Everybody's OK with this?

Despite all the professional advances, legislators and the employers
of educational psychologists, and indeed some specialist teachers,
have remained fixated with the view that individual children, and the
assessment of their various difficulties, are at the heart of
professional practice ........
The lack of dialogue between academic researchers, EPs and teachers
derives in part from the lack of a coherent theoretical framework.
With a plausible and explicit statement of the relationship between
the major components of theory and practice, however, a framework
for a more confident and directed application of psychology in
schools would exist, bringing with it a clear and exciting set of
research questions. In order to develop such a framework, it is
necessary to outline briefly key trends in professional educational
psychology and to assert a more coherent, post hoc, field derived
theoretical rationale for the effective application of educational
psychology.
Despite proliferation of training activities, Aubrey(1987) warned
that `however successful an in-service programme is in changing
individual skills, the institution in which the teacher operates has
its own norms, role expectations and relationships which form natural
barriers to innovative efforts'.
........on the lack of take-up of these approaches among
teachers..... argued that `EPs had neglected to face the fact that we
are dealing with slow-changing permanent systems
- Andy Miller and Gerv Leyden, A Coherent Framework for the
Application of Psychology in Schools, Journal of British Educational
Research, vol25 no3 1999

Classroom research has failed to link theory to identification,
policy and effective interventions for children with EBDs....a review
of the literature shows that many different perspectives and their
underlying theories tend to focus on the individual student and
neglect the social context within which EBDs are displayed......fails
to identify emotional difficulties......have ignored intergroup and
organisational implications and have tended to focus overly on
pedagogical differences in classroom practices for students who
experience EBDs ......
Because the focus is on the individual, any changes or improvement
among students with EBDs have been limited to particular aspects of
individual behaviour, moving the individual away from the context
where EBDs have been identified.....
Theory and practice for EBDs in the UK focuses significantly more on
behaviour than on emotion.......
Clearly a good deal of thought and effort needs to be invested in
rethinking our approaches to EBD students and retraining teachers to
provide more appropriate treatment of them in classrooms and
schools....
-Pam Maras and Peter Kutnick, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties
in Schools: Consideration of Relationships Between Theory and
Practice, Social Psychology of Education 3, 1999


... looks at the influence of forty years of behavioural psychology
on the UK Code of Practice for children with SEN and related
government circulars and suggests an alternative model for
conceptualising emotional difficulties. This is not only current with
mainstream psychology but can be traced back to pre-Christian
thinking........
I have yet to see an IEP which focuses effectively on
emotions...........
-Tony Bowers, Putting back the `E' in EBD, Emotional and Behavioural
Difficulties, vol.1, no 1, 1998

I was only issued textbooks after year9 when really they should have
been given to us when we started at year7(Pupil)…I consider it
essential that al pupils have the best possible chance to make good
progress(Headteacher)…….The absence of a specific school policy on
the purchase of textbooks and a consequent lack of benchmarking or
guidance from senior school management on the appropriate level of
funding for textbooks seems to be the most common situation in most
schools…
-The Declining Use of Books in schools: the implications for
effective teaching and learning, Mike Johnson, Forum, vol.41 no.3,
1999



Over the last couple of decades, a major shift has been taking place
in the way learning is viewed, away from seeing it as a process
confined to the individual mind toward recognizing it as also
involving social and cultural processes....Social constructivist
perspectives on learning science have been current among science
educators in England since the mid 1980s.....they are not reflected
in classroom practice.
-Newton, P., Driver, R. and Osborne, J. (1999) The place of
argumentation in the pedagogy of school science, INT. J. SCI.
EDUC., vol. 21, no 5.

Psychologists and educationalists should begin to question whether
development always occurs through the presence of external
feedback…..It may be an aspect of the behaviourist legacy in Anglo-
American psychology that we place such emphasis on the role of
feedback and so little on the role of other factors in cognitive
reconstruction.
-Development without learning?, David Messer, Sarah Norgate, Richard
Joiner, Karen Littleton and Paul Light(1996), Educational Psychology,
vol. 16, no 1

In Britain most teachers spend most of their time in marking books.
In some other countries the majority of lesson preparation time is
spent planning how new topics can be introduced, which contexts and
examples will be used and so on. This is sometimes done individually
or with groups of teachers working together.
-Formative Assessment in Mathematics, Dylan William, Equals (vol 5,
no 3, 1999)

Years later, the shape and space curriculum remains a puzzle. Is it
merely a respite from numbers, demanding more dextral than cerebral
skills-utilising coloured pencils, scissors and glue in place of
plastic beads and wooden counters?……. There are wonderful materials
to explore and use......... but too seldom challenges or stretches
the limited concepts perceived…….There is a need to reshape the
curriculum giving each programme of study a distinctiveness and
coherence it currently lacks. There is a need to lift the activities
out of the banal by adding the missing mathematical ingredient of
proof. Children ask `Why?' from an early age and yet we are hesitant
about asking them `Why?'
-The Shade and Stick curriculum, Harriet Marland, Mathematics Teaching
(165,December 1998)

.....and now I agree with mathematicians like Johnston Anderson, who
argue that proof is `the essence of mathematics'. My work with year 5
children has demonstrated that primary children are capable of
logical reasoning. Primary teachers need to realise this and to
ensure that children are given the opportunities and appropriate
activities to help develop these logical skills.
-Proof and Justification: A Primary Teacher's Perspective, Barbara
Harding(169, Mathematics Teaching, December 1999)

