Bonnie Grossen

University of Oregon

 December 1, 1998

Child-directed practices are reemerging across North America under the new label "developmentally appropriate practices" and "constructivism." The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), in particular, has defin ed these practices and developed guidelines for their implementation (1987). The NAEYC guidelines are being widely adopted (e.g., Kentucky and Oregon) as an important school reform for bringing American students to meet world class standards.

A problematic assumption of child-directed practices is that a child cannot learn from instruction that is initiated and directed by a teacher. Instead, these practices assume that children's learning needs are best fulfilled by allowing each child to pursue his or her unique interests through play. What the child wants is what the child needs. The reasoning for this is as follows: Each child's learning needs are unique and these unique learning needs are revealed through the child's interests, whi ch in turn direct each child's selection of play activities. Therefore, no child should be inhibited from pursuing his or her interests, that is, from playing. "Much of young children's learning takes place when they direct their own play activities....Su ch learning should not be inhibited by adult-established concepts of completion, achievement, and failure" (p. 3, NAEYC, 1987).

The idea that children often learn from the activities they initiate is perfectly reasonable. The idea that children should also have ample opportunities to take initiative is also acceptable. However, the idea that a teacher cannot possibly initia te and direct learning effectively requires closer examination. It may be that child-initiated and teacher-initiated learning both have an important place in education.

The leaders of the child-directed learning movement usually do not see it this way. They argue against teacher-directed instruction in both the "what" and the "how" of learning. For example, DuCharme, Earl, and Poplin (1989) and Poplin (1988) recom mend the abandonment of strategy instruction (the "how" of learning) in both special and general education on the grounds that it represents explicit, non-constructivist, rote learning. This is not an argument that teachers should teach students "how to f ish" rather than "feeding them fish." These theorists argue that the teacher should place students in an environment where they will figure out how to fish on their own.

Child-directed education is not new. Although the idea that it is impossible for real learning to occur under the control and direction of a teacher is often attributed to Piaget, it was firmly entrenched in academic circles before Piaget. Walkerdi ne (1984) notes that Piaget's work was not the impetus, but rather, arrived at an opportune moment to provide a legitimizing rationale. The ideas behind child-directed education seem to have originated much earlier, with Plato: "[Because] knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold in the mind...then do not use compulsion but let early education be a sort of amusement" (para. 536e, Plato, 1955). Piaget was "not an educationalist" (Plowden, 1967) and the data he collected did not evaluate the effects of the child-directed instruction on learning, but Piaget personally agreed with the philosophy: "Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently f rom understanding it completely" (p. 715, Piaget, 1970). So Piaget became a modern authority for a philosophy as old as western civilization.

While these ideas have been accepted as a priori truth in western thought, they are conspicuously absent from eastern thought. The child-directed philosophy rests on the belief that development and learning are a result of innate aspects of the inner being of the child. The US Department of Education publication, "Hard Work and High Expectations" (1992), concludes that this western belief in the innateness of learning and learning potential is the most defining difference between western cul tures and eastern cultures and this belief is preventing America from achieving greater academic success. In contrast, eastern cultures are dominated by a belief in effort and hard work as the primary factor in learning (USDE, 1992; see also Stevenson &am p; Stigler, 1992). These contrasting beliefs across cultures explain why American students spend 70% less time studying than Asian students who consistently achieve the highest scores on international assessments (USDE, 1992).

What follows is a review of studies that have evaluated the effects of the NAEYC model of child-directed education (called "developmentally appropriate practice") on learning. This model has been extensively evaluated under the labels "progressive" education in England and "open education" in America. The Appendix provides descriptions of each model from original sources so that the reader can independently evaluate the similarity in the emphases and philosophy of the three model s: progressive education, open education, and developmentally appropriate practices (DAP).

The significant themes of the DAP model (NAEYC, 1987, 1992) are the same themes that were significant in the progressive education movement in England, and in the open education model that was popular in America in the 1970's. These significant themes are:

Background. During this century, child-directed education has been called "progressive" education in England. The name "progressive" reflected the expectation that it would have a leveling effect on social class differences and result in significant social change. It was the official educational policy in England for more than two decades and was officially endorsed for a longer period (see the 1931 HMSO report, cited in Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975). The Plowden report (1967) marked the official adoption of the method in England until the time it was rejected in 1992. (See Description of Progressive Education.)

  Effects of progressive education. A number of sociologists and ethnologists observed and evaluated qualitatively the effect of progressive education on the socialization of English lower (working) class children. Although progre ssive education subscribed wholeheartedly to the democratic ideals of individual freedom and autonomy, these qualitative evaluations of the socialization of children ironically revealed that progressive approaches had anti-progressive outcomes. A brief su mmary of these evaluations follows.

Sharp, Green, and Lewis (1975) evaluated the students, teachers, and parents in a school that was deemed a model of progressive education in England. They found that the reality of progressive education was very different from the promise.

The students who received less attention were the lower performing children who were from lower working class families, while the children the teacher spent more time with were higher performing children who were also from a higher social class.

For example, Michael's teacher described him as a "peculiar" boy who wants to "go his own sweet way." The teacher said she would not "force" or "make" Michael do activities, even where his achievement was poor compared with other children, because to do so would violate the integrity of the child. Yet she did say: "But he's ever so willing to join in if you organize a little group--and he'll join in and he'll be, you know, quite an important member of that group--but he doesn't need to..." ( pp. 137-8, Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975). Evidently, unless the child was strongly assertive about joining a learning group, he did not need the instruction.

Sharp, Green, and Lewis (1975) concluded that progressive education was in reality radical conservatism: "We are suggesting that modern child-centred education is an aspect of romantic radical conservatism..." (p. 227). Child-directed methods serve d to maintain the social class structure rather than fostering fluidity across social class boundaries. Sharp, Green, and Lewis called progressive educators "unwilling victims of a structure that undermines the moral concerns they profess..." (p. 227).

Willis (1977) came to similar conclusions after qualitatively evaluating the growth of 12 non-academic, "working class lads." Willis concluded that the working class status of the boys was perpetuated by their own behavior and that working class be havior was given freer reign in progressive environments. The boys' school behavior and values (e.g., the attempt to gain informal control through resistance, the machismo and toughness, the language) all corresponded directly with the culture of shopfloo r workers and served to ensure that the boys would inherit the working class status of their fathers.

According to Willis (1977), breaking this self-perpetuating cycle would require intervention. It is not surprising that progressivism, by intent a weak intervention, is not successful in breaking this cycle, but rather facilitates its perpetuation: "...it can be argued that often 'progressivism' has had the contradictory and unintended effect of helping to strengthen processes within the counter-school culture which are responsible for the particular subjective preparation of labour power and accep tance of a working class future in a way which is the very opposite of progressive intentions in education" (p. 178, Willis, 1977).

Similar conclusions were drawn by Bernstein (1974), Simon (1981), Aggleton (1987), Atkinson (1985), and Walkerdine (1984) from their case study data. Atkinson (1985) argued that the shift from traditional to progressive methods represented a shift from visible to invisible control of economic power. "Arguably, the 'progressivism' of infant and primary schooling is more a matter of 'myth' than 'reality'" (p. 160, 1985).

The findings of these numerous case studies substantiate the distrust that Delpit (1988) has documented to be the intuitive response of Black Americans to child-directed practices. For example, one Black informant had this comment about child-direc ted practices, usually promoted by White academicians: "...The biggest difference between Black folks and White folks is that Black folks know when they're lying!" (p. 285).

