Knowing and Doing - Part Two
Approximately 70 years ago, a very interesting and revealing experiment took place. It was, and is, known as the 'Eight-Year Study'.
The basic facts of the study are as follows. Some 30 schools, located in different geographical regions of the United States, participated in a program that was fashioned co-operatively by students and teachers.
In general, although there were some small degrees of variation in the form that different programs assumed, the curricula across these schools tended to be ungraded, interdisciplinary, emphasizing understanding rather than memorization, and was experiential oriented, rather than rooted in textbooks or lectures. In addition, competition was replaced with collaboration among students, and, as well, there was a sharing of power between teachers and students with respect to the direction which learning took.
The progress of more than 1500 students from the thirty experimental schools was matched with a control group of about the same size who went about education in the usual way - that is, schooling which was immersed in competition, grades, teacher control, textbooks, memorization, and treatment of subjects as being isolated and unconnected to one another.
In order to make sure that students in the experimental schools were not disadvantaged with respect to post-secondary opportunities, the assistance of hundreds of colleges was enlisted to disregard their usual admissions criteria (e.g., grades) with respect to such students. Once admitted, the academic status of these students was monitored for four more years (thus, the title: 'Eight-Year Study), along with the progress of their counterparts from the aforementioned control group.
The two groups were compared along a number of dimensions. These included: drop-out rate; grades; intellectual curiosity, and extracurricular activities.
The results from the study demonstrated that the experimental group did either as well, or better than, the control group across the range of variables that were examined. In fact, one of the findings was that, within the context of the study, the greater the differences between the experimental curriculum and the usual or standard college-preparatory program, the better was the college record of the former relative to the latter.
Since the 'Eight-Year Study' there has been considerable research that has lent support to the forgoing findings. When students are given more control over there learning, when educators are more willing to listen, or more willing to serve as resource people and learning facilitators rather than didactic bankers who make regular deposits in the minds of students, when experiential oriented learning is emphasized over rote memorization, when collaboration among students is encouraged rather than competition, when grading and extrinsic rewards give way to non-graded, intrinsically motivated learning, when individual differences are treated with respect rather than ignored, then, in study after study, the results have indicated that either students do as well as, if not better than, students who are taught through the usual regimen of schooling.
The former students tend to retain basic material better, are more interested in the subject matter, as well as appear to be more creative and resourceful in problem solving and adapting to new situations, than are their more traditionally bound counterparts. Moreover, and, perhaps, of even greater significance, is that when the context of learning is altered along the lines outlined above, the very people who tend to fall through the cracks of traditional models of education - namely, the poor, racial minorities, and children whose individual differences make them odd-person out in 'regular' classrooms - these students tend to be the greatest beneficiaries of educational programs that are less authoritarian, less competitive, less regimented, less given to rote memorization, and less rooted in extrinsic modes of motivation such as grading.
If educators are exposed to the foregoing studies and do not do what they know, then shame on them. If the schools of education know of such data and results but do not pass them on to the future generations of educators through curricula that are firmly rooted in such findings, then shame on them, and if they do not know about these studies, then, they are just plain incompetent and unworthy of the responsibilities which surround assisting the would-be educators of tomorrow - the people whose minds and hearts will be shaping the minds and hearts of many generations of children.
If none of the foregoing gives one pause for serious reflection on the deplorable condition of all too much schooling today - and irrespective of how well students do on artificial, arbitrary, and irrelevant standardized tests, then, consider a study by Stanley Milgram that was conduced in the early 1960s in New Haven, Connecticut. Ostensibly, the study was about learning and memory.
More specifically, advertisements were placed in a New Haven newspaper seeking participants who would be paid to serve as 'teachers' or 'learners' in a study that, supposedly, was intended to explore the manner in which punishment affects memory. In truth, the experimental set-up was organized so that the people who responded to the ad were always the 'teacher', and the 'learner' was a confederate of Milgram's who was posing as just another individual who saw the ad and was volunteering his services.
Another confederate of the experiment played the role of a researcher whose primary job was to outline the nature of the experiment to the participants, appear authoritative and official, and to encourage the 'teacher' to complete the experiment. Once the experiment began, this 'researcher' would not speak or interact with the experimental subject (i.e., 'teacher') except to tell the latter, whenever that person hesitated, to encourage the participant to complete the experiment, or that completing the test was very important, or something similar.
