Why Elsie Kitching might like The Teaching Gap (Book Review)

by Anne White

The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom, by James W. Stigler and James Hiebert. Copyright 1999, Free Press (a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc.); new edition with Afterword, 2009.

In 1928, Elsie Kitching, a friend and associate of Charlotte Mason, wrote:

"It has been said, on the other hand, that the one effort of attention and the one narration implies that the child must never do anything a second time, which is again a very much mistaken interpretation of Miss Mason's teaching. The second time may, as I have said, come in the way of composition later on; it probably comes again in the end of term examination, and certainly, if the child is interested, frequently in after life. There are also in the upper Forms the interesting sidelights which one book or subject throws upon another, sometimes covering the same ground from another point of view.  This is a subject on which we need to think clearly, for we are all of us inclined to attack any point of view from the one point with which we have to deal, but we need to take a bird's-eye view of the whole ground covered by any problem, lest we should not see the wood for the trees."  -- "Concerning "Repeated Narration," by Elsie Kitching, The Parents' Review, Volume 39, no. 1, January 1928, pgs. 58-62; emphasis mine

In another PR article, Miss Kitching emphasizes that since the PNEU methods are methods, not systems, it is important that we begin with the philosophical principles behind the methods, rather than the other way around. She says something that might surprise homeschoolers who have spent many hours trying to figure out "the CM way to do things": that there is no one, absolute, foolproof CM-approved way to teach any particular subject, to do any particular activity--and she refers specifically to the question of how to teach reading. Yes, the PNEU provided booklists and timetables, marked exams, organized meetings, and provided many years of Parents' Review articles to try to answer the many questions that parents asked.  Yes, Charlotte Mason wrote about how to keep a nature notebook and do a picture talk. But in the end, a good teacher, working on the right educational principles, providing a generous curriculum, respecting the minds of the students, will probably do a good job overall without having to have every last instruction spelled out.
 
I found that second article particularly interesting, because I just finished reading a much more recent book that agrees, in many ways, with the "big picture" that Elsie Kitching describes.  In the early 1990's, a project called the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) videotaped eight-grade mathematics classes in the United States, Germany, and Japan.  The book The Teaching Gap is not, as its subtitle might suggest, a collection of hints from teachers around the world, but a description and summary of what the researchers found out during that project.  There were a total of 231 classes chosen randomly and filmed during a "typical" lesson; then the videos were studied by an international team of researchers.  They looked for patterns within the three countries, and for differences between them that might account for generally higher math test scores, for example, in Japan.  Were the Japanese teachers doing something special that the German and American teachers had missed?  Were there things that the American educational system could incorporate into math classes?

To give a short answer, the researchers (at that point) found a number of differences between the three countries.  Not every Japanese or German teacher taught the same way, and not every teacher taught the same way all the time, but there were enough common factors to establish some patterns.  Much of the difference came down to the facts that the best teachers allowed students to engage directly with challenging mathematics problems, and that the best lessons seemed to be presented as a sort of story--not in a literary sense, but as something planned with an opening, a middle, and an end, and periods of seatwork or group activity were part of that story as well.  The researchers, in the original book, spent quite a bit of time discussing one particular, uniquely Japanese aid to teaching: teams of teachers would regularly meet together to plan specific lessons, from beginning to end, down to the last example. Since they had a national curriculum, this meant that a local method for teaching "grade 2 math, chapter 2" or whatever could be passed on to teachers in other areas.  As well as adding to what you might call the "lesson bank," this sort of activity seemed to be particularly important in teacher development and training.  The teachers were working together to improve the students' experiences in every subject, and they themselves were learning to be better teachers by participating in these projects.  Their own experience was valued, because they were the people on the front lines.

The final question of the book was not whether the Americans should just adopt particular Japanese or even German teaching methods, for instance, getting together to plan lessons.  The researchers agreed that it would not be enough for teachers in one country to attempt to superficially imitate, or to be told to imitate, exactly what was done in another place, without changing the whole structure of education first.  In other words, principles, not surface methods, were what mattered, and one needed to be in place before much change could be seen in the other.  They also agreed that the focus needed to shift from "teachers" to "teaching," and that teaching could improve only if there was acknowledgement that a country's cultural notions of schools and teaching--the "script"--needed to change.

