A conversation with Christopher Schenk.
Trends in Early Childhood Education, United States and United KingdomDimidjian: Chris, let's begin by speaking a bit about your responsibilities in England and about the fellowship enabling you to spend last year (1991-92) in the States.
Schenk: In England we have a national organization unlike anything I've found in your American system, quaintly titled "Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools." People here in the U.S. seem to immediately think that means I, and others of the 500-plus HMI staff, license or approve schools. But our function is to keep a pulse of trends, issues and problems in education throughout the country. We are sometimes called in when a particular difficulty arises to assist in finding a solution, and sometimes we cite examples of successful schools to help good practice spread. My primary area of interest is early childhood education. In the past few years I have become increasingly concerned about children at risk, those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds who may not achieve their potential in their early years and, later on, drop out of school.
Dimidjian: I share those concerns with you since we have so many at-risk children. Their numbers are growing throughout the country, most dramatically here in South Florida.
Schenk: Yes, it's a shared trend on both sides of the Atlantic, though not in the same proportions. When I learned of the Commonwealth Fund's Harkness Fellowships, it seemed to me that investigation of what was happening in the U.S. in regard to these issues was exactly what I needed to do!
Dimidjian: And your fellowship has made that possible?
Schenk: Oh yes, I've explored education in South Florida and in parts of the other States. I visited six school districts all over the States and talked with officials in three different State Departments of Education and the U.S. Department of Education. I've been to over 50 schools and other institutions and in several hundred American classrooms by now. So I'll be returning to England with a wealth of experiences and, I hope, insight into my country's own situation from a new perspective.
Dimidjian: Insight that you'll want to use from this point on in your career, I assume?
Schenk: Yes, it has been a tremendous opportunity for me and the 11 other Harkness Fellows. It is a midcareer fellowship program, you see, enabling us to spend an intensive 6- to 12-month period exploring all that is happening in a professional field. Only three fellows have been studying education this year; most are in medicine or health-related fields. We meet together regularly to compare and share our progress and projects.
Dimidjian: Your Fellowship Report is called "An Elephant in the Living Room: An Outsider's Impressions of American Primary Education." Where did that title come from?
Schenk: Well, I've been able to do quite a bit of traveling, so that my South Florida experience is balanced with explorations in education in other parts of the country. I've really spent time in every section of the continent; my family and I will even get up to Alaska before we leave. In each place I've gained more insight into your situation, often hearing the most pithy comments in unexpected places. Like the one in San Diego last fall when a teacher described American education by saying, "It's like having an elephant in the living room--you know you don't want it there, but you can't figure how to get it out!"
Dimidjian: Ha! A problem so big you've got to grapple with it, but can't seem to start to maneuver it toward change--is that it?
Schenk: Yes. You see, I'd read that American education was in crisis now, and we in the U.K. also are pressed with gigantic problems. But until spending day after day in your classrooms and talking with administrators, parents and community people, I really had no idea of the dimensions of the challenges you are facing. Daunting, I must admit!
Dimidjian: And that was the reason you specifically requested a Miami base for your experience, so you could see one hub of the crisis?
Schenk: Certainly, and because I'd read of the school improvement efforts being made in Dade County and of the great influx of immigrant groups--much like some of the urban areas in England, I thought, where I've done a lot of work with the schools.
Dimidjian: So you and your family arrived in August 1991...
Schenk: Yes, first I attended orientation seminars in New York and Pittsburgh. Then Sarah and I and the children, Tabitha (9) and Gabriel (4), came down to live in Miami. My daughter is in public school 3rd grade and my son is in a private preschool, so I've had the perspective of being a stake-holder in American education too, not just an outside observer!
Dimidjian: I know from our talks that there is much that you see differently from your initial expectations after having completed a year's study. What's your overall impression?
Schenk: Yes, well, two major things have impressed me most during this year. First, although both countries speak the same language and share much in terms of tradition, our current trends in terms of early education seem to be coming from different directions, traveling like two ships across the Atlantic in two opposing directions. Now that could be good, for I've seen much in the U.S. that has helped me to rethink issues in the U.K. But I fear we aren't doing enough to exchange information and thus gain new perspectives on our problems, albeit from opposite ends of the spectrum. Projects like the one I've been a part of this year help, but not enough is occurring in that regard. I'd hate for our "ships to pass in the night," for we'd all lose in the process!
Second, although both countries share concerns about low-achieving and minority students and about methods of intervention, especially in the early years, I think that the crisis in the U.S. is much greater and presents much more difficulty for reform and change than in the U.K. I know I will leave for home with great appreciation for the generosity, warmth, creativity and dynamism that typify the States, but also with a sense of relief at getting back to the realities that now seem a bit more manageable. Reforms may be easier to implement in my smaller and less divided land.