Because standardized tests were not a part of the philosophy of progressive education in England, the learning outcomes of the model were not evaluated until the recent advent of international competitiveness in education. On one of these internati onal comparisons in science, the English Department of Education and Science (DES, 1992) reported that 61% of the schools in the English sample scored below the lowest scoring Japanese school (para. 49). Consequently, in 1992 English policy made a dramati c turn-about to endorse teacher-directed instruction. The official report (DES, 1992) squarely placed the blame for the low achievement levels of English students on the progressive model the government had previously endorsed.

Here are excerpts from the discussion paper by the English Department of Education and Science (DES, 1992):

England tried for over twenty years to make progressive education work in the most extensive and longest implementation of child-directed methods ever recorded. As the DES (1992) report indicates, even in most recent years, the performance of Engli sh students continued to decline as determined by both qualitative and quantitative analyses. English educational policy-makers finally concluded that progressive, child-directed methods would never achieve their democratic objective and abandoned the mod el.

Background. One of several child-directed models evaluated in Project Follow Through (the largest educational study ever funded by the US Department of Education) was the same British model of progressive education. Project Follow Through was a broad-range comparison of educational alternatives for teaching the economically disadvantaged to find out "what works." Different models of instruction were tested in 139 communities and evaluated for stability of results over successive program years. Model programs were implemented in grades kindergarten through third grade.

In Follow Through the progressive education model was called "Open Education" and was sponsored by the Education Development Center (EDC). An independent agency, Abt Associates, gathered and evaluated the data from Project Follow Through. Their rep ort included their own description of each model. (See Description of Open Education by the EDC.)

  Abt Associates evaluated the data from the open education model in all eight of its sites: Philadelphia, PA; Burlington, VT; Lackawanna County, PA; Morgan Community School in Washington, DC; Patterson, NJ; Chicago, IL; Laurel, DE; Johnston Co unty, NC.

Effects of open education. The open education model resulted in lower scores than any other model evaluated in Project Follow Through (see summary of comparison data in Engelmann, Becker, Carnine, & Gersten, 1988). Figure 1 illustrates t he overall effects across open education implementations compared to the control groups receiving traditional instruction. Figure 1 uses a crude metric of combining positive and negative effects and dividing by the total number of comparisons. For example , 10 significant positive effects combined with 20 significant negative effects divided by 100 total comparisons would yield an overall effect of -10%. (Seventy outcomes were nonsignificant.) A score of 0 represents a perfect match with the traditional in struction in the control groups. As Figure 1 indicates, open education had more negative outcomes (i.e., significantly lower scores than those achieved in traditional education) than positive ones on measures of basic skills, cognitive development, and af fect (self-esteem and so on). Across multiple implementations and settings, open education was inferior to traditional education

The various Abt reports also provided median grade-equivalent scores by site and by sponsor for four Metropolitan Achievement Test measures: Total Reading, Total Math, Spelling, and Language. Figure 2 displays these results. The means for students who entered the program in Kindergarten and were evaluated in the third grade were converted to percentiles. Because the average achievement expectation for disadvantaged children without special help was thought to be the 20th percentile, that percentile is used as the baseline in Figure 2. Figure 2 suggests that disadvantaged children learning from the EDC open education model became further disadvantaged by the use of that model.

The Abt report (1977) concludes that performance of disadvantaged children learning from the child-directed EDC model was below the performance of disadvantaged children learning from traditional instruction: "In general, [EDC instructed] children in most...sites perform below expectations on a number of the basic skills and cognitive conceptual skills tests....A smaller-than-expected proportion of [EDC instructed] children in Lackawanna perform at least one year below grade level (the criterion of educational disadvantage) on three sections of the MAT: Reading, Math, and Spelling. In other sites in this model, a larger than expected proportion of [EDC instructed] children perform at least one year below grade level." (p. 121, Abt Associates, 1977)

Other child-directed models that varied somewhat from the British progressive education model were also evaluated by Abt Associates. The lowest achievement outcomes were consistently obtained by the child-directed models (Becker, Engelmann, Carnine , & Gersten, 1988). The outcomes of the four child-directed models were all consistently below the expectations of performance of comparable disadvantaged children learning in traditional classrooms.

In spite of the earlier research findings, educators continue to deny the possiblity that teacher direction can greatly facilitate initial learning. The same open education model from Project Follow Through is the one that has been repackaged a s "developmentally appropriate practice" (DAP). The following boxed inset presents descriptive features of DAP, taken directly from the NAEYC position paper and guidelines for implementing DAP (NAEYC, 1992, 1987). Although DAP is widely promoted as an inn ovative new teaching practice, there is little in DAP that is innovative, beyond the clever change in the name. The same themes of child-directed learning are found in DAP that were present in progressive education and in open education. (See Description of Developmentally Appropriate Practices by the NAEYC.)

The NAEYC position statement cites the theories of "Piaget (1952), Vygotsky (1978), and Erikson (1963)" as the "theories that inform this document." As the citation dates indicate, these theories are not new. In fact, Vygotsky died in 1934. Non e of these theorists describe outcomes that have actually been obtained using DAP; rather they describe theories derived from observations of children at different ages (called "developmental research"). Howard Gardner (1985) provides a succinct summary o f some findings from developmental research, specifically from Vygotsky and his followers:

The above summary typifies the findings of developmental research, which never tests the basic assumption that children learn only through their own initiative. Rather this basic assumption is taken for granted as developmental research is translat ed into instructional practice. The basic assumption of child-directed learning can only be tested through instructional research, not through developmental research.

Research that does not involve instruction, such as developmental research, does not provide evidence that any particular teaching practice will work. Only after a practice has been implemented and its results evaluated can one say that it has been tested. Only if the results show improvement over another alternative can one say the new method is superior. As described above, the DAP model promoted by the NAEYC and many state departments of education has proven inferior, rather than superior, in in structional research. Even if DAP is accepted as a "new" method, the most one can say is that DAP is untested.

The long list of references provided in the NAEYC literature is predominantly opinion literature. When asked to highlight the citations that include empirical data, the Early Childhood Specialist at the Oregon State Department of Education presente d a list of 14 references. Of those studies, only seven reported performance data from instruction of some type. One study supported the effectiveness of teacher-directed instruction, not child-directed (Gersten, Darch, & Gleason, 1988). Two studies s upported small class sizes, not DAP (Folger, 1989; Johnston, 1990). Four studies supported whole language instruction (Manning et al., 1990; Reutzel & Cooter, 1990; Roberts, 1991; Stice & Bertrand, 1990). No studies had results indicating the effe ctiveness of DAP.

Whole language. Whole language instruction is one aspect of DAP. The support for whole language instruction found in the NAEYC reference list are overshadowed by the weight of evidence in support of systematic phonics instruction provided by three comprehensive reviews of the research on reading. Whole language is more often compared with traditional whole word approaches, as it was in the four studies cited by the NAEYC, than with systematic phonics instruction. From reviewing all compariso ns of whole language and whole word approaches, Stahl and Miller (1989) found that traditional "whole word" approaches work better than "whole language" approaches with disadvantaged children. Some positive effects for whole language in comparisons with t raditional whole word approaches were evident only in prereading (kindergarten) instruction. When systematic phonics instruction was included in the comparison, Stahl and Miller found "strikingly larger effects for systematic phonics used in first grade" (p. 108, 1989). Marilyn Adams, commissioned by Congress through the National Center for the Study of Reading to comprehensively review all the research on reading, also concluded that the research supports the need for systematic phonics instruction in be ginning reading (1988). Becoming a Nation of Readers by the National Commission on Education also conducted a comprehensive review with the same conclusion (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985).

