Maximizing
Learning:
A Conversation with Renate Nummela Caine and Carolyn R.
Pool
What do the neurosciences, biology, and psychology teach
us about what our schools should be like? How can we change our mental models
of education to meet the needs of children?
Renate Caine answers these difficult questions in
exploring how children learn.
In Making Connections and in Education on the
Edge of Possibility, you and Geoffrey Caine discuss principles of brain-based
learning. Some people might say, "Well, of course, we learn with our
brains—so what else is new?" But you and Geoffrey
have connected the latest cognitive and neurological
research to education.
What is new? What is the most significant finding that
relates to what we do in schools?
We debated about using the term brain-based learning because,
of course, all learning is brain based. But if we just said
"learning," then people might not understand what we were talking
about, either. Humans have a marvellous brain, whose possibilities appear
endless. So when we refer to brain-based learning, we are concerned about
maximizing learning—understanding how the brain works best—and we have
encapsulated our findings in 12 learning principles that emphasize
the connections and patterns our brains make (see fig.
1). Our current studies are taking us
into the great impact that early childhood development
has on the way children learn.
These findings have enormous implications for
schools—even preschools—because so many neurological pathways critical for
later life are laid down from age zero to age 3.
These pathways affect the way children interact with
formative experiences during
later developmental stages. These patterns also include
children's beliefs about themselves
and their world, which continue into adulthood.
Brain/Mind Learning Principles
The brain is a
complex, dynamic system.
The brain is a
social brin.
The search for
meaning is innate.
The search for
meaning occurs through “patterning.”
Emotions are
critical to patterning.
Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes.
Learning involves
both focussed attention and peripheral perception.
Learning always involves
conscious and unconscious processes.
We have at least
two ways of organising memory.
Learning is developemental.
Complex learning is
enhanced by challenges and inhibited by threat.
Every brain is
uniquely organised.
Source: Education
on theEdge of Possibility, by R.N.Caine and G. Caine (Alexander, Va.: ASCD,
1997)
In your work, you discuss threats that inhibit learning.
What are these threats? What happens to learning when we
feel threatened?
Many children's lives are filled with threats to
learning—child abuse, poverty, malnourishment, family and community violence.
These are devastating experiences for the child—and for the human brain. These
experiences can program the child to effectively live in anticipation of such
experiences. Children who have lived with extreme threat develop perceptual
loops; they look for certain signals in the environment that to some extent
replicate their own experiences.
Their brains are not programmed to help them cope in a
healthy way. When we feel threatened,
we downshift our thinking. Downshifted people feel
helpless; they don't look at possibilities;
they don't feel safe to take risks or challenge old
ideas. They have limited choices for behavior.
What does downshifting mean for teachers?
We define downshifting as the psychophysiological
response to threat, accompanied by a sense
of helplessness or fatigue. The downshifted person
experiences a sense of fear or anxiety,
not the excitement of a challenge. Downshifting is
accompanied by a feeling that you cannot access your own ability to deal with
the situation. Downshifting can result from very drastic conditions
in early childhood, as I mentioned; but what we're seeing
is that, to a lesser degree,
downshifting is everywhere in the schools.
Do children face
threats in school?
Yes, but here we're not talking about traumatic threats
like guns in school. We are concerned about emotional threats to higher-order
thinking and learning. The system of traditional education
can be a threat that inhibits higher levels of learning.
If as a teacher I am in charge of the curriculum, you as the student are
supposed to learn what I say you must learn. I know the answers that you have
to get. I'm also going to tell you how long it will take you to learn this and
when it's due.
And not only that—I evaluate you and your work. In this
approach, where is your input?
Where is your self-efficacy? And what are you learning
but compliance? So students are doing
what teachers want them to do. And downshifted people can
do some things well, like memorizing, because the brain perseverates under
threat and likes to do things over and over again—
repetition provides a sense of safety when you feel
helpless. Memorization is compatible
with traditional teaching. But real learning—making
connections, higher-order thinking,
and creativity—is incompatible with that kind of
environment.
What are some examples of strategies that are compatible
with brain-based teaching and learning?
Let me give you an example that shows how teachers faced
a challenge that they first perceived
as a threat. Geoffrey and I were working with teachers
beginning to use a rich, brain-based approach to learning to read and write.
The district suddenly mandated its own literacy program.
All the teachers dropped the brain-based approach; they
abandoned their new understanding
of learning—they just implemented the district's
mandates. They were frightened; they did not
have the self-efficacy they needed. In the mandated
program, the students were scheduled
to do unrelated tasks and drills every day. Soon, kids
began to ask, "Why are we doing this?
This isn't any fun and we're not learning anything!"