CONTRASTING TRENDS IN EARLY EDUCATION, U.S. AND U.K.
Dimidjian: I share your grave sense of the looming iceberg facing our education system's "Titanic." Let's examine some of the trends we both are most concerned about.
Schenk: One of the most striking things to me is the considerable amount of whole class teaching I've seen in the classrooms for young children in the States. Our tradition in early education in the U.K. emphasizes the importance of young children's individualized activities and the teacher's role as environmental designer and facilitator of activity-based learning. Most of the classrooms I've seen over this past year have operated on the model of teacher instruction for the whole group, with children usually doing paper-and-pencil activities at their desks, following teacher directions.
Dimidjian: From your observations, is that method of teaching more prevalent with older children? Or more in public settings?
Schenk: To some degree, yes for both.
Dimidjian: You see, we have a long tradition of differing pedagogy, philosophy and practice between our domains of nursery/kindergarten/child care and that of primary education. More whole group instruction surely is the tradition of the latter.
Schenk: Yes, I see that. But the general trend, it seems to me, has been imposition of this style downward onto the expanding numbers of younger children entering classrooms. While I've certainly seen some excellent child-centered 3- to 8-year-old classrooms, most of them have been conducted much more like classes for 8- to 12-year-old children capable of more internal and intellectual work.
Dimidjian: With teachers giving instructions to the whole group, then each child individually responding in writing or other behavior?
Schenk: Exactly. I should say I'd like to see more whole class teaching in our English classrooms; I don't mean to scrap the whole idea at all! In the hands of a skilled teacher who knows the developmental levels in the group, this can be an excellent technique. Especially if a teacher's questions are open-ended, challenging and demand integration of content areas in response. But so much of what I've seen has been whole group activity on the same closed exercise.
Dimidjian: Yet not all, I know. How about some examples of early education with more balance?
Schenk: Well, interestingly enough, some of the very best classrooms for young children have been for the "gifted." Both in Dade County and in other parts of the country, I've seen lots of hands-on, individualized, challenging and problem-oriented activities! I can see why parents push for early testing and placement in such classrooms, something we do very little of in Britain, I must say.
Dimidjian: Yes, there's no question that our two systems are at opposite ends of the spectrum right now, particularly in regard to testing of young children. Both in regard to identification of special needs and to assessment of progress in regular and special classrooms, isn't it? Have you been surprised to see both so highly emphasized?
Schenk: Yes, without a doubt. I realize that part of the issue is access to appropriate services--that a child currently can't be placed in a Chapter One or a special needs group without formal testing. But I worry about the self-fulfilling prophecy that starts to occur when labels are attached so early. In the U.K., we start our children earlier in school, of course, but we also attempt to keep them together. Our underlying assumption is that all young children profit from their interactions with each other, not only those who come to school with special challenges for the system.
Dimidjian: Perhaps your system has a greater optimism about the growth potential of each child, no matter the background or special needs?
Schenk: Well, perhaps, though I'd not overstate that. But we certainly have a stronger confidence in each child's capacity to learn. For example, I've been so taken aback at the early and persistent achievement testing done in the States, with the expectation that all children should be reading or computing at quite the same chronological age point. And so many children are retained, as if doing more of what hasn't worked will ensure it will work. I've certainly seen sufficient research during my stay here to have serious doubts about this approach.
Dimidjian: You've connected that with the dominant "teaching the textbook" approach. Could you say a little more about that and how it contrasts to your country's tradition?
Schenk: Well, English primary school teachers make very little direct use of textbooks, except in mathematics. In the States, however, I found that many teachers follow textbooks closely, sometimes slavishly, for most subjects. I found similar textbooks and teaching activities going on in New York, California and Florida. The standardization of your curriculum based on adoption and use of a relatively small number of textbooks is quite remarkable, I must say. A degree of conformity I'd not expected in such a highly individualistic society.
Dimidjian: So for your teachers, "curriculum" has quite a different meaning, I think, something much broader than the content-based subjects children are learning.
Schenk: Well, it certainly means that, but much more too. Our teachers design the curriculum process for their particular group of children. They teach most subjects within an integrated, learning-center framework that emphasizes individual and small group activity. They work within the structure of the National Curriculum, by which we mean a framework of education goals rather than a detailed syllabus. More and more joint planning is taking place in our schools so that teachers link their individual approaches and methods with other staff in their particular school. But they have a degree of individuality and autonomy that I sense is only starting to be established in the States, especially in those public schools actively moving to restructure.