Nongraded organization. Another aspect of DAP is mixed-age grouping or "nongradedness." The body of research reporting performance data for nongraded primaries has been extensively reviewed by Gutiérrez and Slavin of Johns Hopkins Uni verisity (1992, see pages xx to xx for a summary of their findings). Unlike other reviews of nongraded arrangements (McLoughlin, 1967; Pavan, 1973, 1977), Gutierrez and Slavin looked at the instructional approach used within the nongraded organization. Th ey categorized all the nongraded implementations as one of four models with a fifth category of unidentifiable instructional approaches. They concluded that positive achievement gains were demonstrated in nongraded programs if mixed-age grou ping was used to allow teachers to provide more direct instruction to students, not less. This more effective model was the oldest nongraded model. It used the opportunity to mix children across ages to create more homogeneous learning groups, rath er than more heterogeneous groups, as DAP recommends. In general, the more recent nongraded model, most similar to DAP, was least effective.

Child-directed implementations have not been child-directed enough. Advocates of child-directed learning are aware of the poor learning outcomes that have been reported. A frequent response by many advocates is that the teacher still dir ected the child-directed instruction too much by expecting specific outcomes. For example, Salomon, Perkins, and Globerson (1991) argue that an undefinable "cloud of variables" makes the significant difference in obtaining the desired "cognitive residue" in students. They state that instruction that is too focused on a specific outcome, shuts out the effect of this cloud. Therefore, instead of treating the instruction "as just another subject matter to be mastered," it should be treated as "material to me ss around with" (p. 8, 1991), so this "cloud" can take effect. The evidence they cite involves child-directed learning practices that did not have the desired results. They cite no case where more messing around actually resulted in the desired "co gnitive residue." Yet if there is any change in current child-directed learning models from the earlier models, it is a change toward more "messing around" in social learning groups with fewer teacher expectations imposed on students.

Learning outcomes are over-emphasized. Another response to poor learning outcomes is to claim that outcomes are overemphasized. Instead of attempting to raise achievement levels by adopting other than child-directed methods, many reform lead ers argue for lowering expectations. In "Overselling Literacy," Frank Smith, an influential leader and ardent advocate of the wholistic reading instruction used in DAP, argues that literacy is oversold in our society (1989). According to Smith, concern ab out illiteracy only makes illiterates feel bad. He argues for having happy illiterates, rather than universal literacy.

Real learning cannot be measured. Another explanation for the failure to achieve results with child-directed methods is that learning is so complex it cannot be measured. Therefore, outcomes that are measurable are no indication of re al learning. However, anything that can be observed can be measured. Sophisticated measures of knowledge and problem solving are time consuming (i.e., expensive) to administer and evaluate, and for that reason they are usually impractical as standardized measures for public school use. However, controlled studies can make use of more complex indices and do provide valuable, in-depth information about the cause-and-effect relationships involved in learning (e.g., Carnine and Kameenui, 1992).

Individuals cannot be measured by any standard. Advocates of child-directed methods also discourage the use of standardized tests because they do not capture the uniqueness of an individual. However, standardized measures have more validity as a tool for evaluating programs, than for evaluating individuals. This can be illustrated with an extreme example. Assume that a test consists of only one problem: ___. If two students take this test, and one get s a right answer and the other gets a wrong answer, then we know very little about what these two students know. There could be a hundred reasons why the one student missed the problem, most of them having nothing to do with his or her knowledge of mathem atics.

But let's give the same test to two entire schools composed of students comparable in home background, age, and so on. If all the students in one school get the answer right while all the students in the other school get the answer wr ong, then we do know that the fractions instruction in one school is probably better than in the other school.

Where students' natural talents lie is largely irrelevant to the question of whether schools are using instructional programs that effectively develop those talents. The fact that indivduals may possess intelligence in one or more of seven differen t domains (Gardner, 1985) is no excuse for providing inferior instruction in any of those domains.

Standardized tests can only evaluate lower level knowledge. A further criticism of standardized measures is that they only test low level knowledge, and not higher level problem solving. This is not entirely true. For example, Shaw (1983) de veloped a highly reliable multiple-choice measure (split-half reliability = .924) of scientific process skills. These skills included "observing, classifying, measuring, using numbers, using space and time relationships, communicating, predicting, inferri ng, manipulating variables, making operational definitions, forming hypotheses, interpreting data, and experimenting" (p. 3, Shaw, 1983).

Multiple choice tests should be used with extreme caution to evaluate individuals; however, as a tool to compare instructional programs, they are reasonably reliable and inexpensive to score. In spite of their short-comings, multiple-choice tes ts certainly give more information than no standardized test at all.

The poor performance of American students on international standardized measures is a major reason cited for the current thrust to reform schools. Judging by the past performance of students learning from DAP, we should expect American students ' scores on standardized tests to go down, not up, as we implement DAP. While current moves to abandon standardized tests might hide the problem, they are not likely to lead to a solution.

In spite of the lack of empirical support for DAP as a means to achieve our goals, Kentucky passed legislation mandating DAP in 1991 and Oregon recently adopted a government policy that promotes DAP. Many states have similar proposals on their legi slative agendas. How did DAP become our quasi-national education policy?

According to an NAEYC position paper, the DAP guidelines were developed in collaboration with state departments of education. "The National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education jointly developed these guidelines..." (p. 10, NAEYC, 1992). According to two professors who participated in the national meetings where the guidelines were originally defined, the ideas for "appropriateness" represented only a "working hypothesis" and did not derive from instructional research (Johnson & Johnson, 1992).

Nor did the ideas reflect any representative consensus of the views of experts in education. Johnson and Johnson, who wrote a defense for DAP, state that a consensus was impossible to achieve at the policy development meetings until the "majority" view, supporting child-directed learning, "elbowed" the minority view out of the room:

Our selection of educational policy-makers should be based on some criterion other than large elbows.

Considerable evidence indicates that child-directed teaching methods have a detrimental effect on the education of diverse learners (handicapped and disadvantaged children). Sociologists and ethnologists in England denounced child-directed lear ning (progressive education) as a form of radical conservatism that served to maintain the class structure of society (e.g., Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975). The results of Project Follow Through indicated that economically disadvantaged children learnin g from child-directed instruction (open education) obtained lower scores on basic skills (reading, mathematics, language, and spelling), on cognitive development measures, and on measures of self-esteem and other desirable affects, than children learning from traditional education (Abt, 1977). More recent research reviews (Adams, 1989; Gutierrez & Slavin, 1992; Stahl & Miller, 1989) are consistent with the earlier research.

Asian cultures are dominated by a strong belief in effort and a deep respect for the teacher. To become competitive in the world, American schools also need to develop a culture of effort and hard work (USDE, 1992). The use of child-directed method s which are based on a belief in the innateness of learning, are inconsistent with a belief in effort, and undermine the development of a strong work ethic in Western education. Moreover, these practices discriminate against many students. Child-directed methods will not help America become more competitive in a world economy.

Bonnie Grossen has 15 years of teaching experience. She received her Ph.D. in 1988 in Special Education. She is currently a Research Associate at the University of Oregon. Her research interests are in teaching critical thinking and problem solving to diverse learners.