The counterfeit learning task consisted in the 'teacher' saying word pairs, and, then, testing the 'learner' by repeating the first word of the pair, followed by four words, only one of which was correct. If the 'learner' provided the correct answer, the 'teacher' would proceed to the next word pair on the list.
If the 'learner' provided an incorrect answer, the lab was set up with a machine that was said to be a shock generator and came equipped with 30 switches that were set at increasingly higher intensities, ranging from: 'Slight Shock' (15 volts), to: 'Danger: Severe Shock' (435 volts). Each time the 'learner' produced an incorrect response, the experiment required that the switch for the next level of shock be thrown.
The 'teacher' and 'learner' were placed in separate rooms. The 'learner' was strapped into a chair that was wired to 'transmit' shocks delivered by the 'teacher' whenever the 'learner' responded by selecting the wrong switch that turned on one of four lights in the room where the 'teacher' was situated. In addition, the 'teacher' and 'learner' were connected by an intercom system.
Prior to the start of the saying of the word pairs, the 'teacher' observed the 'learner' getting strapped into the hot seat. Moreover, during this time, the 'learner' would say something to the effect of: "I hope the shocks are not too bad because I have a heart condition."
Once the 'teacher' returned to the room where the shock generator was located and started giving the word pairs, followed by the memory test, the early part of the 'learning' experiment would proceed uneventfully, with some correct answers and some incorrect answers. When the latter occurred, the teacher administered the next level of shock.
Initially, the comments of the 'learner' after 'receiving' shocks (that were, actually, no shocks at all) from the teacher were low-key, light, or humorous. However, when the switch marked 75 volts was thrown, the learner was heard to moan audibly over the intercom, and as the supposed intensity of the shocks increased with each, ensuing, incorrect answer, the pronouncements of the 'learner' became more desperate - such as: "the shocks are becoming painful"; or, "Get me out of here"; or, "I can't stand the pain;" or, just a howling or screaming of someone in considerable pain, or a banging on the walls; or, finally, just whimpering and, then, silence.
Each time a 'teacher' hesitated when hearing some of these verbal utterances of pain, the confederate 'researcher' would calmly tell or encourage the 'teacher' to proceed with the test. Despite the fact that many of the 'teachers' were experiencing tremendous conflict, discomfort, and emotional distress with respect to what appeared to be going on, Milgram discovered that 63% of the 'teachers' were prepared to throw all 30 switches, including the last one marked: 'Danger: Severe Shock'.
Over the next decade (until a set of ethical guidelines were implemented that prevented experiments like the foregoing being run) there were around 130 additional studies - including some conducted in a number of other countries - which replicated and augmented Milgram's findings concerning the issues of obedience and compliance. Furthermore, while the basic experimental format was altered - by Milgram and other researchers - in various ways to see what, if any, effect such changes would produce in the experimental outcomes, and although in the case of some of these changes the percentage of people who were willing to complete the sequence of switches dropped to 20%, most studies generated obedience figures of between 50 and 65%.
The people who 'volunteered' for these studies were neither sociopaths nor sadists. They were average people representing a cross-section of society, and one wonders how this could be.
There has been much research to try to identify the dimensions of personality, family life, socio-economic status, and value systems that might create a context out of which such obedience is likely to emerge - a compulsion to act in a socially defined way despite the pain or difficulties which are being generated for others as a result of such actions. Obviously, one critical question is the extent to which, if any, the authoritarian properties inherent in much of modern schooling - both public and private - induces students to become inclined to be obedient to the presence of authority figures under various social conditions that may require actions that cause pain to other people.
However, there may be darker implications residing within the different obedience and compliance studies - something which is not about possible tendencies toward obedience being acquired by students as a result of authoritarian schooling structures. The potential problem here concerns teachers.
Although Milgram seemed to be both surprised and fascinated by the manner in which the experimental subjects would exhibit intense physiological and emotional signs of distress in relation to their behavior - that is, being obedient to the urgings of authority to finish the test, there is no indication that Milgram, himself, was distressed by what he was doing to his subjects. Apparently, he felt completely at ease with his role of enticing 63% of the subjects to run the complete set of 30 switches.