But the real revelation is in the Afterword, included in the 2009 edition of the book.  In 1999, the researchers expanded their project, and filmed classes in six other countries.. They found out that those countries were also teaching math very well--but that they all did it differently!  "Teachers in the Czech Republic and Hong Kong spend much of their time teaching the whole class, whether through lecture or recitation.  Teachers in the Netherlands, on the other hand, have students work independently for much of the lesson."  What did the high achievers have in common?  "Their varied approaches all accomplished the engagement of students in active struggle with core mathematics concepts and procedures.  It was this feature of teaching that we found common to the high achievers and missing in the United States." (Stigler and Hiebert, page 186)

What does all this have to do with Elsie Kitching, with Charlotte Mason, and with homeschooling parents? As Elsie said, it's easy to miss the wood for the trees.  We can't do the how-to if we're missing the why-to; but if our why-to is firmly in place, we will often see the how.  It might not be exactly the same as somebody else's how.   We may be teaching in different places; even in different centuries.  We may stalk up and down overcrowded classroom aisles like Marva Collins, or sit on a couch with one child snuggled against us.  We may use this math program, or that one.  We may find that it works to put all the "seatwork" together in a bunch and to do several book lessons back to back; or we may have children who work better with a more varied timetable.

And, like the Japanese teachers, we can definitely improve.  We can support each other, we can work with each other to talk about what worked well and what didn't, we can discuss books that we (the teachers) are reading together, we can even write class notes and lessons for each others' benefit.  In some ways, I think online homeschoolers have some of the best of all worlds: we certainly are not working in isolation!
Although The Teaching Gap is specifically about large educational systems, public schools, and classrooms, there is much in the book for home educators to think about.  In addition, we are, like it or not, part of cultures that hold "scripts" about education and schools, and those expectations affect us even if our own children are not in those classrooms.

Overall, a very interesting book, particularly as a bit of inspiration to examine the teaching "scripts" that we find ourselves following--and to rewrite them when needed.

(Charlotte Mason might ask us to note what ideas of education we have inadvertently admitted, and encourage us to give the boot to those that are harmful or non-productive.)

Why, they say, we can't read books anymore

by Anne White

Have you read the Christian Science Monitor article about people being so distracted that they can't pay attention long enough to read anything demanding, even if they want to?  It popped up for me on Yahoo a few days ago, and I actually read it.  I do read things.  But then that's what I do.  And on the other end, there are people who really never did read much in the first place, so superimposing the distraction of technology on them isn't going to make a lot of difference.

I'm trying to put myself in the place of someone who used to read,  used to want to read, and who has actually changed that because of "digital distraction."  Is there really such a person?  Maybe, maybe not.  I'm more concerned about how this applies to children, learning or not learning.  If the office workers cited in the article were interrupted about every three minutes and took twenty-three minutes to get back on task-and these were adults--is it any easier for children who are constantly interrupted and distracted?  It sounds as if we're putting ourselves, or being put, into an ADHD experiment..  The question is, why would we want to do that to ourselves, and more so, to our children?

And check out this observation: "I see people of all ages around me abandoning the moment they're in to search for something better."  The author blames this, again, on the intrusion of technology, claiming that a friend found a miraculous cure by abandoning a fancier phone for a flip phone.  Wow, if that was all it took...the funny thing is, I don't even have a flip phone, and I still get distracted.  Not enough not to read, but just trying to keep all the usual balls in the air.  But this friend, apparently, could not bring himself to read books as long as he felt enslaved to his do-everything, don't-abandon-me piece of technology.  (Doesn't that remind you a bit of those Japanese electronic "virtual pet" toys, popular about fifteen years ago, that demanded to be fed and coddled hour on the hour?  Is it possible that those were just training wheels for "SmartBerries" and the rest?)  Well, anyway, there we seem to have our Exhibit A, somebody who would have read, could have read, but who was too busy to stop and seriously look a book in the eye. Well, good for him, at least.

But again, he's an adult. He knows better and he can make his own choices.  What concerns us are the children, our own and those around us.  Are we allowing them a great deal time free of distractions?  We may have to deliberately create that--I don't mean sabotaging the devices, but at least going places where they're not wanted or not allowed, and that can include "unplugged" places and times within our own homes.  If education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life, we need to be vigilant about guarding all three.