READ THE FOLLOWING THREE DESCRIPTIONS OF MODELS WITH THREE DIFFERENT NAMES

TO SEE IF THEY ARE NOT THE SAME MODEL

(Taken from Sharp, Green, and Lewis, 1975, and from Holt, 1969)

"The general features of the philosophy of the developmental tradition have...a nucleus of ideas upon which all would agree which relate to the view that the child should be allowed to develop his own inner potential rather than have ideas and tech niques from the adult world imposed upon him, thus denying the child's own integrity and inner being....The child centred approach aims, by treating the child as a unique subject with its own needs and interest, to extend to the child as large a measure o f autonomy as is consistent with a liberal democratic view of society....

"The progressive's claim to being 'child-centred' is an expression of the concern for the 'whole' child. It is no longer a case of children being rigorously drilled, of inculcating 'facts' regarded as sacrosanct, but of schooling being adapted to t he requirements of the child. The child is no longer regarded as an 'empty vessel' to be filled by the teacher, but to a large extent as an arbiter of his own education. He is allowed to follow his own interests; in exercising his right to 'choose' he acq uires self-control and responsibility.

"In order to develop the child's potential to the full it is, therefore, considered essential that his schooling be made relevant, and that this can only be achieved by removing 'artificial' disciplinary barriers (e.g., 'knowledge does not fall int o separate compartments' The Plowden Report, 1967), thereby allowing the child to pursue whichever aspect of the situation appeals to him. The curriculum is thus based on 'problem solving' rather than subject areas. The child is presented with a challengi ng and stimulating environment and encouraged to find out for himself without waiting to be told the answer. In short, learning by doing.

"For, 'Proficiency in learning comes not from reading and listening but from action, from doing and experiencing' (Dewey, 1938); as 'When they learn in their own way and for their own reasons, children learn so much more rapidly and effectively tha n we could possibly teach them' (Holt, 1969)....

"The aim then, is to allow the child free expression in order to foster what is individual in each human being. For, 'the purpose of teaching is to bring ever more out of man rather than put more into him' (Froebel, 1909)....

"Central to progressive child centred philosophy are the concepts of 'readiness,' 'choice,' 'needs,' 'play' and 'discovery.' Briefly, it is believed that given an invigorating setting, when the child is 'ready,' he will 'choose' what it is that he 'needs.' This selection is believed to be facilitated through 'play' which sets in train the 'discovery,' or learning processes....

"The recommendation that the child be left free to choose is seen to be based, on the one hand, on a belief that he is able to make an informed choice to satisfy his particular 'needs', which leads to the suggestion that, 'we could well afford to t hrow out most of what we teach in school because the children throw it out anyway (hence) we can afford to throw away our curricula and our timetables' (Holt, 1969); and on the other an acknowledgment that the teacher is often ignorant of what the child 'requires.' Thus it would seem that the child is accorded greater percipience than the teacher....

"Vertical grouping is recommended in preference to the horizontal class where children are categorized merely on the basis of age....Within a mixed age range, theoretically, it should be possible for each child to operate at his own 'level,' to the benefit of advanced and slow alike who can 'be themselves and develop in the way and at the pace appropriate to them' (Plowden, 1967)" (pp. 40-44, Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975).

"In short, the school should be a great smorgasbord of intellectual, artistic, creative and athletic activities, from which each child could take whatever he wanted and as much as he wanted, or as little" (Holt, 1969).

By EDC for the Project Follow Through Report

"The EDC Open Education approach seeks to stimulate learning by providing children with a great variety of materials and experience within a supportive emotional environment. The sponsor believes children learn at individual rates and in individual ways, and teachers should adapt approaches to encourage individual progress and responsibility in learning.

"The EDC Model is predicated on the notion that learning, particularly cognitive learning, occurs best when children are offered a wide range of materials and problems to investigate within an open, supportive environment. According to this sponsor , a child's ability to learn depends in part on the opportunities and experiences provided by the educational setting. The sponsor believes that the EDC approach, derived from practices of British infant and primary schools and Piagetian research, is appr opriate for all children, regardless of their socioeconomic or educational status. The EDC approach is operationalized by sponsor advisory teams who work with parents, teachers, and school administrators in each site to help realize the EDC open-education philosophy. The advisory team assists in setting up classrooms and selecting a variety of books and materials from which local educators can choose.

"The sponsor believes that there is no uniform way to teach reading, writing, or arithmetic skills, and no uniform timetable for all children to follow. Children are not compared with other children and do not receive standardized tests. Consequent ly, EDC classrooms and teachers vary greatly. Teachers often divide classrooms into interest areas where children may work part or all of the day. Traditional subjects important in the open classroom may be combined with these interest groups. The teacher may work with the entire class, small groups, or individuals. Parents sometimes serve as classroom aides and assist in curriculum planning. In sum, the EDC Model is more a philosophy than a technique.

"Since the sponsor does not prescribe a detailed instructional program and feels that the open classroom philosophy is appropriate for all voluntary teachers, this model demands a highly creative and resourceful teacher and is perhaps the most teac her-dependent of the Follow Through models. Teachers must diagnose each child's strength, potential, and interests and then strive to provide instructional units reflecting that information. They are trained to provide a "hidden structure," to act as guid es and resources, to make suggestions and to give encouragement, as the primary methods of extending their pupils' learning activities. Within this environment the pupils are encouraged to work at their own pace, learn from one another, and make choices a bout their own work....Although there is some stress on specific academic skills, the foci of this model are learning how to learn, developing an appreciation for learning, and encouraging children to take responsibility for their own learning" (p. 113-11 4, Abt Associates, 1977).

Description of Developmentally Appropriate Practice

From the National Association for the Education of Young Children

"Children need years of play with real objects and events before they are able to understand the meaning of symbols such as letters and numbers. Learning takes place as young children touch, manipulate, and experiment with things and interact with people....Workbooks, worksheets, coloring books, and adult-made models of art products for children to copy are not appropriate for young children, especially those younger than 6" (p. 4, NAEYC, 1987).

"As children work with materials or activities, teachers listen, observe, and interpret children's behavior. Teachers can then facilitate children's involvement and learning by asking questions, making suggestions, or adding more complex materials or ideas to a situation" (p. 5, NAEYC, 1987).

"In developmentally appropriate practices, adults:

1. provide a rich variety of activities and materials from which to choose. Such variety increases the likelihood of a child's prolonged or satisfied attention and increases independence and opportunity for making decisions.

2. offer children the choice to participate in a small group or in a solitary activity.

3. assist and guide children who are not yet able to use easily and enjoy child-choice activity periods.

4. provide opportunities for child-initiated, child-directed practice of skills as a self-chosen activity. Children need opportunities to repeat acquired skills to fully assimilate their learning. Repetition that is initiated and directed by the child, not adult-directed drill and practice, is most valuable for assimilation" (p. 7, NAEYC, 1987).

"Formal, inappropriate instructional techniques are a source of stress for young children" (p. 10, NAEYC, 1987).

"First, second, and third grade teachers all report that children cannot comprehend place value; teachers spend hours trying to teach this abstract concept, and children either become frustrated or resort to memorizing meaningless tricks. This is a n example, of an unrealistic objective that could be attained much more easily later on" (p. 20, NAEYC, 1992).

"Children's learning is not compartmentalized or divided into artificial subject-matter distinctions....The curriculum provides for long blocks of time to bring naturally related subjects together and does not require minimal time allotments for in struction in discrete subject matter" (p. 20-21, NAEYC, 1992).

"Multiage grouping is one strategy to promote social interaction among individual children and their more capable peers, an effective way of enhancing language competence and generally assisting children's progress to the next level of development and understanding" (p. 21, NAEYC, 1992).

