Psychological Theory and Educational Reform-How School Remakes Mind and Society

Abstract

Psychological Theory and Educational Reform-How School Remakes Mind and Society, by David R. Olson, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 343 pp., $24.00. According to popular theories of development, the child enters the world with variously defined potential, which is then nurtured by his encounters with the teaching material around him. From the perspective of virtually all developmental theories, then, schools should be expected to fall neatly into the scheme. It should follow that the primary raison d'être of schools is to contribute to the child's development. While it might take only a casual observer to realize the evidence to the contrary, Olson's mission has been to build the case that the formal educational system is not so child-centered as we would like or expect. Clearly we find perennial fault with actions of schools that appear out-of-sync with the interests of children. The explanation, we are told, is that a school is first and foremost an institution-and institutions are not beholden primarily to the individuals they were defined to serve. While, Olson explains, schools play on the one hand a "pedagogic" role as a site for experience and learning, they also serve an "institutional" purpose. This distinction is critical to our understanding of how schools function and also to any attempt at changing what they do. As an institution, the school has evolved as a product and instrument of modern society. As such, it is a bureaucracy with obligatory organizational structures, policies, and procedures. Schools have their own language and assessment measures used to define and classify their constituents' places within them. They must also demonstrate fiscal responsibility and be accountable to their funding sources and governmental overseers. Consequently schools are more likely to be prone to rule-based than to evidence-based practice. As an institution the school has a life and purpose of its own that can overshadow the mission of the development of the individual. The interests of the school as institution can be viewed as divergent from the goals and aspirations of individual children in two respects. The first, about which Olson is fairly explicit, cuts to the core of what is meant by learning and teaching. From the individual's perspective, the goal of education is to nurture thought and to provide knowledge and skills for him to fulfill his greatest potential as a human being. The purpose of the school as institution, however, is "to help students accept responsibility for putting their thought and action in line with the accepted practices of society." So, in this context, the competencies that the child is expected to achieve must answer to the needs of the society of which the school is a part. For this reason schools as institutions have developed for the most part fixed norms and standards as well as procedures for assuring that they are met. Less explicit in Olson's presentation is that, as an institution, the school system, serves to meet the needs not only of its students but also those of other members of the society in which it exists. The role of the school system as a major employer is not inconsequential. Enormous numbers of teachers and administrators are needed for the schools as configured today to function. The push to reduce class size and individualize the education needs of children with learning differences increase the need for more, increasingly talented teachers. The problem is, as in any profession or segment of the population, increasing the total area under the Bell curve also increases the area at the lower end. So a clear downside of the school's institutional identity is that we encounter teachers who themselves cannot spell or whose grammar is atrocious, who have little understanding of child behavior and behavioral principles, or who have no appreciation of differences in learning styles. At the other end of the curve are more enlightened or creative teachers who are constrained by their obligations to adhere to fixed institutionally defined curricula and methods. According to Olson it should be no surprise that many attempts at meaningful school reform have failed. There is frequent reference to John Dewey who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, advocated for more meaningful, interesting, and cooperative activities as a means for educating students than "the dreary monotony of traditional memorized lessons." While much attention was paid to his progressive ideas at the time, his efforts ultimately got derailed because they failed to recognize the institutional nature of schooling. In fact, recent attempts at school reforms have focused almost exclusively on issues of accountability (testing of students, teachers, schools; responding to taxpayers concerns) rather than on evidence-based changes in curriculum or teaching practices which meet resistance from competing institutionalized policies and procedures. Olson argues that the modern advances in the study of how learning happens do not realize their clinical application not because they are without merit, but because they do not consider the institutional character of schooling. If attempts to reform educational practices are to succeed, governments and the public must take into account the obligatory roles of schooling as an institution. Olson lays the groundwork for his argument by discussing the evolution of educational theory, practice, and reform from historical, philosophical, and sociological perspectives. He goes on to explain characteristics of institutions in general and then describes the school as the quintessential case in point. Throughout there is reflection on educational concepts such as teaching, learning, and knowledge, the meanings of which differ depending on whether one is talking about the individual's or institutional perspective. An interesting contention is that such diverse descriptors as "normal," "failure," "illiterate," "gifted," or even "hyperactive" are institutionally derived terms, the obligatory result of institutional efforts to assess or categorize students. This book is a scholarly endeavor-extensively documented and well written. The arguments are well supported, but Olsen could be criticized for belaboring the point. A reader will often judge a book to be a good one if he finds himself nodding in knowing agreement with the points being made. Olsen succeeds on this account. Those interested in educational and developmental theory on the one hand or the influences that bear on a child's developmental outcome will find this book both useful background and thought-provoking. School administrators and those who make and implement public education policy should be encouraged to read it as well. As part of its application this year one prominent university asks the prospective student to write an analytic essay on the meaning of Mark Twain's remark: "I never let schooling interfere with my education." Olson's book would be an apt (though excessive) response to that challenge. Moreover, the reader might be convinced that Twain's self-reflective remark could also be good advice. David L. Meryash M.D. Schneider Children's Hospital North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System New York University School of Medicine Manhasset, New York