Trade-Offs Between Content and Understanding

Robert Pondiscio over at the Core Knowledge Blog seems to like this test from 1954 given in an 8th grade history or social studies or civics class (I'm not really sure which).  I'm less impressed.

Yes, the child does better than I could (without studying anyway) at listing random facts about our country: from every position in the cabinet to writing the preamble of the Declaration of Independence verbatim.  But so what?  To me, the test raised two questions:

1.) How much of what he wrote does the child understand?
2.) How much of what he wrote will he remember a day, a year, or a decade later?

Yes, content knowledge is absolutely necessary before we can teach understanding -- kids can't learn why the Declaration of Independence is important if they don't know what it is -- but learning lots of content with very little understanding is no better than learning very little content with lots of understanding.  Indeed, given the ease of accessing information nowadays, it might actually be worse.

If this test were given at the beginning of a longer unit on American government and history, it might be a somewhat useful exercise -- the teacher could make sure the kids know most of the basics about our country before moving on to explaining why these things matter.  But the test is dated May 7th -- so it seems unlikely that it's just a beginning of the year test of content knowledge designed to set the stage for deeper discussion of the topics later.  It's possible that this is actually the child's final exam.  If that's the case, this is an excellent example of how not to teach children.

Even if we're only training our kids for trivia competitions, tests based on rote memorization are almost useless.  For one thing, content without understanding is almost useless.  For another, people remember content better when they also know the context of that content. For example, which test question is better:

1.) What is the system of controlling water called?

2.) How did the invention of irrigation systems change Mesopotamia?

Both questions demand that students understand the same content -- that irrigation systems allow people to control the flow of water -- but the second puts that content knowledge in context.  Who cares if a kid can define the word "irrigation" if he has no idea why irrigation systems are important?  And, just as important, what are the odds the kid will remember that particular funny-sounding word a few weeks later if he's only asked to define it?

The test I've linked to almost exclusively asks questions like #1.  On not a single question is the student required to write a complete sentence or more explaining something.  And if we don't ask students to do that, they'll neither understand how the world works nor remember how their teacher said the world worked.

There are, of course, trade-offs between teaching mainly for content knowledge and teaching mainly for understanding.  Teaching for understanding is harder and slower.  You can't read every work of Shakespeare in one year if you take time to analyze what it means and discuss the historical content.  Which means that the more we focus on understanding the less time we have to make our kids memorize things like every position in the cabinet.  But teaching for understanding can ensure that kids know why the cabinet is important and what people in the cabinet do.  And if they can't remember every single member off the top of their head, they should be able to easily access that information -- assuming that was part of the curriculum as well.  And when one has a deep knowledge of less content, they'll remember a lot more of the content that they learned -- which might be more than the smattering of content that other students in other classes remember from the volumes of things they had to memorize.

The bottom line is this: content is an imperative, but understanding is more important.  And I have no qualms about saying that, because understanding implies content knowledge.

Lifetime Learning?

One thing I often wonder about is the value of learning things that you're not going to remember. I'd have to guess that I've forgotten at least 90% of what I've learned in my time in school. As far as I can tell, one can interpret this two different ways:

1.) Everybody needs different skills and knowledge bases later in life, so we should teach everybody everything and they can use what they need

2.) Our teaching has largely failed, there's little reason to learn something that will be forgotten later anyway. If most of what is taught is later forgotten, then it needs to be taught better the first time.

I guess I'd land somewhere between these two schools of thought. On the one hand, we shouldn't narrow the curriculum so much that everything will be remembered by every student because everybody will miss out on a lot. On the other hand, I would know a lot more today if there was a little less breadth and a little more depth (and later reinforcement) in my education. One book that I read claimed that a valid final exam for a class is one that's given a year after it's taught. I'm not sure I disagree.

What jogged my mind about this? This cartoon I saw yesterday:

What Should America Do About Math?

I don't have time to think through this in depth, but a blue-ribbon government panel on math has released their final report. I don't have time to read through the report right now (but you can), since I'm still finishing my presentation for tomorrow, but some things jump out based on the article the NY Times published.

- The report lays out when children should know what. This seems like a step in the direction of national standards . . . which could lead to a national curriculum and a national test.

-Apparently American students are the weakest when it comes to fractions and the argument is presented that improving knowledge of fractions should be the main focus. I've read elsewhere that fractions are growing less and less relevant in today's world. I wonder if rebuts or otherwise addresses this claim.

-It argues for a math curriculum focused on deep understanding of the subject matter (fewer topics, more depth). This goes well with Bill Schmidt's criticism that U.S. math curricula are "a mile wide and an inch deep."

-This quote says it all about education research (basically, we can never seem to figure out anything definitively):

“There is no basis in research for favoring teacher-based or student-centered instruction,” Dr. Larry R. Faulkner, the chairman of the panel, said at a briefing on Wednesday. “People may retain their strongly held philosophical inclinations, but the research does not show that either is better than the other.”

Single-Sex Public Schools

The New York Times Magazine ran a very long piece on single-sex education in public schools on Sunday. In short, there seem to be five positions explored: some argue that boys' brains differ fundamentally from girls' brains and that, therefore, they should be separated; some argue that separation is merited in order to end discrimination; some argue that separation is inherently sexist; some argue that separation by gender is only a rough proxy for separation by learning style; and some argue that boys and girls need to interact with each other.

I think each of the five sides has some merit. When this issue came up in our sociology class last year there was some spirited debate, particularly since research has been inconclusive to date. I asked people if research conclusively proved that single-sex schools led to much higher test scores if they would then be willing to enroll their children in these schools; nobody was willing to commit. This says two things to me: that there's more to a good school than high test scores, and that there's something less easily describable driving the opposition to such schools. Personally, I would hesitate to send my (future) children to such a school.

Prior to teaching I would have unequivocally ruled out the idea without so much as a second thought, but my experience led me to reconsider the merits. Teaching sixth graders, I noticed substantial differences between the boys and girls in my class. My personality and teaching style clearly worked better with the girls, and I had significantly more discipline problems with the girls. Maybe it was just the stress, but it often seemed that teaching a class of only girls would've worked a lot better. That said, segregating by sex still seems wrong to me on some level. I wonder if it might be possible to experience the best of both worlds; perhaps have single-sex classes only during middle school or only for certain subjects or activities. Or maybe Jay Giedd is right; gender is too rough a proxy. Has anybody tried separating students into classes based on different styles of learning? Is that feasible or desirable? It would certainly be easier for teachers than the "differentiated instruction" that is currently pushed, but I'm skeptical of any cure-all, especially one that requires some form of segregation or tracking.