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Years ago, an SDSU friend and I were sitting through another cooperative learning activity in a college class, an activity we knew would require as much time and effort spent on administrating the group tasks as learning the actual course material. Someday, we decided, we would write a book on cooperative learning, titled Saddled with Idiots.
We haven't written that book yet. Thanks to Sibby, maybe we don't have to. Mitchell's busiest blogger wins my whole-hearted agreement this morning with a critique of cooperative learning. Responding to a report in that Sioux Falls paper about the Sioux Falls School District's renewed emphasis on small groups and cooperative learning in the classroom, Sibby offers this Randian comment (Atlas Shrugged, anyone?) from Dr. George C. Leef:
The obvious problem with cooperative learning is that the smarter or more diligent students do most of the work, but must share the credit. To the theorists, this approach to education performs the vital task of informing the bright kids that they have to "share" their talents, and of discouraging them from using their ability to their own benefit [G. C. Leef, "The War Against Excellence," EducationReport.org, 2005.04.11].
Amazingly, Sibby gets through the whole post without mentioning socialism, Marxism, or secular humanism. He does conclude that the Sioux Falls School District's embrace of cooperative learning serves as proof that schools are really just "training grounds for corporations."
Sounds like Sibby's been reading John Taylor Gatto, who makes the argument that corporations and the ruling elites (that would be the plutocracy you and I need to keep our eyes on, Sibby!) want our schools to turn out cookie-cutter kids indoctrinated in groupthink.
It may sound wacky, but on this one, Sibbby, I'm with you a hundred percent. We don't need training in playing nicely with each other. Mom and Dad can handle that. Let schools and students focus on gaining as much academic knowledge as they can handle. Don't hold any kids back with cooperative learning.
Cory,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Here's a link for your edification, enrichment, enjoyment, and/or pleasure.
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.27962/pub_detail.asp
I may not agree with everything Murray concludes, he is always thought provoking.
Now and then some of us not too bright dudes can ask questions that make the real whizbang workers and memorizers actually think.
ReplyDeleteTo mash metaphors or whatever...Educators should probably not put all their eggs in any one basket. There are too many learning styles for that.
Anything that gets a bit away from tons of rote memorization is a good thing. Some kids need practice pounding sand into rat holes.
Leo -- great article from Murray! He shows No Child Left Behind is a denial of reality, not to mention a practical failure.
ReplyDeleteDouglas -- I agree: we never know who's going to come up with a bright idea or the perfect question. But suppose your choice is turning a bright ninth grader loose to learn basic calculus or serve as a peer tutor for the remedial math students. Which option do you choose? (There could be good arguments for both sides here....)
Or maybe the bright ninth grader does some of both and finds he has a gift for teaching? Maybe it's exposure to multiple things, because some people excel as entrepreneurs and other need structure, and finding out about yourself is a big part of education. People don't fit in holes, even if we like that hole.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter was exposed to group learning in middle school and hated it. She did the work, the rest got the credit. Same thing happened later in college. But if she didn't do the work, it wouldn't get done. Some of the kids didn't care what grade they got and didn't want to work; she cared and wanted a good grade so had to do most of the work. Then they all got the same grade, even those who contributed squat. It isn't fair no matter how you look at it and is a poor way of teaching.
ReplyDeleteI suppose cooperative learning could be used as a tool of the plutocracy. But almost anything, properly morphed and twisted, can be exploited that way.
ReplyDeleteIf my memory is intact, colleges have been "job training" grounds ever since about 1980. As a student in the 1970s, some of that was already in evidence, but there were plenty of us who still enjoyed learning for its own sake. I spent most of the 1980s in the sort of oblivion Miami and the Florida Keys can inflict on some people; but when I re-emerged into the world around 1988, I saw androids all around me.
What happened? Surely it could not all be blamed on the Gipper. Could it be that kids just got more shallow in general? Why not blame it on Hollywood, then?
Some people don't mind helping others to learn, but the motivations can be hard to identify. I had theories in mathematics and cosmology as early as the ninth grade, and longed to lecture to classes to share my ideas. I had good teachers there in Rochester, Minnesota. Several of them gave me a whole class session (or two) of all their sections, and just let me stand up there and pretend to be the next Isaac Newton. I do not recall doing it for some higher noble cause. It was just plain fun.
I would not have particularly enjoyed it if I had been forced, however.
Some of the world's greatest scientists -- particularly experimentalists such as Benjamin Franklin or Michael Faraday -- enjoyed giving away their work without expecting compensation. Were they willing tools of the plutocracy? I doubt it. Has their work been exploited by the plutocracy? I think so.
The plutocracy will find its tools no matter what sort of education system we have. The emphasis should, in my opinion, be on learning itself, and on making it reasonably fun. I had a charmed childhood in that respect. My parents and teachers both figured that I would find my way, like a storm across the sea. That's what kids are, anyway: little storms.
Life is mighty short to spend in the "birth, school, work, death" warp zone. I say, Train our kids to be law-abiding, sober citizens and to acquire solid skills in reading, writing, history, mathematics, and science, and then let the corporations adjust to meet the needs of the people, not vice-versa.