A False Debate about Preschool (and K-12) Learning

More than 3,000 people on Facebook “liked” Alison Gopnik’s article on Slate this week, “Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School.” I was among them, but not because I agree with the headline, nor because I believe that children before age 5 should not be taught using direct instruction, that radioactive buzzword that means very different things to many people.

What the article does well is show how much children learn from the way adults approach problems – hence my “liking” of it and the multitude of comments and blog posts (including a smart one from our former director Sara Mead) that have cascaded forth since its publication. Research on how young children learn from imitation, not to mention studies on the use of “inquiry” methods in classrooms, show that when a child sees an intriguing model of how to ask questions, explore and test hypotheses, that child will want to do the same.

What the article doesn’t do well is define what it means to be a teacher – and not just a teacher of preschoolers, but of people of all ages.

Gopnik, a psychologist at the University of California-Berkeley and the author of The Philosophical Baby, sets up her definition of teacher by describing a study of two groups of 4-year-olds who were given a new toy with four tubes, each of which did something interesting (one, for example, squeaked when pulled). One group of children faced an experimenter who seemed excited and intrigued by the toy and asked aloud some questions about how it worked before handing it over to the children to try for themselves. The second group, in Gopnik’s words, “acted more like a teacher” and simply showed the kids what the tube could do.   When both groups of children were left alone with the toy, the first group was more likely to play with it longer and explore what it could do.

That led Gopnik to comment:

Direct instruction really can limit young children's learning. Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific – this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then a press then a pull causes the music to play. But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions.

What I take issue with is the assumption that a teacher wouldn’t be more like the experimenter  – the one who asked questions of what she saw and modeled behaviors that are associated with learning and exploring. Who said that “teaching” was only about direct instruction?  Furthermore, who said that direct instruction couldn’t be entwined, in a given moment, or a given lesson, with what this experimenter-like teacher might do?

In preschool science, for example, good teachers know how to both allow children to explore and generate questions about a given object, while also providing them with new terminology and information that helps them build on what they are seeing and exploring.

Imagine a child who is watching pill bugs crawling around in a box of sawdust. A good teacher would allow the children a lot of time to observe and ask questions about those pill bugs, yet would also offer new information when asked. This new information might, in fact, sound a lot like direct instruction: “Yes, Rani, the bug is rolling itself up! What did you say? Yes, you’re right, it’s like it wants to be safe. A scientist might say that it appears to be protecting itself. What do you think it’s protecting itself from?” Direct instruction about a new word - protecting -- is embedded in the conversation.

What children need are more learning environments – not just in preschool, but throughout their early, middle and later years of school – that give them day-to-day experience with adults who offer them effective and engaging models of what it looks like to learn. They need to see teachers (and paraprofessionals and parents) who are purposeful in their use of language and who can show them what it looks like to exercise critical thinking. The more we make distinctions between exploratory learning and “teaching,” the more we engage in a false debate.