<p>For what it’s worth (maybe little), an article I wrote for homeschoolers over the weekend:</p>
<p>(Part One)</p>
<p>Schools Make the Kids Dumb(er)</p>
<p>Now that got your attention, didn’t it?</p>
<p>I know what at least some of you may be thinking. The infamous homeschooling author has taken a cheap shot. On what basis can he possibly make such a wild, categorical, and overreaching claim? And, even if there is some truth to the argument, why make it here? </p>
<p>These thoughts have crossed my own mind as well. But, with a sigh, I’m continuing to write. You’ll soon find out (I hope) that it isn’t a cheap shot, and that folks much more knowledgeable about such things than I am are the ones making the claim. But I throw myself at the mercy of my homeschooling readers, with the following pleadings: A) I am more than aware that the vast majority of parents in this country are not prepared to homeschool their children, and that, as a society we have a stake in the future of all children, not just those fortunate enough to be homeschooled; and B) In my experience, when it comes to education, most everything about school is wrongheaded, but if we can understand in some detail precisely what it is schools get wrong, chances are we won’t stumble into the same mistakes.</p>
<p>Anyway, you know the usual drill. The state (or local) level data on those high-stakes tests are released to the local press. A bunch of public officials say that grades are higher than ever. The schools are doing a great job, though there’s still room for improvement. And if only we had more money! No attempt will be made to follow the same kids year after year so that we might find out whether what happened in the classroom actually made any difference. There will be occasional outliers, but, on the whole it is predictable that, when you examine the charts in the local newspaper, scores by school will reflect local real estate values. There won’t be any mention of the real statistical anomalies, such as the fact that every state is above the national average in test scores. (Don’t ask me how that is possible - the new math is not my strong suit.)</p>
<p>Since the introduction of intelligence testing in the early part of the 20th Century, scores on so-called “objective”, criterion-referenced tests have increased in a consistent manner. Until the 1990s, tests scores had to be recentered every 15 years or so to reflect improved performance. The “Flynn Effect”, named after Australian political scientist James R. Flynn who first described the phenomena, mostly reflects improved performance in the “bottom half” of the population, resulting at least in part from improved nutrition and environmental conditions, as well as increased exposure to scholastic skills and perhaps to testing itself. </p>
<p>And then sometime, it seems around the late 1980s/early 1990s, the process ground to a halt, not just in the United States, but abroad as well. Last January (2006), I came across the work of Professors Michael Shayer and Philip Adey of Kings College at the University of London. Adey and Shayer have been following the results of tens of thousands of children on intelligence tests over the past 30 years. And their findings? Eleven-year-old children are, “now on average between two and three years behind where they were 15 years ago” in terms of cognitive and conceptual development.</p>
<p>These are no fly-by-night researchers. Shayer and Adey have for decades been two of the foremost lights in British education. Their work is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Britain’s leading thinktank on matters related to education. Previous research by Shayer in the 1980s had validated the use of particular standardized measures, unchanged since 1976, as predictive of general levels of performance, and had, in fact, formed the basis of nationwide intervention models for poor-performing students. His work has since been replicated on three continents.</p>
<p>“It’s a staggering result,” stated Shayer, “But the figures just don’t lie. The results have been checked, rechecked, and peer reviewed.” “It is shocking,” said Adey, “The general cognitive foundation of 11- and 12-year olds has taken a big dip.” The test, noted cognitive scientist Denise Ginsberg, measures both general intelligence and “higher level brain functions.” “It is nothing less than the ability of children to handle new, difficult ideas.” </p>
<p>The results have already caused experts in England to question whether the standardized national tests they have been using are of long-term benefit to learning, and cast doubt, according to Paul Black, another educational luminary at King’s College, on claims that standards are in fact improving.</p>
<p>The articles I read noted that the study was to be published in 2007 in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. I decided not to wait that long, so I contacted Adey and Shayer directly and they were gracious enough to send me an advance copy. (If you would like one, send me an e-mail, though note that much of it is quite technical.) Without going into too much detail, the large drops in competency between 1976-2000 were evident. But, and more striking, the declines seem to have accelerated since, even as schools were implementing test-normed “higher standards”, adhering to “National Numeracy and Literacy” projects.</p>
<p>In press accounts, Adey and Shayer are somewhat circumspect when it comes to explaining the observed mass cognitive retardation. “I would suggest,” says Shayer, “that the most likely reasons are the lack of experiential play in primary schools, and the growth of a video-game, TV culture. Both take away the kinds of hands-on play that allows kids to experience how the world works in practice and to make informed judgments about abstract concepts.” </p>
<p>Adey went a bit further. “By stressing the basics – reading and writing – and testing like crazy you reduce the level of cognitive stimulation. Children have the facts but they are not thinking very well. And they are not getting hands-on physical experience of the way materials work. Parents should switch off the television and sit children around the dinner table to debate issues such as ‘What should we have done about the whale in the Thames?’” (For information on the whale in the Thames, visit <a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/20/britain.whale/index.html[/url]”>www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/20/britain.whale/index.html</a> )</p>
<p>In the article itself, it is evident that Adey and Shayer are aware of some of the contradictions inherent in their work. In the tradition of the child development pioneer Jean Piaget related to the formation of intelligence, of which the authors are a part, it is “the whole everyday environmental experience of the child that drove cognitive development, with schooling possibly playing only a minor part in the process.” On the other hand, it is now a given within the educational orthodoxy that school should be able to play a more significant role, and the evidence now suggests that it does – negatively. Adey and Shayer’s articles concludes, “Perhaps the next major Government objective in education should be to address the question: in focusing teachers’ attention on the specifics of the 3Rs only, what has been lost from the earlier primary practice of attending to the development of the whole person of the child?”</p>
<p>Homeschoolers don’t have to live inside that contradiction. I note that despite Adey and Shayer’s research conclusions, they remain focused on where the teachers’ attention should be, rather than that of the kids. Realistically, and given who their employers are, perhaps that is asking too much of them. But in the spirit of learning from the seemingly demonstrated success of schools in retarding children’s intellectual development, we can at least take a hint. Want your kids to be better at math? Throw out the workbook pages, let them play in puddles, bake some cakes, grow some vegetables, assist you with map directions. Want them to read better? Let them help you with the shopping, choose the videos, sort the mail, and provide them with enough experiences so they’ll want to make use of the reading skill. Oh, and lots of good conversation – precisely what they will never get sitting in those little chairs behind those little desks never to be seen anywhere else in the real world.</p>
<p>Glad we’re homeschooling.</p>