Mental Models of Schools and Learning
Last month I wrote an entry based on a GLEF Edutopia magazine edition “How to Save Education.” Recently, I have been reading “Schools That Learn”, a tome based on Peter Senge’s “The Fifth Discipline.”
Obviously, there is much discussion on how to reform our educational system. One of the common criticisms of the present system is that we follow an industrial-age model that we just can’t seem to kick. Senge challenges us to re-examine our mental models of schooling and learning, beginning to ask the tough questions nobody seems willing to ask: Why is the system this way? Why do these rules exist? What is the purpose of this practice?
He contends that we keep going around in circles because we haven’t yet asked these tough questions, at least at the proper level, that will compel us to examine our assumptions about learning and schools.
Learning
- Children are deficient and schools fix them. He calls this the “deficit perspective.”
- Learning takes place in the head, not in the body as a whole. Hence, we have many passive classrooms.
- Everyone learns in the same way. Our schools have a one-size-fits all outlook and a drive for conformity. If you don’t fit that model, something is wrong with you.
- Learning takes place in the classroom, not in the world. Learning is viewed as an isolated activity, controlled by people other than the student. It can’t possibly happen outside of the four walls.
- There are smart kids and then there are dumb kids.
Schools
- Schools are run by specialists who maintain control. This is similar to what Weinberger calls gatekeepers. When everyone is a specialist we “just do our job”, and never think about how we relate to the other parts of the system.
- Knowlege is inherently fragmented. Subjects don’t relate. Learn this for 45 minutes...and then go on to this. And never the two shall meet.
- Schools communicate “the truth.” As if there was only one. It’s black and white. You’re either right or your wrong.
- Learning is primarily individualistic and competition accelerates learning. Pushing harder gets better results, right?
We have to question these mental models if we are ever to move the classroom into more student-centered realms. Technology does not easily fit into the mental models that Senge places before us. So until we begin as technology leaders to ask the tough questions, we will be spinning our wheels. And if you look at the track record of technology integration, that is pretty much what has been happening. We’ve made some progress, ever so slowly. But many of us are approaching technology integration with these mental models ingrained. Hence, we have the overlaying of technology, in ineffective ways, over an old, out-dated way of thinking about schools and learning.
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