Geoffrey and I also asked,
"Why are you doing this?" Basically, the reason
was fear; the teachers felt helpless
in dealing with the district—they downshifted.
We encouraged the teachers to examine the literacy
program and start incorporating it into what they knew about the human brain.
The teachers then said, "Okay, what do we know about learning? We
understand that children need to be in a community. They need to follow their
own interests, and we need to constantly question and challenge them." The
teachers began to see that
brain-based learning moves away from what you do on
Monday morning to how children learn.
They began to see that brain-based learning is not
limited to one approach or strategy.
In the process, the teachers took the best from the district's
program—but they also took the best out of Reading Recovery, whole language,
and phonics. They began seeing kids in kindergarten
and 1st grade doing critical thinking and analysis. As a
result, this school has gone from
the second from the bottom in reading in their district
to the second from the top.
What are some ways that a brain-based approach to, say,
language arts, might differ
from a traditional approach? I remember being intrigued
by your discussion
in Making Connections of relaxed alertness,
orchestrated immersion,
and active processing as conditions for learning.
Well, you cannot really separate these conditions.
Relaxed alertness means "low threat,
high challenge." If children are to think
critically, they must feel safe to take risks. And if the teacher insists on
one correct answer and is going to evaluate them, children are not foolish.
They will give the answer the teacher wants. But for
making connections and actually changing
their thinking on the basis of accrued knowledge, they
need relaxed alertness—that is,
safety and challenging learning experiences.
As for orchestrated immersion, children learn best if
they are immersed in complex experiences
and are given the opportunity to actively process what
they have learned.
The best learning happens when necessary facts and skills
are embedded in experiences t
hat relate to real life, when there's a big picture
somehow.
Can you give an
example?
Even though many teachers creatively
use haiku and other forms of poetry that appeal to students, most
teachers approach poetry as a subject to cover. Many children don't understand
or feel poetry. One teacher using a brain-based approach to language
arts decided to turn her whole classroom
into a coffeehouse. The kids helped set it up—low lights,
candles on the tables, tablecloths,
music playing softly. The teacher asked adults from the
school and community to come in and read their favorite poetry and talk about
it. Through this complex experience, the teacher gave her students a sense, or
felt meaning, for what poetry is and that it is valued by adults in the real
world. Teachers can do the same thing in science and math.
What would be an
example of brain-based science or math?
In science and math, teachers and students might ask natural
questions like "What happened?" "How did you do this?"
"What happened when we added this element?" and "How else might
this have worked out?" They ask critical questions that are not
necessarily in the book or worksheet.
Take the "owl
pellet" lesson, for example.
Owl pellets are material that owls regurgitate after they
eat. The pellets include the bones and fur
of rodents and birds the owls consume. In a science
lesson that I was observing, students
pulled some owl pellets apart and then answered worksheet
questions about what owls eat.
I walked around this classroom and asked another
question: "You know, I'm wondering—
how does an owl's stomach know how to separate the meat
from the bones?"
This was a genuine question. And the students looked at
me as though I were crazy
because that question was not on the worksheet.
A teacher asking real, live questions provides rich
possibilities for students. But for these possibilities to become reality,
teachers need to shift their thinking about teaching and learning.
They also need extensive resources, including
technological support.
Brain-based learning is wonderfully compatible with
technology.
Your examples remind me of some good teachers I've had.
My 9th grade chorus teacher took
our class to many concerts, shows, and competitions. Her
bubbling enthusiasm for all sorts of music, from gospel to folk to classical,
stays with me to this day.
What suggestions
do you have for teachers to improve their own practice?
In our recent work, we found three distinct styles of
teaching.
In the first instructional approach, the teacher
is in charge,
using traditional strategies like lecturing,
memorization, testing—
the old factory model. When you speak of relaxed
alertness or orderliness to teachers
who are dedicated to this approach, they tend to think in
terms of good discipline,
of going along with the teacher's plan. Orchestrated
immersion might consist of a teacher's bringing in some World War II artefacts
to introduce a lecture,
or allowing students to ask questions of a guest speaker.
In the second approach, the teacher is comfortable
with many innovative learning strategies
and sees new possibilities for defining discipline, but
still largely directs student learning.
We have found that more and more teachers are moving to
the second approach,
though most teachers still operate from the mental model
of the traditional approach to education, because that was the way they were
taught.
In the third (and rarest) instructional approach,
which is actually brain-based teaching,
learning becomes collaborative—teachers and students have
much more mutual responsibility. Here, students know what they want to do, time
parameters are flexible, and orderliness
and coherence prevail. Teachers have an extensive
repertoire of strategies.
These classrooms are characterized by ongoing questioning
and analysis.
Students and teachers ask experts, they get on the
Internet, they learn together.
That reminds me:
I heard of a new program called STTC—it stands for Students
Teaching Teachers about Computers.
