Retro-Education: Is "Modern" Really Better?

Abstract

This article discusses the efficacy of modern,

conceptual curriculum methods in elementary education

in terms of brain function; particularly regarding the

neural processes of noise reduction, pathway

establishment and memory consolidation.

Nostalgia



Once upon a time subjects in school were divided into

discreet categories, enabling students to have a clear

expectation of the task at hand. At the risk of

oversimplifying: History pertained to what happened in

the course of time: e.g. wars, trends, politics,

movements, outcomes. Geography referred to the

characteristics of places: landscapes, mountain ranges,

continents, etc. Meanwhile, English grammar class

consisted to learning about parts of speech,

punctuation and other language mechanics and math was

often divided neatly into adding, subtracting,

multiplying, word problems and at higher grade levels,

geometry and algebra. It might seem amusing, yet

perhaps accurate to refer to this method as the “place

for everything, everything in its place” curriculum. In

this system there were no hybrid names such as Language

Arts or Social Studies. Math curricula did not include

overlapping, conceptual approaches in which the student

was expected to assimilate from among simultaneous

smidgeons of addition, subtraction, geometry and other

math operations. Now of course, modern curricula

feature such integrative, conceptual approaches based

on the notion that this will enable the child to piece

together the puzzle and end up with an enhanced level

of proficiency as well as a meta-cognitive “grasp” of

the subject matter.

Two confounding factors in education theory have

prevailed over the past several decades. One is the

presumption that increased technology would lead to

more skilled, enlightened students. During the 1992

presidential campaign, vice presidential nominee Al

Gore said he looked forward to a time when all students

would have mega access to Internet-generated

information, including the Library of Congress. He was

right about the access part, wrong about the search

part. Turns out kids did what one would expect kids to

do; use the computer as a play object, leading to a

generation of students able to type out transformers on

the keyboard but unable to spell cat on the blackboard.

The second notion was that the mind of a child is

conceptual and capable of understanding concepts even

before specific detail-oriented neural pathways are

entrenched in the brain to facilitate automaticity.

Judging by most recent results and the number of

students identified with special education needs, the

latter theory seems not to have panned out.

Interestingly, every time student performance declines

in the USA a newer, more conceptual and loftier

curriculum, arguably beyond the reach of even some

students with average intelligence is put in play.

To cope with the cost, as well as the academic

frustration inherent in this process, school districts

have attempted to address certain aspects of the

problem. Making special education eligibility more

rigorous has been one. The introduction of RTI – which,

despite the claim that it provides a more normalized

alternative to special education, “identifies” students

in much the same way via tier-distinctions, has been

another. Meanwhile the curriculum either retains the

same circular format is conceptually embellished in an

ironic (perhaps even Panglossian) attempt to ensure

higher student achievement.

The results have been both predictable and sobering. A

report by Harvard University showed that  students in

Latvia, Chile and Brazil are improving their academic

skills at a rate three times as fast as American

students. Students in Colombia, Lithuania, Poland and

Lichtenstein do so at twice the rate of American

students. (2012) Middle school American students are

now behind roughly 25 other nations in broad student

achievement even as new thinkers are proposing more

rigorous academic standards for them. It seems a bit

like asking a very short-legged person to overcome his

inability to jump over a hurdle by increasing its

height. This writer would submit – less whimsically –

that the true goal of public education is not to win

some sort of vaguely defined international competition

but to reach as many students along the normal curve as

possible so that more can learn basic and necessary

skills through which to function as adults. The

American education system, which is more

quintessentially public and inclusive than any other in

the world cannot be elitist and public at one and the

same time.

In some ways this reflects a logically flawed argument

implicit in the notion of the “American Dream.” It is

the idea that all American students ought to be able to

go to college in order to better themselves and

increase their living standards. Obviously if that many

young people graduated from college, the supply of

college grads would exceed demand, resulting in more

joblessness and lower pay scales for those graduates.
Thus far the argument has been somewhat pedantic -

nothing more than broad-strokes criticism that might be

countered by equally persuasive arguments in support of

modern education curricula and educational philosophy.