In other words, Milgram should have added himself to the data pool, because he was doing, in actuality, to his subjects what his subjects only thought they were doing to the 'learners'. Milgram was obedient to the scientific imperative to find out things no matter what harm might be inflicted upon others in the process.
It doesn't matter what rationalization Milgram, and others like him, use. The fact of the matter is that he (and the rest) knowingly caused people great physical, emotional, and moral pain, and he did this not once or twice, but again, and again, and again, and again - he did it for all of the subjects who 'went the distance' in the basic experimental design ... and, to some extent, he did this even with respect to those who stopped short of throwing the complete set of 30 switches, but who, nonetheless, may have experienced tremendous conflict before saying: 'no more'.
As saddening as the truth is that there were such a large percentage of people who were inclined to see things through to the bitter end, these subjects only did this once. Milgram did it many, many times, and why did he do this? - because the experiment required it! because the scientific process 'required' (?) it! because the search for knowledge 'required' (?) it!
The only apparent difference between Milgram and his subjects is that he experienced little, or no, physical, emotional, moral, or spiritual difficulty in relation to the pain he put others through. In addition, as noted above, he did many times what his subjects did only once.
The possible parallels with schooling are, in a rather macabre fashion, intriguing. If one puts educators in the role of Milgram, they, too, believe, apparently, that irrespective of whatever pain they put students through, the process is warranted because authority requires that it be done - not because available evidence warrants this (which it does not); or, because one can prove (which one can't) that the damage done is compensated for by what is accomplished (namely, the ability of a small percentage of people to do well on various standardized test and who, very likely, would have done just as well, if not better, if, they not been treated like so many medieval vassals who are subject to the whims and fancies of their 'lord liege', the educator); or, because one can show (which one can't) that it is the moral thing to do; or, because one can demonstrate (which one can't) that the future of civilization depends on inflicting such pain on 'those who are about to die' by entering the modern coliseum known as school.
Like Milgram, educators inflict their pain on the unsuspecting, innocent, naive, students, not once or twice, but again, and again, and again. Like Milgram, all too many educators are caught up in their own obedience feed-back cycle with respect to which they do not have the understanding, competence, or courage to break free - in other words, to be like the 37% of experimental subjects who refused to be obedient to the dictates of the experiment. Like Milgram, all too many educators, believe that encouraging, if not forcing, students to go on with the experiment despite the obviously increased levels of distress and difficulty that are encountered at enhanced levels of punishment, is quite appropriate.
One can add food for thought to the foregoing by noting the work of Martin Seligman (also done in the 60s) concerning 'learned helplessness'. In somewhat abbreviated terms, Seligman discovered that when dogs were placed in an experimental apparatus through which they were subjected to repetitions of painful shocks from which they could not escape, eventually, the dogs tended to retire to one corner or another, lie down, and just whimper as the shocks continued to be administered.
Furthermore, Seligman observed something else. Once the dogs had been conditioned to their circumstances of inescapable, repeated pain, even when they were shown a way out of their situation - and, sometimes, dragged through a door to demonstrate there was no pain on the other side - nevertheless, when placed back in the 'room of pain', the dogs would tend to just lie down and continue to experience the pain.
Learned helplessness may be endemic in the hallowed halls of 'schooldom'. In fact, not just students exhibit many characteristics of this pathology, but so do many of the educators.
Both students and teachers are placed in an experimental apparatus called school from which there is little opportunity to escape and within which pain, of one sort or another, is inflicted on a regular basis. Teachers 'shock' students. Students 'shock' teachers. Both are 'shocked' by, and, in turn, 'shock': principals, school boards, superintendents, and so on.
Even when someone comes along and shows the conditioned victims of schooling (i.e., students, parents, teachers, principals, administrators, and school boards) how to escape the pain, many of them just retreat to their respective corners and continue to whimper while trying to endure an intolerable, yet, totally unnecessary, situation.
Depression, performance anxiety, poor self-esteem, learning difficulties, and a variety of physical pathologies are all traceable to the effects of learned helplessness. Yet, the beat goes on, and educators continue to act in ways that are completely at odds with what is known.
Knowing and doing! As someone once said: 'Betwixt cup and lip is many a slip'.
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