I like that. Students are often much more comfortable
with the third instructional approach.
On the other hand, some students are so used to the
traditional factory model that they are initially confused when they encounter
brain-based teaching. And it is difficult for some parents
to understand that the traditional approach to teaching
is no longer going to prepare their children for the future. But five years
from now, if I was a parent and I still saw my children sitting
in a classroom with desks in a row and a teacher up
front,
I would panic because that will absolutely be
inappropriate.
What if parents disagree with what you're doing and
insist on a certain type of curriculum?
Parents need to be brought into the educational community
wherever possible.
Orderliness depends on constant communication among
teachers, students, and parents.
But for parents who fundamentally disagree with the rest
of the community, charter schools are
a real possibility. Parents can create their own school,
organized around their own purposes
and meanings. Private and religious schools can also meet
some of these needs, though I am not
in favor of vouchers. Acknowledging and celebrating
diversity—in a democratic community—
is an important outcome of principle 12, "Every
brain is uniquely organized."
Speaking of
diversity, what is your view of multiple intelligences?
We all have different talents, skills, perspectives, and
intelligences. We need to encourage children's gifts in two ways. First, we
need to acknowledge diversity; second, we need to focus
on our commonalities, what makes us human and what ties
us to the rest of nature.
So Geoffrey and I agree with the basic premise of
multiple intelligences. But how is it used
in the classroom? Do teachers simply incorporate
variation into traditional presentations?
Or do they address multiple intelligences by providing
complex experiences within which students can use their individual
intelligences (expanding into other types of skills and modes and benefiting
from other people's intelligences)? Interaction and complexity are key.
In a recent article, Bob Sylwester discusses
neurological research concerning the effects of serotonin on self-esteem—not
only through drugs like Prozac, but by positive social feedback students
get from portfolios, cooperative group learning, and
nurturing from caring adults.
Where does
brain-based learning fit in this picture?
On the whole, I would tend to agree with Bob about the
importance of positive social feedback
and the benefit of the strategies he mentions. But here,
again, we must consider developmental learning and the effects of downshifting
on children's ability to become self-motivated,
to believe in their own capacities and abilities.
We have suggested that the opposite of downshifting is
self-efficacy.
I think we need to be very careful that we do not depend
on Prozac and other psychotropic drugs
for other than temporary assists, particularly for
downshifted people who have difficulty
in ascribing any success to their own efforts and who are
easily influenced by others.
There seems to be
a real danger here. How can I believe in my own strengths and initiative
when I know that a drug has changed my behavior? I know
that Bob is not advocating
the use of Prozac with children—I am pleading for the
exploration of other ways to enhance children's self-esteem and self-efficacy,
such as by removing threats from our classrooms and making them safe,
challenging places for children to learn. This should be the focus of
education.
In Education on the Edge of Possibility, you and
Geoffrey describe your work with two elementary schools in implementing
brain-based teaching. What was this process like?
Shifting out of an exclusively traditional instructional
approach is difficult.
Our book relates the challenges and setbacks the schools
faced. First, I want to recognize
all the teachers who use traditional approaches really
well. It's not that their work is wrong;
the times are changing on us. Our knowledge base is
changing, with new information
from the neurosciences and biology and technology. We're
living in a different world.
There's so much for us to understand, and we can't do it
by getting what I call
"surface knowledge"—what somebody else tells us
is important to learn.
Second, to change our mental models, we have to address
how our own brains learn—and immerse ourselves in interactive, real-life,
complex experiences out of which we can process new ideas.
To help teachers change their mental models, we found
that using "process groups" was critical.
What is a process
group?
We encouraged teachers to get together in small groups
and look at new information
from the sciences, examine educational research, and
study the brain/mind principles—as people, not just as teachers. They asked
questions like "What does it mean that the brain is a complex, dynamic
system?" Then they began to reflect on how their own practices did (or did
not)
maximize learning. The groups included not only teachers
but also custodians, librarians,
and other nonteaching staff, in an attempt to arrive at
common beliefs, purposes, and values—the foundation for orderliness. They all
shared ideas on how to create a school and environment based on how children
learn. The groups came up with their own solutions to the "time and
energy" problems that plague many other reforms: How can we allow time for
complex experiences
when we have to cover the curriculum? Do children really
learn best in 50-minute increments? Where do we get planning time? A supportive
administration and funding arrangements
gave the groups time to constantly rethink and enrich
what they were doing in school—
and this work is ongoing. We see no other way to produce
effective change in schools—
there's no top-down way to teach a new mental model.
It has to come from the educators themselves.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar97/vol54/num06/Maximizing-Learning@-A-Conversation-with-Renate-Nummela-Caine.aspx
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