Dimidjian: Restructuring designed in part to involve teachers more, I think, and to increase their responsibility as well as their autonomy in the education system.
Schenk: Exactly, and that's another broad contrast I think is important. Early educators in Britain have historically had an enormous degree of autonomy, both within publicly funded schools and privately funded play groups and child care facilities. Now the pendulum is swinging back, and I see more emphasis nationally and locally on teamwork and consensus in implementing national curriculum goals and methodology. Meanwhile in the States, your national trend has been on systemwide definition of curriculum goals and texts and this has translated into many teachers simply "following the book" in daily teaching practices. So your pendulum has to swing back from the opposite direction!
Dimidjian: Yes, balance is critical. Individual teaching autonomy and responsibility should be balanced with a consensus on collective goals and methods. There should also be balance between a focus on individual children engaged in learning and group progress toward overall curriculum goals.
Schenk: And balance has always to make room for variations in achievement, doesn't it? Not imposing the idea that all children will make exactly the same progress at the same time. I've seen so much "success versus failure" testing of young children this year; the long-term effect on beginning learners worries me. Isn't testing better used to guide how to help children in need?
Dimidjian: Surely! Testing should indicate what to do, a beginning for intervention rather than failure. But you're right, our traditional use of testing, especially with the young, has been too often to say, "You're not ready for school yet or the next grade or public school" and then refer the child somewhere else.
Schenk: Yes, I think we in Britain haven't done enough early assessment for "identification of needs for intervention." We have been too complacent and relied too heavily on the assumption that children will develop to their fullest potential in the child-focused classroom. So some children come too late for special help, help that might have been more effective if begun earlier. But in the States it seems to me that you categorize and segregate too early. Many children lose as a result, especially those who need so badly to gain the language and social skills to make progress in the mainstream of education now and the mainstream of society later on.
Dimidjian: Another instance where balance between the extremes would be better policy for schools and for young children, too?
Schenk: Yes, all of them, without a doubt.
COMMON CONCERNS AND TRENDS, U.S. AND U.K.
Dimidjian: There is much discussion of "developmentally appropriate practices" in our field today in the U.S. You've surely heard this phrase often this year, haven't you?
Schenk: Certainly, a most important set of words! And I've heard them in public schools as well as the other settings where so many of your young children spend their days--day care, nurseries, Head Start programs. But translating the words into reality seems, as yet, an enormous task for all these domains.
Dimidjian: It seems to me that part of the difficulty is insufficient understanding of the developmental growth process, yes? And application of that knowledge to daily teaching practices?
Schenk: And it is important to emphasize knowledge about child development in educational settings, from the administrative levels through to the paraprofessional and volunteer levels. Also, the variability of children's growth and development.
Dimidjian: I often repeat to my students that teachers must "make children the heart of the curriculum."
Schenk: Yes, but I have a caution about that too, you see, since most of our English teachers do that and do it pretty well, I think. But for a disadvantaged child who may start school with risk factors already impeding his progress, I don't think it's sufficient any longer to just rely on understanding and facilitating that individual child's growth.
Dimidjian: No, certainly not! But you can't see these children as deficient either, can you? I mean, that will affirm their segregation and isolation.
Schenk: That is exactly the problem, how to see and teach them as "different in need" but "similar in potential." Both countries are struggling with this; I think it's the biggest challenge we both face.
Dimidjian: In the States we've been addressing this problem piecemeal since the '50s, adding program after program as the country mobilized around one issue or another.
Schenk: I've certainly seen the result of that history this year. In Dade County, for example, I counted over a dozen different funding streams available for children 3 to 8 years! But all of them had restrictions and limits so that integrated usage of funds was very difficult, sometimes impossible! I remember one visit to a classroom where I saw a group of young children using only half the computers in their room. When I asked why, I was told that the other half were funded by Chapter One so "these children," who weren't enrolled under that rubric, couldn't use them.
Dimidjian: So the number of young children in need and at risk grows, but the system's capacity to address their needs has increasingly splintered?
Schenk: Well, it certainly appears so. The social context of young children's development differs so dramatically in the States. Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities (1991) has made a great impression on me, yet I don't hear many voices raised to address his concerns. On the other hand, I'm also aware of a large number of successful early intervention projects that have been piloted around the country with groups from disadvantaged and minority communities. So much innovation, so many places showing that early work can achieve very positive results.
Dimidjian: The emphasis on the connection of family and social issues to early schooling is perhaps the last of our shared concerns and directions, isn't it? What have you found to take back in this regard?
