The designating categories of special education have been carefully conceptualized by educators and are conscientiously considered in the cases of students who appear to have a barrier or barriers to learning. Most cases referred to school psychologists are straightforward and well understood. The majority of students referred and evaluated clearly meet criteria for one of the designating categories and is appropriately served as a result of the designation specified. Time and time again we have seen that when the student, designation, and assigned services match, the services received by the students lead to their progress.However, there is a growing number of students in every school district each year for whom we cannot seem to find an accurate match. These students continue to baffle educational professionals, despite their best efforts to understand and intervene. These are often the students who arrive to school, no matter how young, with a significant history already in the making. Some have been asked to leave their daycare or pre-schools. Some have been given disciplinary transfers from one school to another. Others come to school with long, often conflicting psychological and/or medical reports from outside agencies and hospitals with various diagnoses and recommendations, some tried, some abandoned, or are students quickly acquiring such reports. Numerous traditional forms of intervention were tried with little success. School psychologists review, observe, and consider what the situation may be with these students but cannot seem to put their finger on the specific challenges and needs of the students – on what the actual barrier to their successful education is. Designing and implementing effective interventions becomes futile because the problem is not clearly understood.When the problem is not clearly understood, we miss not only the opportunity to intervene within general education in an effective way but also the opportunity to use the designating categories of special education in a more accurate and comprehensive way. Some designating categories are broader and more encompassing than their current use implies, Other Health Impairment and Traumatic Brain Injury, specifically. They are underused as a result. A number of the more baffling students assessed would be better understood as having health impairments or brain injuries because of their significant medical histories or traumatic experiences. Educators have not yet considered these designations for many of the students who need them, most likely due to limited knowledge of current brain and nervous system research. The findings of the last decade – “the decade of the brain” – are critical to the work we do. Such findings point to the importance of considering pre- and peri-natal development, trauma, and stress, in both the student and the student’s caregivers when we assess for potential barriers to learning.Rather than simply identifying the problem and developing solutions for the problem as defined, we need to understand the source of the problem. That is what we do when we consider pre- and peri-natal development, trauma and stress. Understanding the source of learning and behavioral challenges is more important to best practice than ever before. In light of compelling research on the developing brain and its effect on the nervous system and self-regulatory capacities, we now know that without understanding the source of the problem, we do not understand its solution. Re-consideration of both the criteria for the designating categories, as well as the use of the categories, is implicated.Identifying barriers to learning is one of the most important things we do as educators. Within general education we have identified poor attendance, cultural and environmental conditions, second language issues, chronic illness, and economic disadvantages among others. Within special education we have assessed for developmental delays, physical disabilities, learning disabilities, emotional problems, and health impairments among others. There remains a group of students, however, whose inability to access their education with success is still not understood. There remains, in this twenty-first century, a misunderstood child.We first heard about the “misunderstood child” in the 1980′s when the book by the same name was originally published (Silver, 1984). The author helped us put a name to those students who were struggling with learning disabilities that at the time we did not know enough about. We rose to the challenges then of those students and learned to intervene with them in more effective ways. We learned at that time, just as we continue to learn today, that when we misunderstand children, we leave them behind.This is a new era. Twenty years after the publication of Misunderstood Child: Understanding and Coping with Your Child’s Learning Disabilities, we have new challenges to face in education. Post-9/11, in light of numerous school shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters, and with media and internet access at an all-time high, our students experience exposure to local and global violence in frightening proportions. We would not only be naïve but also dangerously ignorant to think that this exposure is not having a significant impact on our students. In fact, we witness that impact in our classrooms and on our playgrounds every day. We hear more now than ever before about bullies, crises, and school violence. The growing focus of education on prevention and intervention in these areas is because we realize these problems are on the rise.As we face this new era, having committed to “no child left behind,” a reconsideration of our priorities and commitments in education is called for. We need to ask important questions. Have we identified, in either general or special education, all the possible barriers to learning and behaving in school with success? Are the designating categories as they are currently being used comprehensive enough to account for the barriers our students face? Why is there a growing number of students who do not fit into the categories as they are currently being used? Who are these students who do not fit? What are the barriers to their education? What do we need to start doing to assess them more accurately, identify them more comprehensively, and serve them more effectively?In an attempt to answer these questions, the groundbreaking book, Why Students Underachieve: What Educators and Parents Can Do about It, was written to review current research findings on the developing brain and nervous system – research that is completely relevant to education yet largely ignored. The findings of this research demonstrate that there is a direct and significant effect of experience on the brain and ultimately on learning and behavior. While the findings point to a single barrier that may underlie the struggles of both general and special education students, we must also acknowledge that our own limited awareness of these findings and their implications is also a barrier to the success of our students. We can only know how to help them when we know how their experiences have impacted their development. As the relationship between experience, the developing brain, and subsequent learning and behavior is made evident, it will become clear why no one needs this information more than educators.© Regalena Melrose, Ph.D. 2009
Tag Archives: Education
The Fine and Performing Arts & Education
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. (Paulo Freire)
I see too many public service commercials-today-exhorting us to support the Performing and Fine Arts in public education. We, as a nation, have evidently become so low-brow, or unsophisticated, that we can no longer see the need for Art education in our schools. So now, we have our children pleading with us, on television commercials, to keep Art education alive. This is a sad state of affairs for us and our children, because art is what truly separates us from the beasts and allows us to rise above the mundane drudgery of life. As many others, I believe art should be at the center of education and not just because it’s good for us. Art stimulates a child’s cognitive and affective domains, as well as their motor skills, which leads to learning, discovery, creativity and motivation.