 Bonnie Grossen

University of Oregon

 December 1, 1998

Child-directed practices are reemerging across North America under the new label "developmentally appropriate practices" and "constructivism." The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), in particular, has defin ed these practices and developed guidelines for their implementation (1987). The NAEYC guidelines are being widely adopted (e.g., Kentucky and Oregon) as an important school reform for bringing American students to meet world class standards.

A problematic assumption of child-directed practices is that a child cannot learn from instruction that is initiated and directed by a teacher. Instead, these practices assume that children's learning needs are best fulfilled by allowing each child to pursue his or her unique interests through play. What the child wants is what the child needs. The reasoning for this is as follows: Each child's learning needs are unique and these unique learning needs are revealed through the child's interests, whi ch in turn direct each child's selection of play activities. Therefore, no child should be inhibited from pursuing his or her interests, that is, from playing. "Much of young children's learning takes place when they direct their own play activities....Su ch learning should not be inhibited by adult-established concepts of completion, achievement, and failure" (p. 3, NAEYC, 1987).

The idea that children often learn from the activities they initiate is perfectly reasonable. The idea that children should also have ample opportunities to take initiative is also acceptable. However, the idea that a teacher cannot possibly initia te and direct learning effectively requires closer examination. It may be that child-initiated and teacher-initiated learning both have an important place in education.

The leaders of the child-directed learning movement usually do not see it this way. They argue against teacher-directed instruction in both the "what" and the "how" of learning. For example, DuCharme, Earl, and Poplin (1989) and Poplin (1988) recom mend the abandonment of strategy instruction (the "how" of learning) in both special and general education on the grounds that it represents explicit, non-constructivist, rote learning. This is not an argument that teachers should teach students "how to f ish" rather than "feeding them fish." These theorists argue that the teacher should place students in an environment where they will figure out how to fish on their own.

Child-directed education is not new. Although the idea that it is impossible for real learning to occur under the control and direction of a teacher is often attributed to Piaget, it was firmly entrenched in academic circles before Piaget. Walkerdi ne (1984) notes that Piaget's work was not the impetus, but rather, arrived at an opportune moment to provide a legitimizing rationale. The ideas behind child-directed education seem to have originated much earlier, with Plato: "[Because] knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold in the mind...then do not use compulsion but let early education be a sort of amusement" (para. 536e, Plato, 1955). Piaget was "not an educationalist" (Plowden, 1967) and the data he collected did not evaluate the effects of the child-directed instruction on learning, but Piaget personally agreed with the philosophy: "Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently f rom understanding it completely" (p. 715, Piaget, 1970). So Piaget became a modern authority for a philosophy as old as western civilization.

While these ideas have been accepted as a priori truth in western thought, they are conspicuously absent from eastern thought. The child-directed philosophy rests on the belief that development and learning are a result of innate aspects of the inner being of the child. The US Department of Education publication, "Hard Work and High Expectations" (1992), concludes that this western belief in the innateness of learning and learning potential is the most defining difference between western cul tures and eastern cultures and this belief is preventing America from achieving greater academic success. In contrast, eastern cultures are dominated by a belief in effort and hard work as the primary factor in learning (USDE, 1992; see also Stevenson &am p; Stigler, 1992). These contrasting beliefs across cultures explain why American students spend 70% less time studying than Asian students who consistently achieve the highest scores on international assessments (USDE, 1992).

What follows is a review of studies that have evaluated the effects of the NAEYC model of child-directed education (called "developmentally appropriate practice") on learning. This model has been extensively evaluated under the labels "progressive" education in England and "open education" in America. The Appendix provides descriptions of each model from original sources so that the reader can independently evaluate the similarity in the emphases and philosophy of the three model s: progressive education, open education, and developmentally appropriate practices (DAP).

The significant themes of the DAP model (NAEYC, 1987, 1992) are the same themes that were significant in the progressive education movement in England, and in the open education model that was popular in America in the 1970's. These significant themes are:

Background. During this century, child-directed education has been called "progressive" education in England. The name "progressive" reflected the expectation that it would have a leveling effect on social class differences and result in significant social change. It was the official educational policy in England for more than two decades and was officially endorsed for a longer period (see the 1931 HMSO report, cited in Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975). The Plowden report (1967) marked the official adoption of the method in England until the time it was rejected in 1992. (See Description of Progressive Education.)

  Effects of progressive education. A number of sociologists and ethnologists observed and evaluated qualitatively the effect of progressive education on the socialization of English lower (working) class children. Although progre ssive education subscribed wholeheartedly to the democratic ideals of individual freedom and autonomy, these qualitative evaluations of the socialization of children ironically revealed that progressive approaches had anti-progressive outcomes. A brief su mmary of these evaluations follows.

Sharp, Green, and Lewis (1975) evaluated the students, teachers, and parents in a school that was deemed a model of progressive education in England. They found that the reality of progressive education was very different from the promise.

The students who received less attention were the lower performing children who were from lower working class families, while the children the teacher spent more time with were higher performing children who were also from a higher social class.

For example, Michael's teacher described him as a "peculiar" boy who wants to "go his own sweet way." The teacher said she would not "force" or "make" Michael do activities, even where his achievement was poor compared with other children, because to do so would violate the integrity of the child. Yet she did say: "But he's ever so willing to join in if you organize a little group--and he'll join in and he'll be, you know, quite an important member of that group--but he doesn't need to..." ( pp. 137-8, Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975). Evidently, unless the child was strongly assertive about joining a learning group, he did not need the instruction.

Sharp, Green, and Lewis (1975) concluded that progressive education was in reality radical conservatism: "We are suggesting that modern child-centred education is an aspect of romantic radical conservatism..." (p. 227). Child-directed methods serve d to maintain the social class structure rather than fostering fluidity across social class boundaries. Sharp, Green, and Lewis called progressive educators "unwilling victims of a structure that undermines the moral concerns they profess..." (p. 227).

Willis (1977) came to similar conclusions after qualitatively evaluating the growth of 12 non-academic, "working class lads." Willis concluded that the working class status of the boys was perpetuated by their own behavior and that working class be havior was given freer reign in progressive environments. The boys' school behavior and values (e.g., the attempt to gain informal control through resistance, the machismo and toughness, the language) all corresponded directly with the culture of shopfloo r workers and served to ensure that the boys would inherit the working class status of their fathers.

According to Willis (1977), breaking this self-perpetuating cycle would require intervention. It is not surprising that progressivism, by intent a weak intervention, is not successful in breaking this cycle, but rather facilitates its perpetuation: "...it can be argued that often 'progressivism' has had the contradictory and unintended effect of helping to strengthen processes within the counter-school culture which are responsible for the particular subjective preparation of labour power and accep tance of a working class future in a way which is the very opposite of progressive intentions in education" (p. 178, Willis, 1977).

Similar conclusions were drawn by Bernstein (1974), Simon (1981), Aggleton (1987), Atkinson (1985), and Walkerdine (1984) from their case study data. Atkinson (1985) argued that the shift from traditional to progressive methods represented a shift from visible to invisible control of economic power. "Arguably, the 'progressivism' of infant and primary schooling is more a matter of 'myth' than 'reality'" (p. 160, 1985).

The findings of these numerous case studies substantiate the distrust that Delpit (1988) has documented to be the intuitive response of Black Americans to child-directed practices. For example, one Black informant had this comment about child-direc ted practices, usually promoted by White academicians: "...The biggest difference between Black folks and White folks is that Black folks know when they're lying!" (p. 285).

