In previous blogs I have used the term, “The Grammar of Schooling,” to describe the classroom routines that teachers throughout our country perform on a daily basis. I use the term to highlight how uniform teaching routines are in this nation—and how these routines act as powerful barriers to instructional approaches that foster deep intellectual engagement with content and skills. The best description of the “grammar of schooling” emerges from John Goodlad’s landmark study of 1,000 classrooms across the United States. Goodlad’s study was carried out more than forty years ago, yet it still mirrors the dominate model of teaching in our schools today.
| John Goodlad’s Description of the Grammar of Schooling –>The dominant pattern of classroom organization is whole group instruction where the goal of the teachers is to maintain orderly relationships among 20 or 30 more students in a small space. –>Students generally work alone within a group setting. –>The teacher is the central figure in determining all classroom decisions—class organization, choice of material and instructional procedures. —>Teacher spends most of their time in front of the class talking to students. The remainder of time is spent monitoring students’ seatwork or conducting quizzes or tests. –>Rarely are students actively engaged in learning directly from another or initiating processes of interaction with teachers. –>Rarely do teachers praise students or provide feedback on students’ performance. –>Students generally engage in a narrow range of classroom activities—listening to teachers, writing answers to questions, and taking tests and quizzes. Students receive relatively little exposure to audio-visual aids, field trips, guest lectures, role-playing, manipulation of materials, or hands-on activities. –>The subjects students like most involved drawing, making, shaping, moving, and interacting. These subjects were regarded as the easiest and least important. –>There was strong evidence of students not having time to finish their lessons or not understanding what the teachers wanted them to do. –>A significant number of students felt that they were not getting sufficient teacher help with mistakes and difficulties. –>In social studies classes (where you would expect a great deal of discussion) 90% of instruction involved zero discussion. In the remaining 10% discussion lasted on average for 31 seconds. –>Teachers who claim they are leading discussions, are, when observed, often leading recitations. |
Alan C. Jones 