B28

Assertions from Observations

Heard in class: "Most social scientists studying education raise social science issues but not educational issues."

Excerpt from an observation of a fourth grade classroom: "10:00. The quiz is over." The teacher says, "We'll go over answers today. Be sure you put your name on your paper." Pause, then almost pleadingly: "Who just talked out? Sharon?" The teacher goes to the board and writes Sharon's name on the list. "Today we were looking for details of the story. Do not talk to anyone." He designates how the papers should be collected. "All tests in?" The room is astir. "How many can count to three? If you can, raise your right hand." Then, "I want attention up here, complete attention up here." The teacher presses on, quietly, barely a decibel above the general murmur, but insistent. "Jimmy, Mark, everyone. Everybody, raise both hands. Kris, Eleanor, Thatcher." Still having failed to win Darin's acquiescence, he goes to the board and puts a check after his name. "Sh--sh--sh." There are 5 names on the board, one with a check. Now 6. Finally and with requisite concentration, they identify correct answers to the quiz."

Is student motivation a social science issue and not an educational issue?

Assertion

It has been said that being "a student" is the occupation of childhood. If so, it is apparent that a great proportion of our youngsters are unemployed. Being a student is not what they are engaged in--at least not the way most teachers, researchers, and parents would define the term. Our children are social beings, learning beings, but they are not diligent at scholastic work. They are kids.

In almost any classroom one finds children in a state of purposive existence. To the extent that a teacher allows their vitality, they are engaged in social affairs, in exhibitions, in the pursuit of curiosity. On that larger template of behavior, the teacher presses a smaller template of scholastic engagement. Still, each pulse is only slightly perturbed. Yet, over time, most kids learn a great many things. They get ready for tests and ready for graduation--largely without abandoning the occupation of "being a kid," without becoming "a student."

Most teachers start by trying to keep the child quiet. Advocates of direct learning however energize the child. Believing the authorities know best what a child should be learning, they place a conformity-demanding second template to evoke fervid group behavior. Some teachers thus succeed, for a while, in making children students. Advocates of open education place a weak social template and a weak larger template on the child, hoping that personal encouragement and rich classroom environment will promote problem-solving and thoughfulness. And occasionally, for certain moments, such teachers succeed in making children students.

Educational theorists spend a lot of time presuming these rare occasions are commonplace and that ordinary teachers regularly accomplish this student-making.

Classroom observations remind us regularly, necessarily, that seldom does it happen. We should not be surprised when we visit the classroom to find teachers trying to patch a little cognitive behavior on the main fabric of social engagement. Youngsers are oriented enormously to their classmates. To them the teacher is a social being, to be manipulated socially, in good ways and bad. They consider themselves very special creatures, immersed in a social environment. They relate ideas encountered in class, regardless of how abstract, to social situations. They engage more fully in certain ideas if there is social benefit for doing so. "Social studies" are the occupation of childhood. We shouldn't be surprised but we often are.