligence tests were designed to predict academic success. A wealth of recent research suggests that motivation and other personality traits are actually at play here. When it comes to innate ability other recent research actually suggests that the construct of working memory is a more powerful predictor of academic potential than IQ.  The problem is that working memory is also very constant, (not in absolute terms since working memory tends to increase with age-related development), but in relative terms. In other words, a student who starts out his academic career with a working memory capacity around the 10th percentile relative to his classmates is unlikely to increase this capacity in relative terms throughout his schooling.  But if we look at the big picture as educators who want to improve overall outcomes the belief that “intelligence” (or even working memory) predicts success isn’t very helpful: It exacerbates any objective differences in potential and probably inhibits the development of the majority of students. A complicating factor is the associated dubious belief that academic success is defined in terms of an absolute hierarchy: It’s a competition, and only the best performers are successful. Therefore, by definition the majority of students are unsuccessful.

Here is where it would be helpful and appropriate to question the belief that “smart” students will be successful and those lacking innate intelligence won’t. First of all, no one performs academic tasks effortlessly or automatically: Everyone needs to learn and to practice. Some “smart” students may respond easily to traditional instruction whereas others may respond better to other methods. Secondly, even if some folks do seem to find such tasks easier to master than others, does that mean that the ease of mastering some academic skills is the key to overall success? Probably not. So, the meaningful (and more malleable) factor when considering academic progress isn’t inborn “smarts.” If everyone needs practice, and practice requires effort, diligence, and persistence, wouldn’t those qualities be more important for making gains than a person’s IQ or allotment of working memory? Isn’t such a belief, that academic success is almost entirely dependent on an unearned, unchangeable, innate trait, to some extent just a manifestation of the base human tendency to sort ourselves into a hierarchy, with the consequence that the students who have also developed this belief from early on learn to fit themselves and their peers into the smart/dumb hierarchy by early elementary school?

When looked at in this light, this belief seems eminently incongruous with the values of a democratic society that espouses equality. It smacks uncomfortably of social Darwinism, or worse. But keep in mind that the American conception of equality is one of equality of opportunity – the ability to use your natural talents to set yourself apart from others, to stand above the crowd. It is, after all, a competition: the playing field should be fair, but not everyone wins.  But in recent years it seems that many Americans have become sort of vaguely aware of the unhelpfulness of the idea that success is just the product of some people’s inborn talent, that there are born winners and losers, while at the same time remaining unable to shake off the old notion entirely. We cling to the paradigm of life as competition, but at the same time increasingly we hate to see people lose. So we can observe strange phenomena in the classrooms and on the playing fields of America: In classrooms across the land motivational posters claim that every student is “smart” (presumably in his or her own way). Every youth soccer participant is a trophy-winning star. America’s children, like those of Lake Wobegone, are all apparently above average.  But could it be, as Malcolm Gladwell eloquently argues in Outliers, that what we typically call success is far more attributable to circumstance and character traits than to giftedness or natural genius? And, if so, wouldn’t that be a valuable message, or belief, to pass on to students? Even if we take as a given that talent or smarts has something to do with success, it’s far from the whole picture, and it’s really not helpful to dwell on something you can’t change. Wouldn’t promoting diligence, self-improvement, and cooperation be more helpful than denoting inborn talent as the key to success?

One helpful way to evaluate the influence of widely held beliefs is to examine parallel beliefs held in other cultures. This kind of comparison can offer refreshing alternatives that one might otherwise never stumble upon. Researcher Jin Li has been doing just that. Her work shows an interesting contrast between the beliefs of children about learning in some Asian cultures and in American culture. In general American children acquire the belief early on (often by age 4) that being smart leads to academic success, whereas in contrast many Chinese children believe that trying hard is not only the key to success but also a moral imperative. While neither approach is judged to be inherently better, and it is readily acknowledged that the changing of cultural perspectives is profoundly difficult, it is reasonably posited that a conscious adjustment of attitude can yield benefits.

Those who have chosen the path of homeschooling have a pile of many choices and decisions ahead of them. One of the methods for consideration is that of unschooling. But before we go into the pros and cons of unschooling, what does unschooling actually mean?

Unschooling is the only true free education and it is a belief system rather than a method. It is primarily about process not content nor is it method of instruction, it’s a different way at looking at learning. Unschooling is following in the child’s lead, allowing them to learn from a wide variety of experiences and resources. Unschooling is like the open classroom research and theories. If kids are given the right learning environment, they will learn. The term Unschooling does not mean kids will not learn, it means learning without the trappings of teachers, faculty, and environment of school.<!--more-->

Trying to get the essence of unschooling is like trying to get the essence of life. For most, unschooling is life. Our lives are on a balance of needs and understandings, and learning is a part of all of it, not separate from it. There are many, many things that kids will certainly open doors to. An unschooling moment would be that learning is learning whether or not it’s planned, recorded, or on the menu.

The term unschooling was created by John C. Holt, known as the father of the modern homeschooling movement. It is a form of learning that the child teaches to him/herself rather than the teacher or parent doing it. Unschooling is also known as, natural learning, experience based learning, or independent learning.

From what I’ve read online about “unschooling,” is that kids are expressing their own ways of being taught taking one small step through life. I think it’s great for what these kids are doing, they’re learning about the world around them by actually doing hands on activities and actually going places that (they) want to learn in an atmosphere of freedom and prosperity.