"Learning
Requires More than Play." Education Matters , 5(12), 1999, pp. 1,8.
Guest Article
Learning Requires More Than Play
by J. E. Stone
For years
educational experts have held that the only good way to engage students in
schoolwork is by making it exciting, engaging, and fun. Students have been
expected to study and learn but only if the subject wasn't boring. The public
has been told that school facilities must be attractive, books colorful, and,
above all, studies must be "intrinsically" interesting. Teachers have
been expected to be stimulating but not obtrusive, challenging but not
demanding of overexertion. They have been told that if their teaching is truly
enthusiastic, innovative, and creative, students will learn spontaneously, if
not effortlessly.
Laurence Steinberg's
Beyond the Classroom, Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do
(Simon & Schuster, 1996) takes a decidedly different view of why successful
students pay attention, complete their assignments, and succeed. Distilling the
results of studies carried out over ten years, Steinberg concludes that
high-achieving students treat their studies as work, not fun and games.
Although the central point of Steinberg's research pertains to parent and peer
influences, his broader message is that successful students approach school as
an important opportunity and they work hard to make the most of it. A growing
number of experts agree with his observation.
Dr. Tommy Tomlinson,
the researcher who was instrumental in producing the "Nation at Risk"
report, similarly identified student effort as the inescapable essential for
school improvement:
After 25 years of trying to fix things, it is time to face a few facts
of human nature: Setting higher standards and expectations is one thing,
persuading students to try harder is another. Students who study too little,
learn too little; and educational reforms that do not change the study habits
of students are unlikely to improve achievement.
In fact, what
Steinberg, Tomlinson, and so many other experts are finding reflects an often
disagreeable truth about learning: Learning takes study and study takes time
and effort. Today's students are immersed in a world of competing attractions;
and no matter how teachers go about making learning attractive, students
responding only to "edutainment" are unlikely to make the kind of
effort that quality learning requires.
The idea that learning
should be motivated solely by interest and enthusiasm not only ignores the role
of work, it also skews the focus of education. Despite the fact that learning
requires a concerted effort by the student, teachers and parents frequently
find themselves doing most of the work. They may arrange stimulating lessons
and dutifully help with homework but little is accomplished if the student
makes no more than a token effort to learn. So long as the student is expected
to make an effort only when he or she feels genuinely inspired, study is merely
an option, not a responsibility.
A Student Work-Ethic
is Indispensable
As an educational
psychologist, I have no disagreement with learning that is exciting, engaging,
and thoroughly enjoyable. What I find unrealistic, however, is the pedagogical
orthodoxy that worthwhile learning occurs only when studies are exciting and
fun. In truth, many valuable lessons in both school and daily life are not fun
at all.
Students who study
because they feel obliged to do so (i.e., who study even when they do not feel
especially interested or enthused), learn both the easy lessons and the
difficult ones; and they learn something important about life as well. They
learn that real achievement usually requires a real effort.
If parents,
teachers, and, indeed, the larger society want children to benefit fully from
school, they must insist that students study and make an effort to learn
whether they feel like it or not. Although increased effort will not somehow
ensure academic excellence for all, it will ensure improved achievement for
virtually all. Granted, even with their best effort, some students will not
achieve within expected time frames. Yet a level of effort commensurate with
timely achievement is a reasonable expectation.
American
expenditures on schooling are some of the highest in the world; yet attendance,
not study, is compulsory. The result is cost-ineffectiveness on a grand scale.
Taxpayers are providing educational opportunities and students are wasting
them. Many teachers find student attentiveness and diligence so lacking that
many no longer expect them. Longer school days and school years are required to
overcome the resulting inefficiencies. Progressively smaller pupil teacher
ratios are needed to accommodate the resulting differences in achievement and
rates of progress. Progressively greater curricular overlap from grade to grade
is needed to accommodate increasingly varied levels of entry-level skills. All
of the above require the hiring of more teachers and other school personnel.
In general, more of
that which the average student used to learn in elementary school is now
learned in high school, and more of that which was formerly learned in high
school is now learned in college. Colleges divert ever greater resources into
remedial studies. Taken together, these trends are resulting in increasing
expenditures that produce little net change in academic achievement. Given that
education is already the greatest single element of governmental expenditure,
the efficiency with which students make use of publicly funded educational
opportunities has a significant bearing on taxes. If schools continue to ignore
this relationship, they are on a collision course with reality.
A Work Ethic Can Be
Learned
In my view, one of
the greatest improvements that could be made in education would be to convince
parents, teachers, students, and the public that "no pain, no gain"
applies to learning just as it does to athletics and other worthwhile
endeavors. This message must be understood not just by parents, teachers, and
students, but by those in positions of visibility and public leadership. For
the most part, individuals who have distinguished themselves know that
meaningful accomplishment in any endeavor takes hard work because they have
worked hard themselves. Of course, there are individuals whose unusual talents
or fortunate circumstances afforded them success with little effort or
sacrifice but they are the exceptions. Permitting or encouraging young people
to believe that they too "can have it all" without a determined
effort is a disservice to them and to their communities.
Parents, teachers,
and all others who work with young people can make a huge contribution to both
their educational success and their lifelong habits by teaching them to put
school work before pleasure. This principle is an American essential, and it is
the essence of responsible behavior. The ability to delay gratification by
putting work before pleasure practically defines self-discipline and maturity.
It is a habit, however, that is acquired gradually and progressively. Children
do not naturally recognize that long-term satisfaction often requires one to
forego immediate pleasures. The alternative of permitting young people to be
irresponsible in matters such as schoolwork and then expecting them to become
self-disciplined adults is utterly unrealistic.
Study is a Matter of
Civic Responsibility
Making an effort to
study and learn should be treated as a matter of civic responsibility. All
citizens are expected to contribute to the common good, thus it is entirely
fitting that students be asked to do their part in school.
In my opinion, we
have undermined the ability of young Americans to play a responsible role in
society by placing too great an emphasis on their disadvantages and
disabilities and not enough emphasis on their strengths. Without question
students are sometimes impaired by social and economic conditions, but
educational improvement cannot wait until all of these conditions are
corrected. In spite of sometime adverse life circumstances, young Americans
have opportunities and advantages only dreamed of by students elsewhere in the
world. In any case, we cannot expect them to heed the message that they are the
parties who must work much harder in school if we continue to talk like
everyone else is to blame for their lack of achievement. In truth, America can
afford to waste neither educational opportunities nor the talents of another
generation.
J. E. Stone is an
educational psychologist and a professor in the College of Education at East
Tennessee State University. He also heads the Education Consumers
ClearingHouse, PO Box 4411, Johnson City, IN 37602, phone & fax
423-282-6832.
Internet:
http://education-consumers.com
email:
professor@education-consumers.com