Can All Youth Master High School?
The fundamental assumption for the development of high quality educational systems is that essentially all people are capable of mastering what is normally considered a good high school education.
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From: Options in Education, February 1994
ARE ALL KIDS EQUALLY ABLE TO LEARN?
Bob Fizzell
At the WALA conference this spring, a set of beliefs for the organization was proposed by the WALA Board. The long hard work of the Board was obvious in that only one statement seemed to raise much controversy. Of course, the Board was aware that this one would get people’s attention: “All learners are equally able to develop.”
The comments here do not necessarily represent the thinking of the Board on this issue. Rather, these are simply some ideas which would lead one to agree with the statement that the Board made.
Over the years, it has been a given among educators that the primary determinant of success is ability -- IQ. For many years, we divided students according to ability to adjust the instruction to their level. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on ability assessment, yet even without the test results, teachers are fully aware of differences among their students. Some kids catch on quickly and some just never seem to get it.
But maybe we have been looking at the wrong thing all of these years. Possibly the learning differences are not really a reflection of ability differences as much as they are related to other factors. Certainly, all of our efforts at assessing ability differences have not improved the quality of education for many students. The successful legal action against “tracking” programs was based on research which showed that separating students was helpful neither to the lower students nor the top ones. Experience indicates that it might be valuable to look more closely at this belief.
First, it is important to be clear what we mean by learning ability. Generally, educators have a concept which involves beliefs about long term capacity. This is often symbolically expressed by reference to brain size -- how much knowledge can the person accumulate and hold. What they wish to indicate is an assessment of the person’s potential to learn, not only how much information, but also the level of complexity of that information. It has been believed that for each person there is a limit to this potential, that there is a definable and measurable quantity which cannot be exceeded.
Actually, there is no way to ever confirm that such a potential exists. We know that all persons who are conscious and not experiencing neurological deterioration continue to learn until they die. Even severely mentally handicapped persons who are provided proper training and support continue to learn throughout life, often to an amazing degree. Therefore, such a maximum capacity is never achieved and is meaningless.
We further have great evidence in the work of Howard Gardner and his predecessors that there may be a variety of learning abilities -- though not necessarily capacities. Thus, our traditional assessments and our classroom experiences may have been too narrow.
If learning ability is not a single thing and is not capacity, then what else might it be. IQ tests -- which measure whatever it is that we have been concerned with -- correlate with school achievement at about the .5 level. This means that whatever they measure accounts for about 25% of school success. The rest, 75% of the basis for success, is tied up in those things which we all recognize -- family background, motivation, chance, TV, friends, etc. Think about that -- only 25% is dependent on “ability”. Furthermore, school achievement is only partially related to life achievement, where IQ is only a weak predictor even of income or job status.
Probably no one today would argue that ability, by any definition, is the primary determinant of school success. But our beliefs about it have played a very important role in how we conceptualize the educational process. Those of us in alternative education recognize the importance of dealing with different styles, motivation, family influences, personality problems and all the other issues. Yet none of these other issues has influenced our expectations for our students the way our beliefs about ability have.
Still, you say, all teachers know that there really are differences. We see them every day. So what are they and what do they mean?
To begin with, let’s try thinking of ability as rate and/or facility rather than capacity; that is, how quickly and easily a person learns rather than the person’s total potential or limit. This has very important implications for education and it is not in conflict with the research evidence. From this perspective, we would say, “Bobby is slower at learning this,” or “Bobby is having difficulty learning this,” rather than “Bobby can’t learn this.”
Actually, the underlying assumption of the IQ tests is this difference in rate. The difference in capacity is merely projected or inferred. That is, at a given age, it is expected that a “typical child” would have learned certain things. A child who knows these things is considered to have a normal IQ. Obviously training and experience (thus cultural bias) would play a role here. Some tests which try to be free of these biases present unique information to be learned or problems to be solved. But these are still only measuring rate or facility and can be influenced by training and experience.
