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You
are here: A Classroom Panorama
by Mark Kennedy
I love the view out my classroom window. From my desk I can see the local mountains, and while not the grandest range, still it's a beautiful panorama. In spring, I can just make out the giant firs along the top ridge, green silhouettes in miniature against a sky so blue it makes me squint. The picture turns majestic when huge fluffy clouds rise up from behind the mountains, softly piled atop each other as high again as the 6,500 foot peaks themselves.
In winter, the whole range often blazes pristine white. And then after a brief warm spell begins to leave brown and white striations, a fierce new storm races in from the ocean 60 miles away, towering black thunder heads first threatening and then swallowing the whole range, startling flashes of lightening connecting heaven and earth so briefly I'm left wondering if I really saw it at all. Then I'm shaken out of this contemplation as the following thunder rolls over me. These violent episodes often seem as if they'll never stop. But then as quickly as they begin, they're over, and I can anticipate the mountains silently reemerging, draped head to toe in a soft, blinding white comforter.
But it's not just the seasons of brilliant contrasts which I enjoy. I also love the desert browns and golds of summer and early fall. It seems I've lived long enough to see beauty in the sparseness and mud tones of these seasons as well. And no matter what the season, I also enjoy the view as it processes through the day: the thin air of early morning, the slopes almost within reach; the brilliant pink of a late afternoon, the range mirroring the sunset developing over the Pacific; the deep purple of settling dusk, a grand display of 'purple mountain majesties'.
Indeed, part of the reason I enjoy the panorama so much is that it can be so varied. This variety heightens my awareness and appreciation for an image that may be starkly different from yesterday's, last week's, or tomorrow's. If the view were always the same, I would probably start taking it for granted, and perhaps soon fail to notice it at all. And in fact, sometimes the view is the same, as when the mountains are obscured by an industrial caste gray-brown air so thick that just to walk through it feels like trying to find my way through a giant curtain of sticky velveteen. On such days, this effort takes so much energy that it is difficult to see anything beyond the brown haze, to remember that the mountains are even there, let alone imagine the beautiful panoramas of better times.
Since automobiles contribute so greatly to this industrial haze, perhaps it's fitting to add them to the distinction we're making between the ideas of variation and sameness of perspective. Anyone who has ever sat in a carbon-monoxide choked bumper-to-bumper commute knows how suffocating the experience can feel. As claustrophobic as such an experience can be, how much worse would it be if every one of those bumpers were the same: if every automobile had the same appearance-one color, one make and model, one type of wheels, a bland, uniform interior? As ugly as the view can be now on a clogged, carbon-monoxidic Southern California freeway or in a jammed New York tunnel, how much worse would this uniformity make it?
And let's not stop there: ratcheting the analogy up another notch, what if all men in those cars wore the same suit, women the same outfit-one cut, one color, hair coifed the same? It's a short step from these fanciful musings to a deadly serious application: what if these commuters all held only one perspective on life? What if all people did so? What if uniformity in thought were an axiom of life, a requirement? Although history is rife with examples of the dangers of such a state of existence, we need only remember the Twentieth Century dictators Hitler and Stalin, and fictional accounts such as Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, to remind us that the idea and danger of such uniformity is not really all that far-fetched.
Differences and Learning
I would like to suggest several generalizations which present themselves from these musings, and an underlying line of reasoning which has important implications for education. First, the changing panorama from my desk, along with the human drive to imitate nature's variety, point up that we are, in fact, surrounded by difference, both natural and man-made. Second, it becomes apparent that many areas of difference are a natural and positive part of life. And third, if there are differences; and if many of these are normal and good; then, we should find ways to honor and encourage them. This syllogism has implications for teaching and learning.
As educators, of course, we know there are differences in the way people learn. The crucial question is whether these are legitimate differences. That is, do they constitute material differences, which if ignored would cause or prevent someone from being able to learn? If so, then we must find ways to identify, strengthen, and even promote this variety. In another place I made just this case, suggesting the existence of legitimate differences in the learning needs and expectations which students bring to the learning situation, and that these naturally fall into four categories or perspectives (Kennedy 2001).
The number four itself is significant. When choosing a learning-theory framework, there is a need to carefully delineate categories. Too few categories can lead to too much uniformity, to over- simplification. Too many categories will make implementation impractical. Although I first became aware of the four teaching-learning perspectives by watching a lone hawk glide through his circular hunting pattern, perhaps nature validates the four perspectives in other ways as well. Maybe the panorama visible out my classroom window points to a symbolic panorama inside my classroom: just as there are four seasons in nature, each providing a different perspective, so I believe there are four perspectives to the teaching-learning process.
