Differing ideologies - a few quotes supplied by Dr Kerry Hempenstall

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Differing ideologies - a few quotes supplied by Dr Kerry Hempenstall

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Thank you to Kerry for providing a few quotes regarding differing ideologies - an important issue when it comes to approaches to education:
“The two ideologies or philosophies that dominate in the American educational world, which tend to corrupt scientific inferences, are naturalism and formalism. Naturalism is the notion that learning can and should be natural and that any unnatural or artificial approach to school learning should be rejected or deemphasized. This point of view favors many of the methods that are currently most praised and admired in early schooling - ‘hands-on learning,' ‘developmentally appropriate practice,' and the natural, whole-language method of learning to read. By contrast, methods that are unnatural are usually deplored, including ‘drill,' ‘rote learning,' and that phonics approach to teaching early reading. We call such naturalism an ideology rather than a theory because it is more a value system (based on the European Romantic movement) than an empirically based idea. If we adopt this ideology, we know in advance that the natural is good and the artificial is bad. We don't need analysis and evidence; we are certain, quite apart from the evidence, that children's education will be more productive if it is more natural. If the data do not show this, it is because we are using the wrong kinds of data, such as scores on standardized tests. That is naturalism.

“Formalism is the ideology that what counts in education is not the learning of things but rather learning how to learn. What counts is not gaining mere facts but gaining formal skills. Along with naturalism, it shares an antipathy to mere facts and the piling up of information. The facts, it says, are always changing. Children need to learn how to understand and interpret any new facts that come along. The skills that children need to learn in school are not how to follow mindless procedures but rather to understand what lies behind the procedures so they can apply them to new situations. In reading, instead of learning a lot of factual subject matter, which is potentially infinite, the child needs to learn strategies for dealing with any texts, such as ‘questioning the author,' ‘classifying,' and other ‘critical thinking' skills.” (p. 135)

Hirsch, E.D. (2006). The knowledge deficit. Houghton Mifflin.
“ ...if you think you know the truth without having to collect any data, that saves a lot of time.” (Stanovich, 2000, p. 382).

Stanovich, K. E. (2000). Progress in understanding reading: Scientific foundations and new frontiers. New York: Guilford Press.
“If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is an upside to ignorance, and a downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview. (p.77)

Lewis, M. (2018). The fifth risk. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-1-324-00264-2
“Klahr (2010) asserts ‘‘the burden of proof is on constructivists to define a set of instructional goals, an unambiguous description of instructional processes, a clear way to ensure implementation fidelity, and then to perform a rigorous assessment of effects’’ (p. 4). Some constructivists have expressed resistance to direct rigorous comparisons of these different instructional approaches, arguing that due to fundamental differences between constructivist pedagogies and direct instruction, no common research method can evaluate the two (Jonassen, 2009). Alternatively, Klahr states, ‘‘Constructivists cannot use complexity of treatments or assessments as an excuse to avoid rigorous evaluations of the effectiveness of an instructional process’’ (p. 3). Similarly, Mayer (2004) recommends that we ‘‘move educational reform efforts from the fuzzy and unproductive world of ideology—which sometimes hides under the various banners of constructi.vism—to the sharp and productive world of theory-based research on how people learn’’ (p. 18).” (p.1011)

Taylor, J., Getty, S., Kowalski, S., Wilson, C., Carlson, J., & Van Scotter, P. (2015). An efficacy trial of research-based curriculum materials with curriculum-based professional development. American Educational Research Journal, 52, 984-1017.
“These results show that guided instruction is much more effective than unguided, facilitative instruction… the rejection of direct instruction is a classic case of an immature profession, one that lacks a solid scientific base and has less respect for evidence than for opinion and ideology.” (p.258)

Hattie, J. (2011). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing Impact on learning. Retrieved from https://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2 ... 02/hattie/
Geoff Vaughan
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Re: Differing ideologies - a few quotes supplied by Dr Kerry Hempenstall

Post by Geoff Vaughan »

These are very useful and important quotations covering a range of approaches to education/instruction.
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