To get beyond that, it might help to discuss the

development of brain and cognition in early childhood.

From Categorical to Conceptual

Human brain development is fascinating, because for all

the talk among paleo-anthropologists about how large

brains define the human species, it is actually a

reduction in brain volume that ultimately enhances

human cognition. At several stages in early childhood

and early adolescence the brain undergoes what is often

called a pruning process (Chechik, Gal. et al 1999).

During these stages, most notably at approximately 2

years of age, 7 years of age , 11 years of age and 15

years of age, brain tissue is shed. At face value this

might seem detrimental to enhanced cognition. In fact

the opposite is true. In childhood a great deal of

factual details and associations are learned and stored

categorically – these comprised the nuts and bolts of

what educators often refer to as automaticity. That is

why a young child differentiates between parents and

others, why asking a four year to process both his

needs and the reactions of others through advanced

social-empathic abilities is unrealistic. Their neural

wiring runs parallel to that.

Two types of neural columns in the brain arise in brain

development. Vertical pathways allow for such

categorical processing skills – and give the child a

kind of linear cognitive topography. Since volume-

learning is so essential in the early years the pruning

process is gradual. In terms of learning style,

categorical learning must precede conceptual learning.

It is not a function of educational theory but a

neurological mandate.

At various points in development, horizontal neural

networks begin to intertwine with horizontal pathways.

That intermingling enables various associations to

connect with one another. That in turn makes

experiential comparisons possible. Visual inputs can

mingle with auditory inputs and/or tactile inputs to

create multi-sensory thoughts, feelings and linguistic

concepts. The child can then begin to gain a gestalt of

his world, including the figure-ground perception

enabling him to process both his own needs and that of

others. As Kohler (1981) and Piaget (1932) have

suggested, this gives rise to the proto-conceptual

aspects of moral thought.

At the age of seven this begins in small steps. Over

time an increase in horizontal-vertical cross-grid

innervations will accelerate the pruning mechanism,

giving the older child a greater reference point for

storing knowledge, that is, a back-up system with

greater redundancy and integrative capacities. At that

point the child, now approaching adolescence and

cognitive brain maturation, no longer needs as much

brain tissue to retain memories. Also, due to the cross

grid “meshing” of neurons, the older child can think in

terms of relationships and concepts, not just singular

categories. 

Yet the brain of an elementary school student is still

primarily categorical and will remain so until the

latency-early adolescent years when pruning reaches its

final stages.

Another developmental factor can be considered in

advocating for a retro-education approach.  It has to

do with the establishment and reliance on categorical

knowledge as a noise reducing process.

Feed-forward, Memory Consolidation and Automaticity

The mass and volume of the human brain is still vast,

despite pruning periods, which means that the

establishment and retrieval of skill memories will be

subject to noise interference. Even in post-pruning

stages, the human brain has roughly 25 billion neural

connections, and due to what Lashley (1950) referred to

as the mass action-equipotentiality phenomenon much of

the brain will be active for each task. Memory

retrieval would thus require a superior sifting

process, a means of selectively disregarding neural

inputs devoted to irrelevant sensations or skill

memories. Such a noise-reduction mechanism unfolds in

the brain in several ways. One is through the use of

categorical language skills, especially self-regulatory

language, to guide one’s focus. In fact, despite its

social and communicative benefits some have argued that

the original evolutionary advantage of human language

might have been to enhance memory, attention span and

selective attention faculties – in other words as a

luck-of-the-draw mutation providing a broad

categorical/organizational access in an extraordinarily

large, noisy brain. (Vallotin & Ayoub 2011).

Another means of sifting is called the feed-forward or

“gating” response. It entails having an expectation or

bias that provides for pre-recognition of what does and

does not coincide with relevant input. In some ways

this is nothing more than a neural version of Piaget’s

notion of the scheme; although his concept pertained to

previously learned ideas rather than a mechanical pre-

set and noise-reducing mechanism.