But I did not adopt this view easily or quickly, just by staring out my window. Too many good people before me have suggested other theories of learning difference. Consequently, there are several such theories in play today. Some of the better known include multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983/1993), several takes on learning styles (Dunn, 1996; Guild & Garger, 1985; Entwistle, 1988), temperaments (Kagan, 1994; Keirsey & Bates, 1984), personality types (Myers & Briggs-Myers, 1980/1993), a triarchic view of intelligence (Sternberg, 1985), an emphasis on emotional intelligence to balance the previously overwhelming emphasis on analytic thought (Damasio, 1994; Goleman, 1995), and brain-based learning (Kotulak, 1997; Caine & Caine, 1991; Sylwester, 1995).
Since becoming a classroom teacher in the 1980s, I have read all of these views and found something to value and admire in each. What I couldn't seem to do, however, was to translate any of them into classroom use without massive systemic support and effort-I needed more money and freedom from burdensome, traditional restrictions than seemed to be available. Admittedly this might have had more to do with my own limitations than the ideas themselves. Nevertheless, while pieces of each could and would inform my practice, as a classroom teacher I couldn't count on school- or district-wide support. Therefore, I needed something more practical, a framework upon which to actually construct a single classroom practice.
In searching for this framework, I was bound by my greatest professional strength/weakness (as so often in life, two sides of the same coin): I am a classroom teacher. This means not having the advantage of a university position from which to leverage my ideas. But this also means that I actually have an advantage in being able to develop and refine a learning model in the 'laboratory' of the classroom, testing theory against practice, reflecting on practice to enhance theory. So I did. What emerged is the idea of four Teaching-Learning Perspectives (Kennedy 2001), one of which every teacher and learner seems to naturally favor. And as I said, perhaps my readiness to settle on four perspectives resonates at some level with my love for the mountainous panorama of the four seasons. At any rate, for ease of understanding these four perspectives or views are put into graphic format in Figure 1. In explicating this figure, I'll make some mention of the process which led to it's formation.
Figure 1 The Four Learning Perspectives: A Panoramic View of the Classroom
Academic Perspective Normative Perspective Inventive Perspective Personal Perspective Symbolic Profession: The Professor The Investigator The Innovator The Communicator Learning Process: Focuses on task
What's the job?
Focuses on present truth
What's the norm?
Focuses on possible truth
What's the best?
Focuses on people
What's the significance?
Learning Product: in order
to Know what?The That of Aristotle
in order
to Clarify Why/How?The Why of Aristotle
In order
to Envision What if?The if of Aristotle
In order
to Understand So What?Aristotle's What is it to me/ you
Learning Goal: and so
to master the maximum factual informationand so
to master essential skill and workingsand so
to search for truth in possibilitiesand so
to construct personal meaningDeveloping Perspectives
The struggle to make sense of learning differences began with what I observed in students: some ways of being/seeing seemed natural, some learned. So, nature and nurture both went into the mix. As a further base line for gauging difference, some students seemed at ease with traditional schooling, while others wanted to pull their hair out at the mere thought of a traditionally-taught class. During this process, I ran into a model used by another set of practitioners, whose focus was the training of inservice presenters to reach adult learners. They proposed that in every audience there will be those asking themselves about the subject/material, What?, Why?, What if?, and So what? (Garmston and Wellman 1992). I tried these interrogatives in the classroom and began to find they had potential there, too.
Another thing I was looking for in a new framework was to bypass the raciest ideas for the most true. I wanted not some shiny new idea which would be primarily noteworthy for its market appeal - my students couldn't wait while I chased self aggrandizement - but something that worked and was rooted in reality. As a personal reality check, I sought to ground the emerging framework in the past. If my belief that the ancient proverb is true, There is nothing new under the sun, then it seemed likely I could look for the predilections I was seeing in students (and colleagues-and myself), in past thinkers. Imagine, then, my excitement upon discovering that Aristotle proposed that anything worthy of study could be approached from four directions, inquiring into: The That, The Why, the If, and What it is or what it means (Ross, 1923/1995). These seemed to naturally fall along the same lines as the modern interrogatives with which I was already working.
In order to begin using these ideas with students, I next assigned a name, intended as emblematic, to each view. These became: the Academic Perspective, the Normative Perspective, The Innovative Perspective, and the Personal Perspective. Then I further followed the lead of Garmston and Wellman, giving each of the perspectives a symbolic profession as a working handle. My professions have become The Professor, The Investigator, The Innovator, and The Communicator.
