Is this class R-rated?

Daniel Pink’s ideas in a Whole New Mind about Right brain domination (doesn’t that sound like the title to a bad science fiction movie?) are interesting in that they seem to go against what one would expect. Given the growing and growing importance of technology, would not one think that analytical thought –engineering, programming etc., would be even more important?
The website of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills defines what it thinks students need to learn in the new century; it includes a core curriculum, which looks traditional, but also several 21st century interdisciplinary themes that should be woven into the core subjects. In other words, the basic subjects students learn will not really be different, but rather is it how they study them, what is emphasized, and how they are connected that changes.

One of the interdisciplinary themes is global awareness, which in many ways sounds similar to multicultural education. Some people have frowned on multicultural education, saying that it softens the curriculum or is just PC fluff. However, clearly the Partnership does not think so. It would also fit in with the importance of empathy, which both Pink and Wiggins and Mctighe (in the book Understanding by Design) stress. The other 21st century themes – each a literacy – essentially seem to involve knowing how to use and apply information and skills into areas such as health, business, and citizenship. This clearly is in accord with the “interpret” and “apply” facets of understanding that Wiggins and McTighe describe. In addition, the whole idea of interdisciplinary themes matches Pink’s concept of “Symphony” which

“isn’t analysis but synthesis – seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries. "

All of this would imply that one should avoid teaching that is centered on drills and factual recall – indeed in UBD Wiggins and McTighe clearly caution against this.The subjects and themes are all part of a larger framework, which the Partnership represents with a graphic (I guess they want to appeal to visual learners). The website describes a number of skills it believes students need to learn in the 21st century, and groups them into categories. The learning and innovation skills seem more directed towards the right side of the brain and the facets described in UBD - towards empathy, interpretation, and application. The Information, Media, and Technology skills seem more analytical, but they still involve some right brain thinking, as the issue of ethics in the use of technology is stressed. The Life and career skills deal with many facets of learning, and can be seen as both “left and right”.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Partnership thinks 21st century learning environments should feature communication, collaboration, and application, and that the purpose of technology in education should be to foster these themes. Again, this can help create empathy, as well as perspective (another learning facet of UBD)

However, what about assessment? It seems that test-focused, “drill and kill” assessments would not fit in well here. The Partnership recommends a mixture of assessment strategies – tests, but also less traditional methods, like portfolios. One of the criticisms of the modern No Child Left Behind Act is that it only uses standardized tests for assessing schools, when more than one method should be used. The Partnership stresses the importance of interpretation and application of knowledge, as well as using communication for learning. Technology should be used to support these goals. They also stress that know learning should involve “deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge” This is very much in agreement with the philosophy of Wiggins and McTighe, who stress the importance of understanding and caution against shallow “coverage” of topics. They warn that this often happens when teachers rush to cover everything required by government standards. All this makes it sound like American educational policy needs considerable adjustment if it is going to head in the direction that the Partnership recommends.

Although both the Partnership and Pink talk about these concepts with a focus on the future, they are not new. The famous progressive educator John Dewey felt that social interaction was an extremely important part of learning. In his 1897 Pedagogical Creed he wrote:

“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.”

Dewey stressed the need to teach children skills and social interaction, not facts that may soon be out of date:

“With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to reach this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual's own powers, tastes, and interests - say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms. In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass.”

In other words, students need to learn the communicative and collaborative skills stressed by the modern writers like the Partnership. Students also need to know how to learn, not memorize facts. Dewey also alluded to what we would now call visual learning:

“I believe that the image is the great instrument of instruction. What a child gets out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which he himself forms with regard to it. I believe that if nine-tenths of the energy at present directed towards making the child learn certain things, were spent in seeing to it that the child was forming proper images, the work of instruction would be indefinitely facilitated. I believe that much of the time and attention now given to the preparation and presentation of lessons might be more wisely and profitably expended in training the child's power of imagery and in seeing to it that he was continually forming definite, vivid, and growing images of the various subjects with which he comes in contact in his experience.”

Jerome Bruner, in his 1960 book The Process of Education, discussed how intuitive and not just analytical thinking could be an important part of learning. He also stated that teachers needed to know how to adjust to it:

“It requires a sensitive teacher to distinguish an intuitive mistake – an interestingly wrong leap – from a stupid or ignorant mistake, and it requires a teacher who can give approval and correction simultaneously to the intuitive student.” p68

In other words, teaching should encourage the right side of the brain, not just the left.
What this means is that in the 21st century classroom we need to use learning and teaching styles that are not in conflict with these ideas if we are to encourage the right side of the brain. That would include visual learning, as well “global” thinking and learning. This would allow students to wholly understand material, and to apply it and make connections to other material with it. Learning and teaching should not focus on covering a wide range of issues in a shallow manner with the memorization of facts, but should involve deeper understanding of material – which requires interpretation, application, and even empathy to better see its role. This is not new; what is new is that technology can be used to foster this kind of learning; it does not need to make it cold, sterile, and impersonal. Technology has not rendered “soft skills” or the humanities obsolete. Instead, it has become a necessary part of using them. That is one of the big things to get from Pink and the Partnership. Moreover, from this perspective, current educational policy seems muddled.