Mathematics without proof is an impossibility: proof is the key
aspect that sets mathematics apart from other kinds of knowledge.
Until recently, school mathematics was unthinkable without proof. But
in some countries(eg. Portugal and England) proof was quietly
eliminated from school mathematics during the late 1970s and 80s, so
that most pupils in England now have little idea what proof is, how
it works, or why it matters....
-Proof matters, T. Gardiner and C. Moreira(169, Mathematics Teaching,
December 1999)

I was saddened when I showed second year BEd students a video of a
Hungarian geometry lesson involving 11-year-olds, to find that the
mathematics of the lesson had to be explained to them .They had so
little idea of the construction of a 75 angle that I had to stop the
video and explain to them the method which the pupils were doing with
total confidence....... Geometry teaching vanished from British
schools because people believed that its careful and logical
reasoning was too hard for pupils.
-It wouldn't be like that here, G. Hatch, Mathematics Teaching, 168,
September 1999

It is that pupils of 14-16 are capable of doing more thoughtful and
perceptive work than is often expected. If educational standards are
set to only minimum levels of achievement, then the challenge to
reach out and explore more complex ideas appropriate for these older
pupils will be lost. This would be a sad outcome to well-meaning
efforts to `prune' the syllabus. In the garden pruning promotes
growth. It is much more doubtful if it can have the same effect in
education.

-Higher level understanding of the nature of science, J. Solomon,
School science Review, March 1995.


...many able pupils find GCSE science trivial and unappealing......
-Attitudes to science: issues and concerns, J.Osborne, R.Driver and
S.Simon,, School Science Review, March1998.

A minority of secondary schools consult the key stage 2 programmes of
study in the National Curriculum when planning key stage 3
work. ...most secondary teachers not only ignore what is going on in
primary education but they distrust most of the information they
receive....middle and lower ability key stage 4 children spend too
much time repeating work done at key stage 3. Some children are being
entered for single science and yet spending the same amount of time
in science lessons as those being entered for double science. The
purposes of practical work are not always clear to teachers or
pupils. Investigations are frequently done to `get them out of the
way' and not because teachers want to provide a comprehensive view of
investigations or problem-solving.
-The state we're in: issues in key stage 3and4 science, M. Nott and
J. Wellington, School Science review, September1999.

Many of these difficulties with mathematical concepts arise through
not distinguishing between the teaching of facts and skills and
teaching through conceptual understanding. Some science teachers may
have their own conceptual difficulties with mathematics. recent
observations of student teachers in science by the authors have
supported this assumption.
-Numeracy in science, G.Lenton and B.Stevens, School Science Review,
June1999

It has been shown that some important scientific concepts are either
partially or largely taught in a way that is contrary to current
scientific thinking..... Science graduates do not necessarily
understand and have sound knowledge of all parts of their own
specialist area and even more so of other areas of the science
curriculum .......Teaching or training in the subject area or concept
during a PGCE course does not necessarily improve this subject
knowledge.
-Student-teachers' grasp of science concepts, G.Lenton and G.Turner,
School Science review, December 1999.

Indeed, we will go so far as to argue that there is a flaw at the
very heart of what we are doing and that pupils are not being given
the chance to understand the science we are teaching……
…it is vital that we acknowledge the inadequacy of our specification
to date; otherwise we will be condemned to further disappointment.
-Science in schools: time to pause for thought?, Richard Gott and
Philip Johnson, School Science review, December 1999.


The improvement of formative assessment cannot be a simple
matter…..This can only happen slowly, and through sustained programme
of professional development and support….lasting and fundamental
improvement can only happen in this way.
-Formative assessment: raising standards inside the classroom, Paul
Black, School Science Review, December 1998.


Printed resources are one key element of the support material that
could be used to specify the underpinning ideas, provide a logical
structure and exemplify the interconnections between the key ideas.
If teachers were to rely on the printed resources( textbooks used in
schools) that we analysed to help them implement the curriculum, the
paucity of explicit procedural ideas in such material could mean that
the implementation of the curriculum would be difficult.
-Procedural understanding in Biology, Ros Roberts and Richard Gott,
school Science review, September 2000



I was only issued textbooks after year9 when really they should have
been given to us when we started at year7(Pupil)…I consider it
essential that all pupils have the best possible chance to make good
progress(Headteacher)…….The absence of a specific school policy on
the purchase of textbooks and a consequent lack of benchmarking or
guidance from senior school management on the appropriate level of
funding for textbooks seems to be the most common situation in most
schools…
-The Declining Use of Books in schools: the implications for
effective teaching and learning, Mike Johnson, Forum, vol.41 no.3,
1999


Between1996 and 2000, there was a decrease in Chemistry first degree
entrants of 20%, Civil engineers of 23%, Physicists of 10%,
mechanical engineers of 12%, General engineers of 14% and electronic
engineers of 8% ____ UCAS figures quoted in the website of the Save
British Science Society


Nothing much has changed in 25 years.....such strategies are
perpetuated from the beginning of their teaching careers. Traineeswho
enter the profession with new ideas, energy and commitment go into
schoolsto have it all crushed out of them. Experienced teachers
justify this by saying 'We know what gets results/suits these
students best/works in this department'. The greater the trainee's
resistance to conforming, the stronger the protests: 'He will not
cooperateand will not stick to the scheme of work' (complaint from a
mentor); 'I want to try my own ideas, but I am not allowed'
(complaint from a trainee). The snare's (the author talks about the
devil's snare in 'Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone' in the
previous paragraph) cycle continues, drawing in the new entrants to a
pointwhere they themselves teachand train like this in their turn.
Resistance is uselessand counterproductive. Escape is vital.
-Wanted:magic to cure the 'Devil's snare' of school science, Vanessa
Kind, Education in Chemistry, July 2002


Best wishes
Puni Selvaratnam