Religion and mathetics

In their recent paper de Heus en Dronkers explore the extent to which educational systems and general societal features of destination and origin countries can explain differences in immigrant children's scientific literacy. Using data from the 2006 PISA survey, they perform a cross-classified multilevel analysis on the science performance of 9414 15 year old immigrant children, originating from 46 countries and living in 16 countries of destination.

Striking is the effect of religious affiliation on scientific performance of the children.
Immigrant children from Islamic countries perform worse that their counterparts from Christian or non religious countries. Although the study does not focus on the capacity to learn in a mathetic way, it starts at the other side: the influence of two schoolsystems (the educational/didactical entrance)

From several sides the research is critisized for it's methodology and conclusions.

Brain based learning: a myth?

Cognitive scientists warn against too early adoption of results coming from neuroscience experiments. They make clear that most of the sometimes exciting research has to do with efforts to figure out how our brain works. There are not always immediate consequences for educational practice.

As an example the "Mozart effect" is mentioned. It has
to do with the myth that classical music is an important form of sensory
stimulation. It al started with a scientific paper, reporting that college-students showed a short increase in spational reasoning, after listening to a Mozart pianosonata, compared to other students who experienced silence or instructions to relax (Rauscher, Shaw, Ky (1993))
When other researchers tried to reproduce the effect, some were succesfull,
but the majority failed (Chabris, 1999). The assumption now is that
the effect has nothing to do with Mozart or classical music as such, but rather to a boost in mood and arousal (Thomson, Schellenberg, Husain, 2001).

However the findings from the experiment were interpreted by the media and
the mass as "music makes you smarter". People started to give a diet of
classical music to babies and young children. The governor of Georgia gave a CD
with classical music to every new born in his state and in Florida every
state-funded childcare had to play classical music to children under the age of
six. It would have been better to give each child a book (in Georgia) because
there is rather much research indicating that being read to makes a young child
smarter. That evidence is much more stronger than the weak "Mozart effect"
hypothesis.

What can we expect? Our better understanding of the brain is bound to lead to improved classroom practice in the very near future. A deep understanding of the brain will correspond with a deep understanding of the mind. And that could have consequences for our approach to education. One of the field is our better understanding of learning disorders. The other field could be the mathetic learning processes.

Hole in the wall

Is it possible for children to learn independent, using a computer?



This mathetic question was asked several years ago by Prof. Sugata Mitra, Newcastle University.
He did some spectaculair experiments in India, placing computers in public aereas, outside schools and observing what happened. In one experiment the computers were on a street corner, hidden in a wall. His conclusions so far:

* children learn themselves to browse in a short time by acting independent

* children teach other peers how to handle internet problems and how to use it

* childeren learn English independent, using an American accent

* childeren learn to deal with complex problems like DNA theory.

His overall conclusion: children are able to learn independent. It does not matter where they live and from what background they are. Triggering their emotions is the central point in this success, in his opinion.

Mitra states that it is important to situate computers in public places and not just in schools. The use of computers in schools is too often associated with forced learning and teachers do not succeed in bridging the gap between the curriculum and the necessary emotional drive.

Now Mitra is interested in the question: is it possible for children to finish a school by learning independent?

His observations and results so far are a plea for more emphasis on and research after mathetic learning. In this regard there is once more a growing revitalisation of the theories of Bloom/Anderson. It looks as if there is a growing tendency towards bypassing the school as an institution and laying emphasis on other public institutions. Some are doing this for philosophic, religious or political reasons, others are more pragmatic: "you can't wait untill schools are ready for the enormous changes. They are too slow".

Learning and feeling well...

Unicef published her report "Child poverty in perspective: an overview of child well being in rich countries."

It's obvious that there will be a relationship between mathetic conditions and the facts described in this report. Interesting research questions are waiting for those being able to tackle them.