Schenk: An emphasis on the family-school connection is an integral part of most of the early intervention efforts that have impressed me this year. Even Start in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and some of the work that I saw with refugee families in Rochester, New York, as well as the Florida First Start Program here in Miami--all work with the whole family, not just with young children.
Dimidjian: Yes, I'd surely agree that both in our early education and child care systems, as well as our institutions for teacher training, we have to put even more emphasis on understanding family dynamics, on working effectively with families from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and on communicating in positive and supportive ways with parents and other professionals about the young children in our care. We have lots to do to improve all those areas on our side of the Atlantic. On yours, too?
Schenk: Yes, certainly. If we're really going to make a difference in young children's development, we have to find better ways of relating to and supporting families under stress.
Dimidjian: In that regard, Miami has been a fascinating place to be based, hasn't it?
Schenk: Yes, it is a picture of what your country is becoming, isn't it? I was struck with Harold Hodgkinson's words: "If one assumes that America in the future will consist of a rapidly aging white population, a large but stable black population, a rapidly increasing, diverse and youthful Asian and Hispanic population, a new blend of service and "high tech" jobs, rapid immigration from many nations, a declining base of middle class people of working age, transiency and crime, environmental vulnerability, contrasts in wealth, social systems that cannot keep up with growth, exciting new social and political innovations and the agony of unfulfilled expectations, then Florida is the future of America more than any other state" (1988, p. 1).
And the challenges Florida is facing now really are what the whole country will be facing during the next generation, right?
Dimidjian: It surely seems so to me. Like you, I am a relative newcomer to Miami, still learning about its diversity and complexity. But some efforts I've seen here, linking home and school in constructive, mutually supportive ways that are focused on the child's progress, epitomize the best in model early education projects like Comer's and Slavin's work. The challenge is to keep that partnership going as the young children progress into and through the public system.
Schenk: One of the main obstacles is, as you point out in Early Childhood at Risk (1989), the fragmentary nature of the early childhood services and the lack of coordination among them. The duplication and the disjointed nature of provision are very inefficient.
Dimidjian: A final question: What would you do if you had three magic wishes, like the fairy tales, to apply to our situation in early education in the States?
Schenk: Well, one would be for a universally available system of health care for pregnant women and young children. It would be expensive to set up, but would save a lot of dollars in the long run. The Health Visitors in England, trained nurses who visit all families with young children in their homes, perform an enormously important role in giving primary support and coordinating other services.
Second, I'd like to see universally available, publicly funded education for all 3- and 4-year-olds whose families wish to make use of it. The sort of provision that they have in France, Belgium and Italy is not just in the best interests of young children and their families, but of society as a whole. Finally, I would sweep away all standardized achievement tests and replace them with better forms of assessment that would allow all students to demonstrate what they know and can do.
Dimidjian: Ah, I do wish we could bring the magic of fairy tales to real life! Sadly our world doesn't change so easily, but I know you'll be returning soon to see if we are able to make progress in those directions which I agree are so important. I hope the '90s will make all of them possible. Surely the nation's sense of the need for reform in education in general, as well as the need for young children to be given a healthy, positive start before entering the doors of the "big school," is growing. I'm sure those working with children younger than school age and those working with children in our public and private schools will give careful consideration to your ideas. Perhaps perceptions of "outsiders" like you, who can help us to critique what isn't being fully enough done, will urge more change. Thanks, Chris, for your critique and your visions of possible change and opportunity.
Note: Information about this article or about Christopher Schenk's full report on his impressions of American education for 3- to 11-year-olds may be obtained by writing to him at the Department of Education and Science, Government Buildings, Marston Rd., Oxford OX3 OTY, England, or contacting Dr. Dimidjian, College of Education, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199.
References
Comer, J. (1980). School power: Implications of an intervention project. New York: Free Press.
Dimidjian, V. (1989). Early childhood at risk: Actions and advocacy for young children. Washington, DC: National Education Association.
Her Majesty's Schools Office Publications Centre. (1989-91). Aspects of primary education series. London, England.
Hodgkinson, H. (1988). Florida: The state and its educational system. Washington, DC: Institute for Educational Leadership.
Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. New York: Crown Publishers.
Slavin, R. (1988). School and classroom organization. New York: L. Erlbaum Assoc.
Slavin, R., et al. (1989). Effective programs for students at risk. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
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| Title Annotation: | member, Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, London, England |
|---|---|
| Author: | Dimidjian, Victoria Jean |
| Publication: | Childhood Education |
| Article Type: | Interview |
| Date: | Mar 22, 1993 |
| Words: | 3963 |
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