New Horizons for Learning: Observation Deck, January 1999

From the Observation Deck

It appears that attention deficit disorders, hyperactivity, misbehavior, and even violence are on the increase in classrooms not only in the U.S. but in other countries as well. See the latest additions to Child Research Net http://www.childresearch.net, and their discussion of these problems in the schools of Japan. (Director of CRN is Dr. Noboru Kobayashi, and former head of the Japanese Council on School Reform and director of Children's Hospital in Tokyo.)

The reasons for these problems have been widely discussed. Are they caused by poverty, inadequate parenting, violence in the environment, societal problems, lack of appropriate role models, the media? Students who are bored or frustrated often turn readily to these behaviors, and whatever the causes, schools must deal with the results. As standards rise, teachers and students need the tools to meet them. So it is no wonder that many schools are recognizing the need to activate learning through the appropriate use of technology, the arts, and environmental projects integrated throughout the curriculum. Essential academic learning requirements become attainable for many who would not otherwise succeed.

Electronic technology, as one of the most recent tools for learning, has been found to turn around the behavior of many at-risk students, as they become engaged in the learning process in new ways. They are able to learn more efficiently when abstract information is turn into concrete form before their eyes, as happens with physics being demonstrated in Videodiscovery's "The Physics of Auto Collisions" and "The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse." They learn to solve extremely complex problems through real-world situations as they become fascinated with "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury" developed at Vanderbilt University. As a result of such anchored instruction, learning is also turned into understanding that can be applied.

The arts also engage the most difficult students as they are able to identify and learn through their strengths or areas of greatest interest. Their behavior may change dramatically when they act out scenes from history, or make up songs synthesizing the most important points of a recent lesson, or make an illustrated chart of the results of pollution on their own environment, or do a group dance explaining DNA, or do interviews and document the history of their own community in an oral or multimedia report.

Environmental projects outside the classroom offer learning that can contribute to adult knowledge bases or to solving real world problems. In the process, students who become restless and hyperactive doing "seat work," may learn with enthusiasm and with unusually focused attention. Students who have the opportunity to examine the natural world with real scientists through the Jason Project http://www.jasonproject.org, may explore the bottom of the Mediterranean to understand how the tectonic plates move, or look down from the rim of an active volcano in Hawaii, or see different flora and fauna in the Amazon jungle while communicating directly with the explorers! The accompanying curriculum takes on new meaning and so does learning. The Grounds and Gardens area of our website offers a curriculum based on students identifying problems, doing research, and implementing a community action project.

While the whole world struggles to solve the problems of human behavior, schools have no choice but to find ways to help students to become responsible, civil members of society. Creating exciting, active learning opportunities may be a starting point.