We can begin to make a systematic application of these ideas to the classroom by more carefully looking at Figure 1, where the four learning perspectives are delineated in columns. The rows indicate aspects of each perspective. For example, the Professor will focus on a learning task, in order to master the maximum amount of factual information, the What of a topic, in the shortest time. Traditional lists of dates, vocabulary words, and other facts about the subject at hand are seen as important and therefore easily mastered by Professors. The Investigator is naturally drawn to the norm, the truth as we now understand it. This learning perspective wants to gain clarity into the essential workings of an object or idea, in order to understand Why and How it works. Traditional diagrams and worksheets, after the basic concepts are explained, are simple for Investigators. These first two outlooks make up the traditional views on schooling.
The Innovator will envision What if in a search for new possibilities, new solutions - that is, the truth in a way we may not have seen it before. Innovators thrive on open-ended assignments, such as finding a previously unimagined solution for a civic problem. If given an idea, they'll almost always be able to improve on it. The Communicator has a people focus, and will always prefer to work collegially in order to understand So what significance factual and essential information has for them. Communicators wilt under the pressure of a traditional pencil and paper, everyone-does-her-own-work assignment. They will flourish, however, on a group project or assessment. I have seen Communicators who have not had an interest in school for years, come alive when given the opportunity to work in this collegial format. These last two outlooks are more unconventional views on education and learning.
A Vignette
In order to flesh out this framework somewhat, let's imagine that a class will be beginning a few minutes from now-my class, for example. Students begin to arrive in clusters, alone, or in pairs; some are quiet, some loud, some silent. As they enter, James and Sandra sit in a couple of the traditional student desks at the front of the room. They open neatly kept notebooks to the correct divider for this class, and line up pens and pencils at the edge of their notebooks.
Steve, who walked in just behind them, sits at a rectangular table with several chairs around it. As Josie walks in a moment later, he starts joking with her, but at the back of the room when James tries the electric pencil sharpener and it only makes a nonproductive grinding noise, Steve jumps up to have a look. Slightly alarmed as Steve begins taking off plastic covers, I stand and take a few steps forward, calling out for him to be sure it's unplugged before tinkering with anything. Steve gives me a look of sheer pity: who would even bother to say something so evident?
I turn back to find that Josie has taken up residence in my chair, who now launches into a story about all that's happened since I saw her last - a whole 17 hours ago. Nothing has happened to me in the last 17 hours. As she talks I find myself wondering if she ever has to take a breath. Evidently not. Nor does she have to stop and reflect before switching subjects - it seems as natural and seamless for her to do so as it is for me to put my feet up when I get home and fall into my favorite chair.
While trying to follow Josie's story and keep one eye on Steve's progress, I notice Hector walk in and sit at a one-person area he's designed for himself contiguous with one of the bookcases. I throw out my idea more or less in his direction for an interactive journal topic for the day: the headlines in the paper announce the latest predictions for the impact of the ozone layer's deterioration. Hector revises my idea a couple of times and then suggests, What if every day this year were 10 degrees warmer-or colder? How would life be different? (Today, for example, it's supposed to reach 96 degrees). As the remainder of the students arrive and the passing bell rings, we begin class with this journal topic.
A Curriculum Planner
So what do we do with this picture of student learning differences? While it is not my purpose in this brief space to rigorously explore the implications of having four learning perspectives in every classroom (and faculty room!), I do want to suggest a simple panoramic curriculum planner (Figure 2). This example assumes either a single teacher self-contained classroom, or a teaching team which collaborates on a common unit theme. But the planner is also easily modified for the single-subject or departmentalized teacher (Author 2001).
Figure 2 Panoramic Classroom Planning
Academic Analysis
Technical Application
Innovative Synthesis
Creative Synopsis
Symbolic Profession and Interrogative The Professor
reminds us to cover
The What
The Investigator
reminds us to cover
The Why/How
The Innovator
reminds us to ask
What if?
The Communicator
reminds us to ask
So What is the relevance?
Math Create a set of graphing coordinates which will result in a picture communicating some aspect of Descarte's life. Social Studies Because he was frail, Descartes was allowed to sleep late every day. Should we have this opportunity?
Write a persuasive essay.
Literacy Imagine you're the admiral sent to persuade Descartes to work for the Queen of Sweden.
Prepare an oral (business) presentation (with charts)
Science Create an annotated list of the most important science terms used/invented by Descartes.