Academics are very important, of course, but too often they only stimulate a very small portion of the student’s mind and heart. There are three, basic domains of learning: the Cognitive (mind), Affective (emotions or feelings) and Motor-Skills (hands-on). These three domains are key to our thinking/reasoning, learning, problem solving and creating. A healthy mind (Cognitive) is capable of taking in, retaining and processing information, which can then be applied, if retained and used, to the individual’s life. Emotions and feelings (Affective) are closely connected to an individual’s learning, because they aid in retaining and applying information, as well as stimulating the desire to learn more. Seeing, hearing, speaking, the ability to write, walk and run are all part of the individual’s Motor-skills. Without these three domains, learning, needless to say, would be impossible. Reading, writing, math and the sciences stimulate the cognitive and motor skills domains quite effectively, but the affective is too often short changed.
If we think back to our school days, then we should be able to remember that the memorization of facts and successfully spitting them back out on tests was our main concern as students. This is very much a part of the learning process, and I’m not denying that, but where does the Affective domain play a significant part in this teaching process? In much of this way of learning the affective is absent, and-therefore-much of the educational material, which has just been learned, has no real application in the individual’s life and is forgotten. I remember very little about higher level math, the periodic table and scientific jargon. Why is that? It didn’t relate to my life nor touch me in a deep way. This is not to say that I, or anyone else, shouldn’t have taken math and science classes, but what I am saying is academics are less effective than they can be, because they tend to ignore the Affective domain.
I contend that the Arts use all three domains effectively, and they can-therefore-stimulate the student to apply, as well as retain, what they’ve learned. Creativity is key in this process. The Performing and Fine Arts have a distinct advantage-educationally-in their ability to allow students to create as they learn. In painting, students are in the process of creating at the same time they’re mixing colors and learning brush techniques. The same applies to sculpting and photography students. Many middle and high school music directors are-now-using computer programs to stimulate their students to compose as they learn to play and sing. Dance and theatre programs are examples, as well, of applying skills as their students learn. This artistic, educational process employs the cognitive and motor skills domains, but it also stimulates the affective. The art student experiences the sense of joy and satisfaction that comes from successfully learning, and then being able to immediately apply this knowledge in a very personal way. The Arts can enhance a student’s ability to express their emotions in a very positive way. These students have ownership of what they have learned and are able to express this ownership through creativity. The Performing or Fine Arts student is motivated-educationally-beyond just memorizing facts and passing tests, because they’re using their newly-acquired knowledge to express what lies deep in their heart and mind.
Surprisingly, the arts and sports have much in common, educationally. The basketball or football player, as well as the long-distant runner, learn their skills while applying them. The learning of physical techniques and immediate application reinforces the athlete’s desire to learn and perform even more. In team sports, such as football, baseball and basketball, the student athlete learns to work with others to produce a product, or team. The young athlete learns that the whole, or team, is greater than the sum of its parts, or players, as do dancers, actors, singers and instrumentalists. As in performing ensembles, these young athletes experience the joy that comes from accomplishing something special with others. They learn, in a very intimate way, responsibility towards others and that the team is dependent on the very weakest athlete, as well as the strongest and most gifted. There’s really very little difference between a football player and a band member, when it comes to being responsible and understanding that it takes everyone-involved-to be successful. This is such a valuable and wonderful lesson, and it is learned primarily, through the affective domain.