Because standardized tests were not a part of the philosophy of progressive education in England, the learning outcomes of the model were not evaluated until the recent advent of international competitiveness in education. On one of these internati onal comparisons in science, the English Department of Education and Science (DES, 1992) reported that 61% of the schools in the English sample scored below the lowest scoring Japanese school (para. 49). Consequently, in 1992 English policy made a dramati c turn-about to endorse teacher-directed instruction. The official report (DES, 1992) squarely placed the blame for the low achievement levels of English students on the progressive model the government had previously endorsed.

Here are excerpts from the discussion paper by the English Department of Education and Science (DES, 1992):

England tried for over twenty years to make progressive education work in the most extensive and longest implementation of child-directed methods ever recorded. As the DES (1992) report indicates, even in most recent years, the performance of Engli sh students continued to decline as determined by both qualitative and quantitative analyses. English educational policy-makers finally concluded that progressive, child-directed methods would never achieve their democratic objective and abandoned the mod el.

Background. One of several child-directed models evaluated in Project Follow Through (the largest educational study ever funded by the US Department of Education) was the same British model of progressive education. Project Follow Through was a broad-range comparison of educational alternatives for teaching the economically disadvantaged to find out "what works." Different models of instruction were tested in 139 communities and evaluated for stability of results over successive program years. Model programs were implemented in grades kindergarten through third grade.

In Follow Through the progressive education model was called "Open Education" and was sponsored by the Education Development Center (EDC). An independent agency, Abt Associates, gathered and evaluated the data from Project Follow Through. Their rep ort included their own description of each model. (See Description of Open Education by the EDC.)

  Abt Associates evaluated the data from the open education model in all eight of its sites: Philadelphia, PA; Burlington, VT; Lackawanna County, PA; Morgan Community School in Washington, DC; Patterson, NJ; Chicago, IL; Laurel, DE; Johnston Co unty, NC.

Effects of open education. The open education model resulted in lower scores than any other model evaluated in Project Follow Through (see summary of comparison data in Engelmann, Becker, Carnine, & Gersten, 1988). Figure 1 illustrates t he overall effects across open education implementations compared to the control groups receiving traditional instruction. Figure 1 uses a crude metric of combining positive and negative effects and dividing by the total number of comparisons. For example , 10 significant positive effects combined with 20 significant negative effects divided by 100 total comparisons would yield an overall effect of -10%. (Seventy outcomes were nonsignificant.) A score of 0 represents a perfect match with the traditional in struction in the control groups. As Figure 1 indicates, open education had more negative outcomes (i.e., significantly lower scores than those achieved in traditional education) than positive ones on measures of basic skills, cognitive development, and af fect (self-esteem and so on). Across multiple implementations and settings, open education was inferior to traditional education

The various Abt reports also provided median grade-equivalent scores by site and by sponsor for four Metropolitan Achievement Test measures: Total Reading, Total Math, Spelling, and Language. Figure 2 displays these results. The means for students who entered the program in Kindergarten and were evaluated in the third grade were converted to percentiles. Because the average achievement expectation for disadvantaged children without special help was thought to be the 20th percentile, that percentile is used as the baseline in Figure 2. Figure 2 suggests that disadvantaged children learning from the EDC open education model became further disadvantaged by the use of that model.

The Abt report (1977) concludes that performance of disadvantaged children learning from the child-directed EDC model was below the performance of disadvantaged children learning from traditional instruction: "In general, [EDC instructed] children in most...sites perform below expectations on a number of the basic skills and cognitive conceptual skills tests....A smaller-than-expected proportion of [EDC instructed] children in Lackawanna perform at least one year below grade level (the criterion of educational disadvantage) on three sections of the MAT: Reading, Math, and Spelling. In other sites in this model, a larger than expected proportion of [EDC instructed] children perform at least one year below grade level." (p. 121, Abt Associates, 1977)

Other child-directed models that varied somewhat from the British progressive education model were also evaluated by Abt Associates. The lowest achievement outcomes were consistently obtained by the child-directed models (Becker, Engelmann, Carnine , & Gersten, 1988). The outcomes of the four child-directed models were all consistently below the expectations of performance of comparable disadvantaged children learning in traditional classrooms.

In spite of the earlier research findings, educators continue to deny the possiblity that teacher direction can greatly facilitate initial learning. The same open education model from Project Follow Through is the one that has been repackaged a s "developmentally appropriate practice" (DAP). The following boxed inset presents descriptive features of DAP, taken directly from the NAEYC position paper and guidelines for implementing DAP (NAEYC, 1992, 1987). Although DAP is widely promoted as an inn ovative new teaching practice, there is little in DAP that is innovative, beyond the clever change in the name. The same themes of child-directed learning are found in DAP that were present in progressive education and in open education. (See Description of Developmentally Appropriate Practices by the NAEYC.)

The NAEYC position statement cites the theories of "Piaget (1952), Vygotsky (1978), and Erikson (1963)" as the "theories that inform this document." As the citation dates indicate, these theories are not new. In fact, Vygotsky died in 1934. Non e of these theorists describe outcomes that have actually been obtained using DAP; rather they describe theories derived from observations of children at different ages (called "developmental research"). Howard Gardner (1985) provides a succinct summary o f some findings from developmental research, specifically from Vygotsky and his followers:

The above summary typifies the findings of developmental research, which never tests the basic assumption that children learn only through their own initiative. Rather this basic assumption is taken for granted as developmental research is translat ed into instructional practice. The basic assumption of child-directed learning can only be tested through instructional research, not through developmental research.

Research that does not involve instruction, such as developmental research, does not provide evidence that any particular teaching practice will work. Only after a practice has been implemented and its results evaluated can one say that it has been tested. Only if the results show improvement over another alternative can one say the new method is superior. As described above, the DAP model promoted by the NAEYC and many state departments of education has proven inferior, rather than superior, in in structional research. Even if DAP is accepted as a "new" method, the most one can say is that DAP is untested.

The long list of references provided in the NAEYC literature is predominantly opinion literature. When asked to highlight the citations that include empirical data, the Early Childhood Specialist at the Oregon State Department of Education presente d a list of 14 references. Of those studies, only seven reported performance data from instruction of some type. One study supported the effectiveness of teacher-directed instruction, not child-directed (Gersten, Darch, & Gleason, 1988). Two studies s upported small class sizes, not DAP (Folger, 1989; Johnston, 1990). Four studies supported whole language instruction (Manning et al., 1990; Reutzel & Cooter, 1990; Roberts, 1991; Stice & Bertrand, 1990). No studies had results indicating the effe ctiveness of DAP.

Whole language. Whole language instruction is one aspect of DAP. The support for whole language instruction found in the NAEYC reference list are overshadowed by the weight of evidence in support of systematic phonics instruction provided by three comprehensive reviews of the research on reading. Whole language is more often compared with traditional whole word approaches, as it was in the four studies cited by the NAEYC, than with systematic phonics instruction. From reviewing all compariso ns of whole language and whole word approaches, Stahl and Miller (1989) found that traditional "whole word" approaches work better than "whole language" approaches with disadvantaged children. Some positive effects for whole language in comparisons with t raditional whole word approaches were evident only in prereading (kindergarten) instruction. When systematic phonics instruction was included in the comparison, Stahl and Miller found "strikingly larger effects for systematic phonics used in first grade" (p. 108, 1989). Marilyn Adams, commissioned by Congress through the National Center for the Study of Reading to comprehensively review all the research on reading, also concluded that the research supports the need for systematic phonics instruction in be ginning reading (1988). Becoming a Nation of Readers by the National Commission on Education also conducted a comprehensive review with the same conclusion (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985).

