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Responding to Readers on ‘High Level’ Thinking and More

By Deborah Meier — January 31, 2008 4 min read
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Dear Diane,

You are so right—both about language misuse and the idea that we need to pay teachers, parents and kids for test scores! We may disagree a bit on the vocational ed issue—more on that at a later time. I’m going to digress for a long moment (1,000 words) to respond to some of our readers’ inquiries and arguments. Readers are urged to go to the comment section (see below) and read them yourselves, and then add your two cents—or more.

Thought one. I asked Erin Johnson to give me countries (excluding city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore) that consistently outperformed the US. Here’s the list: Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands and Korea.

Erin says this is based on 2000 and 2003 test scores. Of course, we are assuming that the data is trustworthy: that all populations are included, that approximately the same percentage of students are still in school at the age at which the tests are given, that the translations are equally good etc, etc. Also, one needs to believe that such test are measuring more than I think they do. But still…. (Note “Instructivist”: even thermometers are not always a reliable way to tell if you are sick.)

Interestingly, in that list of six, all are very small compared to the USA and, except for Korea (I assume South Korea), they are (to the best of my knowledge) all advanced welfare states (compared to the USA) in terms of health care, etc. Income differentials are also less extreme. This might mean that tests are measuring other qualities that indirectly affect schooling. (See article by Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein in The American Prospect, October 2007). Rothstein also comments that differences may be real but small. The top 15 may all differ by a few more or less questions right. Also, just which of these—surely not all?—outperform our economy?

Two. Any nasty cracks about lawyers, businessmen and 22-year-olds running NYC’s Department of Education—which several readers chided us for—are not an attack on any of these categories of people. It’s just that while I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I were asked to be in charge of responding to the current banking crisis or reorganizing legal training, I’m troubled at how comfortable lawyers and bankers are at making decisions in my field. I think my opinions on both business and law are worth hearing—and I’m glad to hear theirs on K-12 schooling. But I shudder to realize that they are literally “in charge” of it. They fail both the vision and experience test for being “president” of schooling.

Three. Now for the fascinating issue that Daniel Polansky raised, and which perhaps Cal was also suggesting. That there is something unreal about my claiming that all (or almost all) students can engage in “high level” thinking. You’ve got me, Daniel! I fell into the trap of using a short-cut phrase I actually hate, and for just the reason Daniel aptly notes. If there’s a “high,” it’s only because there’s a “low.” It’s the dilemma we face whenever we insist on comparative terminology. No matter how fast the kids get in line to come in from recess there will also be exactly the same number at the end of the line—one. And one at the front, and so on and so forth.

What we have grown accustomed to calling “high level thinking"—and which somehow most rich kids are assumed to possess—is the smarts to think “abstractly,” to be interested and able to be playful about abstract ideas, to pursue puzzling anomalies with curiosity and tenacity, to find the world interesting and to wonder “how come” and “so what”? (And to feel entitled to be taken seriously.)

Properly taught we can all be far more musical than we realize. Some will even have a knack that places them on a very different level of “play”—giftedness. But there’s no basic divide between folks who are good with “their hands” vs. “their heads.” Read Mike Rose’s “The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker.” There is no doubt that I was smarter and wiser than the 5-year-olds in my class—but there were “abstract” observations that my students made that pushed me intellectually. They weren’t being “cute,” they were playing with ideas that pushed my adult thinking, to a “higher level”? Read my first book, “The Power of Their Ideas,” for more on this subject. I could go on forever. But it’s a capacity that is insufficiently exercised in our schools, even for kids at the top of the socioeconomic ladder.

So much of our language leads us to make unnecessary comparisons that lead us into shallow traps. Like Daniel, I’ve been annoyed at the rhetoric of “all children can learn.” It’s an incomplete sentence. A good sound bite. But, learn what? Mice learn, too. It turns out they, too, learn how to behave—get in line, raise their paws, walk silently through the maze, etc.

I am arguing that virtually all humans can learn the same “kind” of stuff that rich kids do. (The rich can learn more, too!) But, yes, it takes a different kind of setting than the one I sadly see in most of our schools. Too often, elementary school is not a place where children can explore ideas and make powerful observations. Few are the schools in which “Ignorance” (like disagreement) is prized. It used to drive me crazy how kids who couldn’t be dragged away from an activity that fascinated them at age 5 were considered ADD, unable to sit still and learn a year later. Ever wonder why parents in so many schools greet their children at 3 p.m. with questions about whether they were “good” in school today?

Given the reality of life, can we get kids to learn all the things we want them to by 18? But 18 is only about 1/5 of our life span. I only got interested in math at the age of 35. Big deal. But what I never doubted was that I was smart enough to do some things well and smart enough to join most of the conversations that would shape the future.

That’s the strand in “progressive” education that appealed to me.

Diane?

Deborah

The opinions expressed in Bridging Differences are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.