Educational collaboration between artistic disciplines is a great way for young artists to learn while they create. The pairing of young instrumentalists with dancers and visual artists, or actors with singers, can open up a whole new world of artistic exploration, discovery and creativity. These collaborations can become a great vehicle for learning and motivation, as any arts teacher who has experienced this process will testify. The educational process becomes more important than the outcome, or testing results, because it is in the process of exploration, discovery and creativity where learning really occurs. The educational outcome is secondary, because it is only used, in this case, to measure curricular goals. The motivation for and enjoying of learning comes through the process of collaboration, exploration, discovery and creating.
In academia, the emphasis-today-is placed more on the outcome, or testing and grades, which, in my estimation, is a huge mistake. Academic instructors could learn much from their counterparts in the arts. The government and its politically motivated, educational policies, of course, stands in the way of any successful, corrective change to academic teaching methods. Political agendas, such as, “No child left behind” are meaningless and worthless to students and teachers, because they’re not concerned, as they so hypocritically claim, with the success of the individual learner. Instead, these agendas are merely an attempt to soothe the fevered brows of unsatisfied constituents.
I will agree with academic teachers that their process seems to be more set in stone than with the arts, and the only real way they can measure educational outcomes is through testing. There has to be a way-however-to allow a math, science, English or history student to become more involved in the process of learning. English teachers have a distinct advantage, since they could use writing essays and poems to instill a sense of ownership in their students. Their students-then-could use their essays and poems to collaborate with young composers, actors and dancers, as an example. Even though it would be difficult, science, language and math teachers could also seek these same avenues for educational exploration, discovery and creativity, which would-then-hopefully-lead to a student’s retention/application, ownership and motivation. This, of course, will be impossible, as long as we allow our government to force academic teachers to teach-solely-towards the outcome, or “standardized” testing.
American students, every year, fall farther behind their counterparts around the world, academically and intellectually, while their parents and teachers continue to buy into the educational propaganda, which is spewed out by the American-political machine in Washington. Every year, Art education becomes less and less important in our schools, because of it’s effectiveness in producing students who can think, reason, question, learn and create. Realistically speaking, Art education may be perceived as a threat to those who run this country and desire a race of middle-class, mindless, unquestioning and unsophisticated robots.
Education is the responsibility of the parents first and foremost, and if parents aren’t capable or willing to fight for their children’s education, then I guess America is doomed. If I were a parent-today-there would be no way I could allow my child to be intellectually molested by our current, public-education system. My child would either be home-schooled, at best, or in a private education system.
The Roman Empire was one of the greatest and long lasting nations in the history of the world, and yet, as the Roman government declined, then so did its human values and arts. There is only one piece of music remaining, one mere fragment, after one thousand years of Roman culture. Rome literally disintegrated from within, because of a corrupt government and decaying society. The United States is less than two-hundred and fifty years old, and we’re already starting the lingering slide into governmental corruption, cultural ignorance and decay. Perhaps, it’s too late to save our society, but if it isn’t, then it’s time to start rebuilding what we have allowed to be torn down for the last one-hundred and fifty years. If it isn’t too late, then we must begin to rebuild our values and education system. Our values and education system may not have been perfect, in the past, but they were worthy of being fixed, properly.
Most successful, world cultures, throughout history, have been measured by the quality of their philosophers and artists far more than their forms of government and technological advances. If we disappear as a nation, in another century or so, what will we be remembered for? What will be our legacy to the world?
Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine. (Magdalena Abakanowicz)
In my estimation, art is an integral part of being human and-therefore-is integral to human education. If we die to our affective inclinations, then we cease to be human in any real sense, and the results of this can be seen on MTV and its “Hip-Hop” generation. Money, material objects, self-absorbed egos, low-life affections and brutal power will never make us more human, if anything these extrinsic motivators will simply and affectively dehumanize us. “The one with the most toys in the end,” loses! Art education can help us to see ourselves, the world and-yes-God more clearly. We are more than flesh and blood, and our affective, as well as cognitive, attributes are exhorting us to remember this truth. The arts should be at the center of our children’s education, and our children shouldn’t have to plead with us to give them what they need and desire!