With young children, we can play with them, with our own gadgets turned off of course.  We can do as Charlotte Mason suggests in "Inconstant Kitty" (Formation of Character), and encourage them to finish the game, play with the same toy a bit longer, go a little slower and more carefully at building something.  We can provide toys with many possibilities.  We can even do as the mama in All-of-a-Kind Family did with chores: she hid buttons (and occasionally pennies) when the little girls were dusting, so that they had to do a very thorough job to find them all.

If we homeschool, we can practice the disciplines, create the habits that do teach them to concentrate, pay attention, observe--and then record observations non-electronically.  If we teach classes or work with groups of children, we can provide books and activities that absorb them, that make them suddenly come up for air and ask for another chapter, more time to keep working or watching something.

Some will say that is not exactly cutting-edge.  But in a world where distraction is the new normal--maybe it is.

Ages and Stages

by Karen Glass

Charlotte Mason's methods are not (thank goodness!) associated with stages.  However, she did in fact talk about two stages of education.  It isn't the focus of her principles, but her methods are worked out to serve the needs of the stage that was most relevant to her pupils.

Charlotte Mason tells us that "education is the science of relations."

The idea that vivifies teaching in the Parents' Union is that Education is the Science of Relations; by which phrase we mean that children come into the world with a natural 'appetency,' to use Coleridge's word, for, and affinity with, all the material of knowledge; for interest in the heroic past and in the age of myths; for a desire to know about everything that moves and lives, about strange places and strange peoples; for a wish to handle material and to make; a desire to run and ride and row and do whatever the law of gravitation permits. Therefore we do not feel it is lawful in the early days of a child's life to select certain subjects for his education to the exclusion of others; to say he shall not learn Latin, for example, or shall not learn Science; but we endeavour that he shall have relations of pleasure and intimacy established with as many as possible of the interests proper to him; not learning a slight or incomplete smattering about this or that subject, but plunging into vital knowledge, with a great field before him which in all his life he will not be able to explore.

What does that have to do with stages?  Well, we see that Charlotte speaks of "the early days of a child's life."  The first stage, obviously, begins at the beginning, and the work of this stage is to develop relations with every area of knowledge.

Charlotte Mason mentions her stages in volume 5 of her educational series, Formation of Character,  which is not often read because it is less practical, and it is probably for this reason that we have been spared a rigid system forming around these stages. 

There is also a time for sowing the seed of this knowledge, an intellectual as well as a natural springtime; and it would be interesting to examine the question, how far it is possible to prosecute any branch of knowledge, the sowing and germination of which has not taken place in early youth. It follows that the first three lustres belong to what we may call the synthetic stage of education, during which his reading should be wide and varied enough to allow the young scholar to get into living touch with earth-knowledge, history, literature, and much besides. These things are necessary for his intellectual life, and are especially necessary to give him material for the second stage of his education, the analytic, which, indeed, continues with us to the end.

The "first three lustres" is fifteen years, so all the years prior to our high school, and even the first year or two of high school, may be considered part of this "synthetic" stage.  This is a time for gathering first-hand knowledge, developing relationships with every area of learning, and establishing that affection for knowledge that is the foundation for what Charlotte Mason tells us is the vital question about education--not "how much does the youth know?" but "how much does he care?"

After he has learned to care, his maturer mind is ready to analyze what he knows.  For most educators in the 21st century, analysis is the first object, and we expect children to analyze what they learn as soon as they trot off to kindergarten.  Charlotte Mason understood that analysis was the work of a mind "throughly furnished" with much knowledge, and the first stage of education--a long one, allowing plenty of time for relationships to develop--was a time to synthesize knowledge.  Most of us know what analysis looks like, and how to approach knowledge analytically, because this is how we are taught in institutional schools.  The idea of synthesizing knowledge might be confusing, but Charlotte Mason has distilled the idea in her principle that "education is the science of relations."  If we pursue the idea of developing a relationship with every area of knowledge, we are well on the way to making the most of that first stage of education--the synthetic stage--which lays the foundation for the later work of a mature mind.