To facilitate understanding of the planner, let's continue with the characters introduced in the vignette. Imagine that once class is well under way I introduce a new unit, Descartes and Analytic Geometry. Imagine further that the students are familiar with my curriculum planner, and that they are conditioned to having some input into the formation of some of the assignments. So they know, for example, that I will require an essay in order to reteach and practice good writing; they expect that we'll want to end up with some assignments which aid and demonstrate understanding of coordinate graphing and maybe other aspects of analytic geometry; that I'll want them to remember all the geography Descartes covered during his life; and that it's all useless if we can't tie it to our lives today. With all this in mind, I turn them loose for small-group brainstorming sessions.
A Classroom Panorama
As Hector the Innovator throws out essay topic suggestions for Academics Steve and Sandra, they offer to swap labor by giving him editorial feedback on his first drafts. They know from experience that his ideas will be exceptional and original, but that his innovation may not stop there; he often invents his own spelling and grammar-sometimes even new words. But they've long since learned that such venerables as Chaucer and Shakespeare did the same thing, so they're patient with Hector on this point. Investigator Steve is busy demonstrating to Josie the Communicator how the entryway floor tiles could be used to design a coordinate graphing project. Josie interrupts to point out the picture she can envision in the dust atop the tiles, and to say that it reminds her of a dream she had last night. I step in to ask if together they might be able to turn her vision into a list of coordinates which the whole class could graph on paper. They think so.
Later I will take all their suggestions and complete the full panorama of the curriculum planner, as the four sample cells in Figure 2 demonstrate. But for now, as the various discussions continue, I step back to muse. I know Steve and Sandra will never be as good at innovation as Hector, nor will he match their ability to master factual information, rules for grammar and spelling, or conventional science. Josie will probably never make a great auto mechanic, electrical engineer, or research scientist, and Steve will probably not make a fortune working with people - he loves machines and electronics too much. But I do believe two things as I watch these differences play out: that all these kids will be better off for having their natural learning perspectives recognized, honored and encouraged; and that they will be better off for having seen that there are areas where they can still grow (sometimes myopically called weaknesses), and further that such growth may be aided by learning from the natural strengths of others.
At that moment I turn to look out the window. Today is a good day for viewing the local mountains. I can see the evergreens along the peaks, and the bottomless purple shadow of deep canyons slashing down the slopes. I can almost imagine the sharpness of the ridges, and enjoy following the lines as they subtly taper off . As I think of other panoramas, of other times of the year, I am grateful for the differences which allow me to appreciate this view. And as I turn back to view my classroom, I am grateful for the panorama evident there. Without the differences which I see, teaching for me would be like living in a smog-choked room day in and day out. And more to the point, such a uniform environment would suffocate the learning of children.
References
Briggs-Myers, I. & P. Myers. (1980/1993). Gifts differing: Understanding personality type. Palo Alto, CA: CPP Books.
Caine, R. & Caine, G. (1991). Making connections: Teaching and the human brain. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Dunn, R. (1996). How to implement a learning style program. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Entwistle, N. (1988). Styles of Learning and Teaching: An integrated outline of educational psychology. London: David Fulton Publishers.
Gardner, H. (1983/1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Garmston, R. & Wellman, B. (1992). How to make presentations that teach and transform. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than I.Q. New York: Bantam Books.
Guild, P. & Garger, S. (1985). Marching to different drummers. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Kagan, J. (1994). Galen's Prophecy: Temperament in human nature. News York: Basic Books.
Kennedy, M. (2001). Lessons from the Hawk. Brandon, VT: Psychology Press/Holistic Education Press.
Keirsey, D. & Bates, M. (1978/1984). Please understand me: Character and temperament types. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus.
Kotulak, R. (1997). Inside the Brain: Revolutionary discoveries of how the mind works. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Ross, D. (1923/1995). Aristotle. London: Routledge.
Sternberg, R. (1985). Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory of human intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sylwester, R. (1995). A Celebration of Neurons: An educator's guide to the human brain. Tucson, Zephyr Press.
Mark Kennedy is an alternative education teacher at San Bernardino (CA) County's West End Community School. He has served as an acting principal, lead teacher, mentor teacher, interdisciplinary team leader, and self-study focus group chair, as well as a part-time faculty member with Chapman University. Mark has written a dozen articles for publication, and his book Lessons from the Hawk has recently been released by Holistic Education Press. He would love to hear from you at kidswarrior@netzero.net
He has a website at http://www.harmoniouswarrior.com
© December 2002 New Horizons for Learning
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