The tactics schools are being forced to employ in the effort to raise test scores and avoid sanctions under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as the
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) may actually backfire, says Dr. Mel Levine, author of A Mind at a Time. "We may end up leaving even more children behind."
"To use the same approach to learning for all types of children discriminates against different kinds of minds," says the professor of pediatrics and director of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine's Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning. "Maybe it's time to ask ourselves what have we lost with this approach."
Leading the list of things falling by the wayside are creativity, brainstorming and problem-solving skills, says Levine. "And these are all important attributes for adults."
"And what about stifling the love of learning?" he asks. "To get children to love learning, learning has to be exciting."
The book A Mind at a Time looks at the multitude of ways that children learn, and how teachers and parents can help motivate them to succeed. Unfortunately, one-size-fits-all education fails to take different learning styles into account, says Levine, who maintains that it can harm children and discriminate against some types of learners.
Levine, also the author of The Myth of Laziness, founded All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit institute for the study of differences in learning.
During a recent visit to California, Levine told the Educator it's harder to motivate students when learning is not exciting and students and teachers are stressed out. "The pressure can turn students off to school and get them in trouble. And the students we most have to worry about are those whose style of learning is divergent from the way they are being taught."
Typically, he says, schools focus on children's weaknesses and set out to strengthen them. Instead, he says, it can be more helpful to focus on a child's strengths and build upon them.
"Not everyone learns the same way. Some children are visual learners. Say you have a child who is a wonderful artist and you take away what he is good at - art. You are, in a way, punishing him by taking away his specialty, and asking him to practice other peoples' specialties." A better approach, says Levine, is to nurture the artist, and encourage the child to read books about artists and write essays about art. By doing so, the child would feel confident and more motivated to improve rather than feel inadequate about those subjects where he is weak.
Levine is not against testing as a means of accountability; nor is he against strengthening weaknesses in a child's academic ability - as long as strengths are applauded.
"If we are going to have testing, we need safeguards so we don't undermine the curriculum or hurt children," he says. "The real issue is not to eliminate these policies, but learn how to make them better and less potentially harmful."
He believes one-size-fits-all learning and filling in bubbles encourages children to do mediocre work. "Students begin to feel it's okay to just get by. And one big problem with tests is that they don't reward excellence. If you are going to test, you should have a way to reward outstanding work rather than just having students receive a pass or fail."
Today's educational trends could have implications for the future that are not beneficial for society, he warns. "We could wind up producing more dropouts and have even more turnover of teachers. If you lower the status of teachers by making them follow a manual, and then judge them only on test scores, a lot of them might decide to go take a real estate exam.
"If you take away the joy in learning, it will equal a loss in the joy of teaching."
For more information on Dr. Levine's nonprofit institute, All Kinds of Minds, visit the website [http://www.allkindsofminds.org/], which explores learning differences. The site offers articles, book excerpts, audio and video clips, and a searchable database of strategies.
Levine also recommends visiting LD OnLine [http://www.ldonline.org/], the official site of the Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities, which offers an interactive guide to learning disabilities for teachers, parents and children.