From Brain to Classroom

The gradual development of the human brain has

implications for education theory; one of which is that

in elementary grades the old-style, categorical method

is more brain-friendly, more likely to lead to

automaticity and down the road, to age-appropriate

conceptual thinking. Translating that process into a

curriculum theory would no doubt over-turn apple carts

and invite criticism. On the other hand, since the

modern curriculum methods don’t seem to be working very

well, perhaps it is time for new ideas, particularly

those grounded in old ideas that seemed to work better.

 In a more practical context, a return to a retro-

educational approach  might entail the following

revisions.
1. That the elementary school curriculum be rigorously

categorical from grades 1-5, then gradually

conceptualized in grades 6 and 7.
2. That the actual name of subjects should have a tight

and categorical association with the material to be

taught. Labels and categories like Geography and

History are more categorical and brain friendly and

have greater feed forward value than ambiguous terms

such as Social Studies or Language Arts. Breaking up

language classes into categorical, discreet units such

as grammar, spelling, reading, writing etc. would be

more learnable at the elementary level. In that

context, the teacher would explain to the class exactly

what they would be learning from the outset in an

information-friendly theme/variations format where the

subject’s title correlates directly with the material

to be learned. Undoubtedly many modern educators, and

certainly the theoreticians who espouse the modern

methods might be rendered uncomfortable with such a

regressive approach. On the other hand the student

might find it very comforting. More to the point, they

might learn more, memorize more, develop more solid

degrees of automaticity in all skill areas and

conceivably make less necessary the interventions

provided in special education and RTI formats.
3. A return to a more categorical format would enable

teachers to truly understand levels of student

achievement in building blocks fashion and perhaps they

would see fewer students with double and triple

ceilings in their academic performance.
4. Returning to a categorical method would likely

umbrella more students along the normal curve and set

the stage for a higher rate of functional skills within

the population – as opposed to establishing ever-higher

standards and peeling off even students with

potentially average intellectual abilities.
5. Use of a categorical (old-school…pardon the pun)

teaching method would enable teachers to use time-

tested memory-friendly/drill exercises such as rhythm,

music, word-spelling formulas such as… i after e except

after c. While some teachers are creative enough to

incorporate such mechanics into the modern, conceptual

method it is more difficult to employ that kind of

associative approach in a conceptual teaching format.

In some ways this is simple as saying narrow pathway

teaching methods such as repetition, rhyme and

recitation are more likely to lead to memory

consolidation than the smorgasbord methods currently

used in many current elementary classrooms.
6. When all is said and done, much of what plagues

public education might boil down to a curriculum-driven

inability among so many to retain what they have

ostensibly been taught. The argument here is that some

parts of this problem can be addressed via a simple

strategy that merely requires teaching in ways that

maximize a student’s capacity to memorize the material.

In this opinion, the old methods did that, the new ones

do not.

                                                       

               REFERENCES

Chechlik, G. Mellijson, I. Ruppino, E. (1999) Neuronal

Regulation: A Mechanism for Synaptic Pruning During

Brain Maturation. Neuronal Computation 11 (8) 2061-2080

(Educational Study Reference). Report by Harvard

University Program on Educational Policy and

Governance. 2012

Kohlberg, L. (1981) Essays on Moral Development. Vol 1.

The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco.

Harper & Row.

Lashley, KS. (1950) In Search of the Engram. In

Symposium of the Society for Experimental Biology No IV

Cambridge University Press.

Piaget, J (1932) The Moral Judgment of the Child.

London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

Vallotin, C. & Ayoub, C (2011) Use Your Words: The Role

of Language in the Development of Toddler’s Self-

Regulation. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 26 (2):

169-181

Robert DePaolo, MS Clinical Psychology. Practitioner,

Licensed Clinical and School Psychology, Former

Professor of Psychology, NH University System, Author

of five books and many articles.

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