Nongraded organization. Another aspect of DAP is mixed-age grouping or "nongradedness." The body of research reporting performance data for nongraded primaries has been extensively reviewed by Gutiérrez and Slavin of Johns Hopkins Uni verisity (1992, see pages xx to xx for a summary of their findings). Unlike other reviews of nongraded arrangements (McLoughlin, 1967; Pavan, 1973, 1977), Gutierrez and Slavin looked at the instructional approach used within the nongraded organization. Th ey categorized all the nongraded implementations as one of four models with a fifth category of unidentifiable instructional approaches. They concluded that positive achievement gains were demonstrated in nongraded programs if mixed-age grou ping was used to allow teachers to provide more direct instruction to students, not less. This more effective model was the oldest nongraded model. It used the opportunity to mix children across ages to create more homogeneous learning groups, rath er than more heterogeneous groups, as DAP recommends. In general, the more recent nongraded model, most similar to DAP, was least effective.

Child-directed implementations have not been child-directed enough. Advocates of child-directed learning are aware of the poor learning outcomes that have been reported. A frequent response by many advocates is that the teacher still dir ected the child-directed instruction too much by expecting specific outcomes. For example, Salomon, Perkins, and Globerson (1991) argue that an undefinable "cloud of variables" makes the significant difference in obtaining the desired "cognitive residue" in students. They state that instruction that is too focused on a specific outcome, shuts out the effect of this cloud. Therefore, instead of treating the instruction "as just another subject matter to be mastered," it should be treated as "material to me ss around with" (p. 8, 1991), so this "cloud" can take effect. The evidence they cite involves child-directed learning practices that did not have the desired results. They cite no case where more messing around actually resulted in the desired "co gnitive residue." Yet if there is any change in current child-directed learning models from the earlier models, it is a change toward more "messing around" in social learning groups with fewer teacher expectations imposed on students.

Learning outcomes are over-emphasized. Another response to poor learning outcomes is to claim that outcomes are overemphasized. Instead of attempting to raise achievement levels by adopting other than child-directed methods, many reform lead ers argue for lowering expectations. In "Overselling Literacy," Frank Smith, an influential leader and ardent advocate of the wholistic reading instruction used in DAP, argues that literacy is oversold in our society (1989). According to Smith, concern ab out illiteracy only makes illiterates feel bad. He argues for having happy illiterates, rather than universal literacy.

Real learning cannot be measured. Another explanation for the failure to achieve results with child-directed methods is that learning is so complex it cannot be measured. Therefore, outcomes that are measurable are no indication of re al learning. However, anything that can be observed can be measured. Sophisticated measures of knowledge and problem solving are time consuming (i.e., expensive) to administer and evaluate, and for that reason they are usually impractical as standardized measures for public school use. However, controlled studies can make use of more complex indices and do provide valuable, in-depth information about the cause-and-effect relationships involved in learning (e.g., Carnine and Kameenui, 1992).

Individuals cannot be measured by any standard. Advocates of child-directed methods also discourage the use of standardized tests because they do not capture the uniqueness of an individual. However, standardized measures have more validity as a tool for evaluating programs, than for evaluating individuals. This can be illustrated with an extreme example. Assume that a test consists of only one problem: ___. If two students take this test, and one get s a right answer and the other gets a wrong answer, then we know very little about what these two students know. There could be a hundred reasons why the one student missed the problem, most of them having nothing to do with his or her knowledge of mathem atics.

But let's give the same test to two entire schools composed of students comparable in home background, age, and so on. If all the students in one school get the answer right while all the students in the other school get the answer wr ong, then we do know that the fractions instruction in one school is probably better than in the other school.

Where students' natural talents lie is largely irrelevant to the question of whether schools are using instructional programs that effectively develop those talents. The fact that indivduals may possess intelligence in one or more of seven differen t domains (Gardner, 1985) is no excuse for providing inferior instruction in any of those domains.

Standardized tests can only evaluate lower level knowledge. A further criticism of standardized measures is that they only test low level knowledge, and not higher level problem solving. This is not entirely true. For example, Shaw (1983) de veloped a highly reliable multiple-choice measure (split-half reliability = .924) of scientific process skills. These skills included "observing, classifying, measuring, using numbers, using space and time relationships, communicating, predicting, inferri ng, manipulating variables, making operational definitions, forming hypotheses, interpreting data, and experimenting" (p. 3, Shaw, 1983).

Multiple choice tests should be used with extreme caution to evaluate individuals; however, as a tool to compare instructional programs, they are reasonably reliable and inexpensive to score. In spite of their short-comings, multiple-choice tes ts certainly give more information than no standardized test at all.

The poor performance of American students on international standardized measures is a major reason cited for the current thrust to reform schools. Judging by the past performance of students learning from DAP, we should expect American students ' scores on standardized tests to go down, not up, as we implement DAP. While current moves to abandon standardized tests might hide the problem, they are not likely to lead to a solution.

In spite of the lack of empirical support for DAP as a means to achieve our goals, Kentucky passed legislation mandating DAP in 1991 and Oregon recently adopted a government policy that promotes DAP. Many states have similar proposals on their legi slative agendas. How did DAP become our quasi-national education policy?

According to an NAEYC position paper, the DAP guidelines were developed in collaboration with state departments of education. "The National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education jointly developed these guidelines..." (p. 10, NAEYC, 1992). According to two professors who participated in the national meetings where the guidelines were originally defined, the ideas for "appropriateness" represented only a "working hypothesis" and did not derive from instructional research (Johnson & Johnson, 1992).

Nor did the ideas reflect any representative consensus of the views of experts in education. Johnson and Johnson, who wrote a defense for DAP, state that a consensus was impossible to achieve at the policy development meetings until the "majority" view, supporting child-directed learning, "elbowed" the minority view out of the room:

Our selection of educational policy-makers should be based on some criterion other than large elbows.

Considerable evidence indicates that child-directed teaching methods have a detrimental effect on the education of diverse learners (handicapped and disadvantaged children). Sociologists and ethnologists in England denounced child-directed lear ning (progressive education) as a form of radical conservatism that served to maintain the class structure of society (e.g., Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975). The results of Project Follow Through indicated that economically disadvantaged children learnin g from child-directed instruction (open education) obtained lower scores on basic skills (reading, mathematics, language, and spelling), on cognitive development measures, and on measures of self-esteem and other desirable affects, than children learning from traditional education (Abt, 1977). More recent research reviews (Adams, 1989; Gutierrez & Slavin, 1992; Stahl & Miller, 1989) are consistent with the earlier research.

Asian cultures are dominated by a strong belief in effort and a deep respect for the teacher. To become competitive in the world, American schools also need to develop a culture of effort and hard work (USDE, 1992). The use of child-directed method s which are based on a belief in the innateness of learning, are inconsistent with a belief in effort, and undermine the development of a strong work ethic in Western education. Moreover, these practices discriminate against many students. Child-directed methods will not help America become more competitive in a world economy.

Bonnie Grossen has 15 years of teaching experience. She received her Ph.D. in 1988 in Special Education. She is currently a Research Associate at the University of Oregon. Her research interests are in teaching critical thinking and problem solving to diverse learners.

