Have
you ever thought that the basic principles underlying our current school
system might just all be one colossal blunder?
In the
first two years of life, children acquire motor responses and language
at a staggering speed. By the age of four, children know who they are,
they have discovered the power they have and the limits of that power,
too; they have mastered the psychology of the people around them and
have learnt to communicate in a socially acceptable way.
And
then we send them to school!
Within
a year or two - for most children - the excitement of life and the “miracle
of discovery” begin to dry up and wither away.
Should
our school system be doing things differently?
At present,
most schools seem to be making three fatal errors:
But
what concrete changes to our present system would a more fruitful approach
involve?
It might
require a total redefinition, on the part of teachers, of what their
job consists of. Teachers would have to give up the flattering self
image of being experts in their subject and take on the more challenging
role of being specialists in communication. Teaching, after all, entails
the successful transferring of skills and understanding to others. For
this reason, teachers find themselves in a peculiar paradox: they are
totally dependent on their students’ ability to learn, since if
nobody is learning, then nobody has been doing any real teaching!In
order to provide effective teaching, teachers would have to learn about
the human brain, its different memory systems and the different “learning
styles” students can have. They would have to become skilled at
“packaging” knowledge and presenting it in a way that is
meaningful to very different types of learners. Ideally, teachers would
instil positive emotional associations with everything they teach and
present their material both directly and indirectly. This is crucial
to success, since our long-term memory best retains information that
has been emotionally charged and perceived only through “the corner
of the eye.”
If teachers
hope to have any real impact, they must realise that it is very difficult
to teach students who suffer from low self-esteem. They will have to
accept that the crucial task of raising that low self-esteem is an integral
part of their job, since reasonably high self esteem is a pre-condition
for any successful learning to take place.
The
designing of activities that raise self-esteem is simple enough. This
involves devising challenges that are sufficiently easy for students
to succeed at but more difficult than what these students think they
are capable of. A simple game where learners are asked to remember the
favourite objects of 12 different people is one example, since most
people are convinced that they could never do this and are very surprised
when they actually pull it off.
Once
students have succeeded at something they thought was beyond their ability
and been forced to acknowledge that they have been successful, they
will be obliged to reappraise upwards the level of their capacities
and readjust, accordingly, their concept of who they are – especially
if classmates have witnessed their achievement! Furthermore, since nothing
succeeds as well as success, these new “winners” will quickly
get caught up in the thrill of being successful and increasingly seek
out other situations where they can exercise their newly discovered
talents and skills.
For
any of the above to work, however, the learning environment must be
a very safe place. Students must be encouraged to take chances and experiment
with new ideas and processes, even if this temporarily causes them to
feel off-balance and vulnerable. For any learner, opening up enough
to entertain new concepts can be destabilising and threatening: this
might even necessitate a readjustment of everything that is already
known and a change in world outlook. For example, a 4 or 5 year old,
who understands for the first time that Santa Claus doesn’t exist,
will have a lot of serious “reorganising of reality” to
do, pursuant to this somewhat shattering realisation.
A similar
kind of flexibility, trust and openness will be required of learners
who allow themselves to be swamped with huge amounts of information
without becoming defensive and shutting down in an attempt to remain
in control.
A secure
environment is one where students know they will be protected from any
form of criticism or irony by both the teacher and their classmates,
all of whom are mutually supportive and committed to fostering a safe
atmosphere. Let us think about this for a moment. Why would any student,
afraid of being ridiculed by a teacher or classmates for having given
a wrong answer, ever voluntarily take the risk of saying anything when
it was not necessary? Isn’t it more likely that that student would
focus all attention on remaining as invisible as possible, in the hope
that no-one would take any notice of him or her? In doing so, that student
would be unlikely to assimilate anything during this camouflage manoeuvre,
as is shown in studies on this well-known brain mechanism known as “downshifting”
. (See the 2nd paragraph below.)
In his
triune theory of the brain, Paul MacLean explains how the human brain
contains three levels, each the result of a different stage of neuro-physiological
development. The earliest brain, the reptilian, looks after survival,
responding to hunger, thirst, needs for sleep, air and physical space,
as well as certain reproductive instincts. The second brain, the mid-brain,
is present in all mammals and is best known for being the seat of emotions,
such as fear, anger, jealousy, happiness, etc. The third and most distinctively
human brain is the neo-cortex where all reasoning and pattern recognition
takes place.
From
a pedagogical viewpoint, the “downshifting” concept is a
pivotal one. It explains how when people perceive that they are in danger,
adrenalin and cortisol are released, inhibiting blood from reaching
the upper levels of the brain. This means that when a student feels
unsafe, no learning can possibly take place because the seat of learning
(the cortex) is not getting enough blood for it to be able to function.
For
the past 25 years, I have been working with a teaching approach called
Suggestopedia, which focuses on activating the reserve capacities of
the unconscious mind. This system enables most students to learn 3 times
as fast as before, largely because they feel safe, are highly stimulated
and find themselves in a “flow state”. This highly desirable
form of concentration eliminates almost all outside interference and
learning seems to take place through instant osmosis. This “flow
state” seems to come about most easily when students are given
tasks that require about 120% of their normal maximum capacity.
To give an example of this “flow state”, imagine yourself
on a motorcycle, tearing along at 220 km an hour. The scenery is flying
by and you feel totally confident in your ability to pass the other
vehicles that seem to be standing still. You feel exhilarated, but are
aware that your total attention is required. You will not, at this time,
be trying to remember the name of an old friend or the brand of perfume
some aunt once wore: you are in the moment, consumed by the excitement
of what you are doing; your awareness is heightened and your senses
are sharpened.
The essence
of the Suggestopedic approach is the attention paid to detail, since
it is the details – especially the invisible ones – that
will shape the attitude of a learner to the subject matter and fashion
his or her self-image as a learner. This, in turn, will result in greater
or lesser confidence and receptivity. Let me give examples: