And What Do You Mean by Learning?

by Seymour B. Sarason

One of America's original thinkers about public education, Seymour Sarason poses the crucial question for all educators-""What do you mean by learning?" "Learning" is the word most used in educational literature and yet educators have great difficulty in defining it. Sarason demonstrates that the lack of clarity about the concept of learning is at the root of the disappointments of educational reform, the inadequacies of preparatory programs, and proclamations of policy. He takes a good look at another question as Why are the principles of learning implied by what parents of preschoolers say and do so different from the principles educators employ? And he goes a step further when he Why is it that no one, educators or otherwise, has ever said that schools are places where teachers learn? Central to Sarason's questions on all fronts is the distinction between the contexts of productive and unproductive learning, the latter being far more frequent than the former. Unlike the words "sticks" and "stones", "learning" is not concrete, visible, palpable. Learning is a process that takes place in a social context involving and intertwining motivation and attitudes, cognitive and emotional responses, no one of which is ever zero in strength. Recognizing this has enormous implications for pedagogy, school administration, and educational policy. Sarason discusses these implications by use of concrete examples familiar to any reader. And What Do YOU Mean by Learning? is not about theory-it's a warning. It alerts readers to how glossing over what they mean by learning effectively stymies any educational reform. Educators' stock-in-trade is learning. Only when they become aware of what learning encompasses and the contexts in which it occurs can we have a starting point for real education.

Genres: Education, Teaching

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 2004

About the author

Seymour Bernard Sarason was Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught from 1945 to 1989. He is the author of over forty books and is considered to be one of the most significant researchers in education and educational psychology in the United States. The primary focus of his work was on education reform in the United States. In the 1950s he and George Mandler initiated the research on test anxiety. He founded the Yale Psycho-Educational Clinic in 1961 and was one of the principal leaders in the community psychology movement.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The title of this book is not a rhetorical device intended to capture the attention of readers. It is explicitly intended to suggest that like most everyone else (including me) you use or have used the word or concept of learning in grossly simplistic ways, unaware and unable even to entertain the possibility that what you say you mean is part, a large part, of the problem and in no way a solution to the improvement of school learning." (p. 25 para. 2)

Sarason is new to me, yet he has been around since the 1940s. Reading his book is like sitting down with a venerable professor during office hours, sharing a cup of tea and hearing the wisdom of all those years. He shares essential resources that have been lost in the glut of educational texts in the last 60 years.

Sarason is a proponent of teachers knowing their students very well. He is proponent of a solid dialogue between parents and teachers BEFORE the school year begins, so that the teacher can see the potential and learn of the personality of the student. (What comes to mind is when parents cannot see this in their own children!)

Sarason speaks of the students hopes and expectations: "that he will not only like the teacher but also that she will like him, that he can trust her to understand him and to treat him with fairness and respect, to be someone who will not disparage him or make him fell inadequate or like a failure or embarrass him before other students whose friendship and respect he very much wants. The student is a neophyte psychologist very much aware of himself and a scanner of his social surround (sic), all in the service of being seen as worthy in the learning context. (emphasis mine) p. 50 para 3)

Sarason addresses the following:
How do we define learning?
What constitutes productive and non-productive learning?
Where is "learning" in the climate of standardized testing?
How are teachers engaged in learning as they teach? Are they?
What contexts are there for learning?
How do we create productive contexts for learning?
Is the teaching community a place of shared visions and goals or communities of teachers in isolation one from another?
What is the relationship of the teacher to the parent?
What is the relationship of administration to the teacher?
Are administrators master teachers?
What is the role of creativity in education?
What are the negative consequences of imitation?

One of my favorite statements:
"Many schools have no periods for artistic or musical or literary activity. Some schools may have one or two on one day. Where there are such periods, the justification by the school is that is gives the student an opportunity for creative personal expression, a justification that clearly implies that the bulk of the curriculum has little or nothing to do with creativity." (p. 199 para 2)

In conclusion, Sarason expounds upon this idea:
"Learning is a process that occurs in an interpersonal context and is dynamically comprised of factors whose strength is never zero. Those factors have such labels as motivation, attitude, cognition, affect, self-regard.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Unless, and until, on the basis of careful studies and careful evidence we gain clarity and consensus of the distinguishing features of classroom contexts of productive and unproductive learning, the improvement of schooling and its outcomes is doomed." [11 years later, we have Thoughtful Classroom, which does an exceptional job of doing just that.]

"Learning is a process that occurs in an interpersonal context and is dynamically comprised of factors whose strength is never zero. Those factors have such labels as motivation, attitude, cognition, affect, self-regard."