READ THE FOLLOWING THREE DESCRIPTIONS OF MODELS WITH THREE DIFFERENT NAMES

TO SEE IF THEY ARE NOT THE SAME MODEL

(Taken from Sharp, Green, and Lewis, 1975, and from Holt, 1969)

"The general features of the philosophy of the developmental tradition have...a nucleus of ideas upon which all would agree which relate to the view that the child should be allowed to develop his own inner potential rather than have ideas and tech niques from the adult world imposed upon him, thus denying the child's own integrity and inner being....The child centred approach aims, by treating the child as a unique subject with its own needs and interest, to extend to the child as large a measure o f autonomy as is consistent with a liberal democratic view of society....

"The progressive's claim to being 'child-centred' is an expression of the concern for the 'whole' child. It is no longer a case of children being rigorously drilled, of inculcating 'facts' regarded as sacrosanct, but of schooling being adapted to t he requirements of the child. The child is no longer regarded as an 'empty vessel' to be filled by the teacher, but to a large extent as an arbiter of his own education. He is allowed to follow his own interests; in exercising his right to 'choose' he acq uires self-control and responsibility.

"In order to develop the child's potential to the full it is, therefore, considered essential that his schooling be made relevant, and that this can only be achieved by removing 'artificial' disciplinary barriers (e.g., 'knowledge does not fall int o separate compartments' The Plowden Report, 1967), thereby allowing the child to pursue whichever aspect of the situation appeals to him. The curriculum is thus based on 'problem solving' rather than subject areas. The child is presented with a challengi ng and stimulating environment and encouraged to find out for himself without waiting to be told the answer. In short, learning by doing.

"For, 'Proficiency in learning comes not from reading and listening but from action, from doing and experiencing' (Dewey, 1938); as 'When they learn in their own way and for their own reasons, children learn so much more rapidly and effectively tha n we could possibly teach them' (Holt, 1969)....

"The aim then, is to allow the child free expression in order to foster what is individual in each human being. For, 'the purpose of teaching is to bring ever more out of man rather than put more into him' (Froebel, 1909)....

"Central to progressive child centred philosophy are the concepts of 'readiness,' 'choice,' 'needs,' 'play' and 'discovery.' Briefly, it is believed that given an invigorating setting, when the child is 'ready,' he will 'choose' what it is that he 'needs.' This selection is believed to be facilitated through 'play' which sets in train the 'discovery,' or learning processes....

"The recommendation that the child be left free to choose is seen to be based, on the one hand, on a belief that he is able to make an informed choice to satisfy his particular 'needs', which leads to the suggestion that, 'we could well afford to t hrow out most of what we teach in school because the children throw it out anyway (hence) we can afford to throw away our curricula and our timetables' (Holt, 1969); and on the other an acknowledgment that the teacher is often ignorant of what the child 'requires.' Thus it would seem that the child is accorded greater percipience than the teacher....

"Vertical grouping is recommended in preference to the horizontal class where children are categorized merely on the basis of age....Within a mixed age range, theoretically, it should be possible for each child to operate at his own 'level,' to the benefit of advanced and slow alike who can 'be themselves and develop in the way and at the pace appropriate to them' (Plowden, 1967)" (pp. 40-44, Sharp, Green, & Lewis, 1975).

"In short, the school should be a great smorgasbord of intellectual, artistic, creative and athletic activities, from which each child could take whatever he wanted and as much as he wanted, or as little" (Holt, 1969).

By EDC for the Project Follow Through Report

"The EDC Open Education approach seeks to stimulate learning by providing children with a great variety of materials and experience within a supportive emotional environment. The sponsor believes children learn at individual rates and in individual ways, and teachers should adapt approaches to encourage individual progress and responsibility in learning.

"The EDC Model is predicated on the notion that learning, particularly cognitive learning, occurs best when children are offered a wide range of materials and problems to investigate within an open, supportive environment. According to this sponsor , a child's ability to learn depends in part on the opportunities and experiences provided by the educational setting. The sponsor believes that the EDC approach, derived from practices of British infant and primary schools and Piagetian research, is appr opriate for all children, regardless of their socioeconomic or educational status. The EDC approach is operationalized by sponsor advisory teams who work with parents, teachers, and school administrators in each site to help realize the EDC open-education philosophy. The advisory team assists in setting up classrooms and selecting a variety of books and materials from which local educators can choose.

"The sponsor believes that there is no uniform way to teach reading, writing, or arithmetic skills, and no uniform timetable for all children to follow. Children are not compared with other children and do not receive standardized tests. Consequent ly, EDC classrooms and teachers vary greatly. Teachers often divide classrooms into interest areas where children may work part or all of the day. Traditional subjects important in the open classroom may be combined with these interest groups. The teacher may work with the entire class, small groups, or individuals. Parents sometimes serve as classroom aides and assist in curriculum planning. In sum, the EDC Model is more a philosophy than a technique.

"Since the sponsor does not prescribe a detailed instructional program and feels that the open classroom philosophy is appropriate for all voluntary teachers, this model demands a highly creative and resourceful teacher and is perhaps the most teac her-dependent of the Follow Through models. Teachers must diagnose each child's strength, potential, and interests and then strive to provide instructional units reflecting that information. They are trained to provide a "hidden structure," to act as guid es and resources, to make suggestions and to give encouragement, as the primary methods of extending their pupils' learning activities. Within this environment the pupils are encouraged to work at their own pace, learn from one another, and make choices a bout their own work....Although there is some stress on specific academic skills, the foci of this model are learning how to learn, developing an appreciation for learning, and encouraging children to take responsibility for their own learning" (p. 113-11 4, Abt Associates, 1977).

Description of Developmentally Appropriate Practice

From the National Association for the Education of Young Children

"Children need years of play with real objects and events before they are able to understand the meaning of symbols such as letters and numbers. Learning takes place as young children touch, manipulate, and experiment with things and interact with people....Workbooks, worksheets, coloring books, and adult-made models of art products for children to copy are not appropriate for young children, especially those younger than 6" (p. 4, NAEYC, 1987).

"As children work with materials or activities, teachers listen, observe, and interpret children's behavior. Teachers can then facilitate children's involvement and learning by asking questions, making suggestions, or adding more complex materials or ideas to a situation" (p. 5, NAEYC, 1987).

"In developmentally appropriate practices, adults:

1. provide a rich variety of activities and materials from which to choose. Such variety increases the likelihood of a child's prolonged or satisfied attention and increases independence and opportunity for making decisions.

2. offer children the choice to participate in a small group or in a solitary activity.

3. assist and guide children who are not yet able to use easily and enjoy child-choice activity periods.

4. provide opportunities for child-initiated, child-directed practice of skills as a self-chosen activity. Children need opportunities to repeat acquired skills to fully assimilate their learning. Repetition that is initiated and directed by the child, not adult-directed drill and practice, is most valuable for assimilation" (p. 7, NAEYC, 1987).

"Formal, inappropriate instructional techniques are a source of stress for young children" (p. 10, NAEYC, 1987).

"First, second, and third grade teachers all report that children cannot comprehend place value; teachers spend hours trying to teach this abstract concept, and children either become frustrated or resort to memorizing meaningless tricks. This is a n example, of an unrealistic objective that could be attained much more easily later on" (p. 20, NAEYC, 1992).

"Children's learning is not compartmentalized or divided into artificial subject-matter distinctions....The curriculum provides for long blocks of time to bring naturally related subjects together and does not require minimal time allotments for in struction in discrete subject matter" (p. 20-21, NAEYC, 1992).

"Multiage grouping is one strategy to promote social interaction among individual children and their more capable peers, an effective way of enhancing language competence and generally assisting children's progress to the next level of development and understanding" (p. 21, NAEYC, 1992).