The critical decision, then, is whether the knowledge is worth learning. If it is really important, then it might be worth the extra time and effort. For example, the skills and knowledge to communicate are pretty important. Therefore, my son’s profoundly handicapped friend, Barb, should continue to be assisted in learning to communicate, even though she is twice the normal age for high school graduation. In fact, she is getting such assistance and her communication skills do continue to improve. Under the old way of thinking of ability as capacity, the schools gave up on her long ago, saying that she obviously could not learn to communicate.
The question naturally arises as to how much the rate might differ. First, as noted above, we know that differences in IQ do not contribute much to our understanding of differences in success in school or in life. For 85% of the population, it is certain that they have the ability to learn our required high school curriculum by about 18 years of age. (In traditional IQ terms, this is referring to those people with an IQ over 85. Many people at the low end of that range but with good family backgrounds currently go on into the professions.) This leaves us with only one person in seven to worry about. Most of these are in the range of what we have called “dull” or “educable” in the past. They will require a bit of extra time, perhaps as much as 5 more years in some cases. Given the social benefit of having these people educated, that is a small price to pay.
Now we have the hard core to deal with. Perhaps 5% of the population will show very slow progress. Some, like Barb, may not live long enough to accomplish everything we would like. But what harm is there in continuing to work with these people? Obviously there will be some cost, but these are costly people already. Every bit of progress they make actually reduces their long term cost, so there might even be a savings in some cases by middle age. In thinking about services to such people, I cannot but be impressed by the differences today from when I was a child. We did not even try to help many of these people in the past. By the 60s, a few progressive communities were offering adult supervised living and continuing training. Now we have laws requiring services. But the quality of services is often very poor -- partly because many of those involved in providing the services still believe that they know the limits of these people.
Thus, it is probable that there would be a rather limited impact on current educational institutions if we were to permit each person to have sufficient time to learn as his or her ability requires. While some students might take advantage of a variable time structure to go more slowly than possible, they are already doing that now. In a changed structure, they would at least be supported in completing at a mastery level rather than with the ‘D’s they now get. Others would probably progress more quickly.
We see then that the evidence would support a view that we can only know the rate and facility with which kids learn, but not their ultimate capacity. This means that we cannot state what a certain child is able to learn or not learn -- only that, under prior conditions, that child might have found it easy or hard to learn such things.
Thinking of ability as rate or facility makes the educator’s job more significant. It places value on our skills in finding the fastest and easiest way for the student to learn. Too often, when thinking of ability as capacity, success in learning was seen as primarily a function of the learner. If we believe that all students can learn, then the role of the educator becomes much more significant as we engineer the learning situation. Those teachers who work with the learners who are slowest or who have the most difficulty will clearly be seen as the best teachers.
Thinking of children as differing in rate and facility but not necessarily in ultimate capacity has another important implication for educators. A teacher can take one of only two positions in regard to a child’s capacity to learn: The child can learn this material; or the child cannot learn this material. There is no other belief possible. If we believe that we can know what a child’s limits are, we will certainly teach to those limits and this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, if we believe that each child can learn the material, we may not succeed in helping him or her to do so, but we will try and we will be likely to seek other opportunities for the child if we are not able to bring the learning about. We will also convey to that child our confidence in his/her ability to learn the material.
Clearly, the belief that the child can learn is a much more productive and much more humane working assumption. Nothing is lost by such a belief, and much might be gained. Perhaps we should admit that one thing is lost: the teacher’s opportunity to blame the child for failure to learn! That makes us a bit uncomfortable and burdens us with some rather heavy responsibility, but it also gives value to what we do.
Our beliefs about ability have caused us to limit some children’s opportunities. They have influenced our curriculum and school structure. They have been at the base of much discrimination. They have influenced our efforts to deal with the other factors impacting success. They have served to justify our using the schools to screen and direct young people into inferior or superior life roles. Yet they are probably wrong. This is the reasoning that has led some educators to defy prior assumptions, reevaluate experience and challenge the popular belief. Based on these considerations, we can only conclude that the safest, most productive and most humane position is to believe that All learners are equally able to develop.
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