Mary S. Poplin

Holistic/constructivist Principles of the Teaching/Learning Process Implications for the Field of Learning Disabilities

Structuralist philosophy, constructivist theory, and holistic beliefs define the learning enterprise in opposition to reductionistic behavioral learning theory and suggest that the task of schools is to help students develop new meanings in response to new experiences rather than to learn the meanings others have created. This change in the very definition of learning reveals principles of learning that beg consideration in designing classroom instruction. Twelve principles are drawn here from the structuralist, constructivist, and holist literature and are applied to teaching students with learning disabilities. Looking at learning from this paradigm, one can see a different classroom environment emerging, one in which instruction is seen through the eyes of the students rather than through preferred methodologies, mandated curricula, and student assessments and diagnoses.

The Reductionistic Fallacy in Learning Disabilities Replicating the Past by Reducing the Present

Theoretical and empirical debates and political schisms have characterized the movement of the field of learning disabilities from its early medical and psychological process model orientations through the more recent behavioral and cognitive strategy phases. These debates have elucidated, perhaps even exaggerated, the differences between these models. It is proposed here that the four models are far more similar than they are different and that the similarities are grounded in the fact that each defines, assesses, and instructs students with learning disabilities in a reductionistic manner. It is the authors contention that the reductionistic fallacy undergirds the efficacy problems that have plagued the field since its inception.

Self-Imposed Blindness The Scientific Method in Education

The quantitative research methods we use in education are derivatives of the scientific methods used to study physical phenomena. The scientific method is related to the philosophic principles of logical positivism. Taking these principles one can surmise the underlying assumptions behind our research in education and thus see its limitations more clearly. By comparing two articles which study the placement of students in special education along the lines of these assumptions, one can see how quantitative research as applied to education may have distorted our view of what really goes on in the education of high risk students. The author recommends that the field turn its attention toward establishing a body of knowledge derived from qualitative, not exclusively quantitative, research.

Toward an Holistic View of Persons with Learning Disabilities.

Holism is sweeping almost every field of inquiry-from physics to education, from philosophy to medicine. The holistic method suggests a manner of inquiry and action whereby variables are viewed and treated within the context of all the interactions that form a particular experience. Unlike the traditional scientific or empirical methods, holism does not presume that questions are best examined outside the context in which they occur. No attempt is made to isolate or control extraneous variables, statistically or experimentally. On the contrary, holists suggest that the most critical variables in an experience or structure often lie outside those that can be readily observed and/or easily controlled. In medicine, for example, holists postulate that psychological variables may influence the bodys healing processes as dramatically as chemical or other traditional medical variables (Cousins, 1979). In physics, holism acknowledges that the universe is not unfolding as simply, hierarchically, or logically as it was once assumed, and that attempts to control and measure scientific phenomena distort the very element(s) under observation (Capra, 1983). Applied to philosophy, structuralism implies that meaning is derived from personal and social, conscious and unconscious, experience and that objective fact or reality does not exist separate from the minds of humans (Foucault, 1972). Structuralism is a philosophic method used to describe the systematic complexity of structures of knowledge, societies, mathematics, institutions, history, literary criticism, or the universe. All phenomena are perceived as inextricably linked to one another in a constantly evolving set of transforming interrelationships that are self-regulating and self-preserving. At its core, structuralism posits that the whole of any given situation is always much more than can be explained by defining all the parts and adding them together (Lane, 1970; Piaget, 1969). On a more popular level, holism is pertinent to such current social movements as feminism, nuclear freeze, process theology, structural anthropology, ethnology, education as political transformation, heuristics, taoism, the occult, phenomenology, parapsychology, esthetics, right-brain research and theory, holistic health, the physics of relativity, and multiple-intellect theories. Applied to learning disabilities, holistic inquiry lends credence to the argument that processes such as memory can neither be viewed experimentally nor taught separately, and that a childs memory for academic tasks may depend more on what the child already knows and feels and her/his interests than on the function or dysfunction of any hypothetical construct. Astman, in this issue, provides an eloquent argument typical of the holistic, antireductionist view of learning. Also in this issue, Coles exemplifies holistic or structural analysis by showing how the therapeutic relationship involves more than instruction in selected academic objectives. This special issue on holism is intended to present various conceptualizations of learning disabilities. Consequently, articles differ from one another as much as they differ from articles previously published in the LDQ. Each author has attempted to view learning disabilities from outside the usual perspectives of legalities, identification, and methodologies. It is safe to say that each views learning problems as interactions between the school, the individual student, and society at large. The three models under which we have previously operated in learning disabilities have been reductionistic in their orientation to learning and teaching. . While we know well the differences between the psychological-process, behavioral, and cognitive-strategy models, their commonalities, when viewed holistically, are far more striking. The models share five basic

Looking Through Other Lenses and Listening to Other Voices Stretching the Boundaries of Learning Disabilities

The articles in this special series have drawn on publications and research outside the traditional special education literature in order to take a fresh look at learning disabilities. The authors have sought to use these different lenses and to listen to different voices, including student voices, to examine our current assumptions---theoretical, practical, and legal. Some of the authors have stood back and asked difficult questions about what purposes are served by the field of learning disabilities in the larger context of schooling and society. On the other hand, many of the authors have sought to get closer to children and youth who are labeled learning disabled and to get a better view from the tiny, yet critical, moments that make up a life and a classroom. Together these telescopic and microscopic views offer us ways to challenge our assumptions and practices, and ways to create new ones.

Recollections, Apologies, and Possibilities.

RECOLLECTIONS In looking back over the last few years of research, theory, and practice in learning disabilities (LD), we must conclude that the topics of research are very similar but the quality much improved, and there is more balance and attention given to comprehension research than in the past when the perceptual and mechanical aspects of learning dominated the landscape. There are new names (authors) and old names, and some significant advances that hold promising new opportunities. Sadly, we are still trying to define learning disabilities, and some have begun to argue for the more postmodern and critical definitions (more about this later). In part, the field has been restricted ever since the first legislation locked us into a reductionistic way of seeing, defining, and treating LD. The legalism surrounding LD also has kept us asking ourselves “Is it legal?” or “Can we get away with it?” rather than “Is this the very best we can do?” Hopefully, refinements to law will open up new possibilities. APOLOGIES

Constructing a Response to Responses

One of our editorial policies is to provide a forum for discussion on various key issues in our field. This is important because there are many different vantage points to some issues. The Forum section of the journal allows individuals to reflect on these matters from their own viewpoints. In the following article, Virginia Rettinger, William Waters, and Mary Poplin respond to the critics of Mary Poplins original articles, which appeared in the August/September 1988 issue of this journal. —JLW

A Reply from the Board of Trustees for DCLD

J. Lee Wiederholt, Robert Algozzine, Grace Bingham, Carol Bradley, Linda Brown, Virginia Brown, Tanis Bryan, Susan Gruber, Daniel Hallahan, Donald D. Hammill, Floyd Hudson, Tom Jeschke, Patricia Lane, Stephen C. Larsen, James Leigh, Isabelle Liberman, Reed Martin, Jay McLoughlin, Gaye McNutt, Carolyn Spearman Nelson, Anne Netick, Mary Poplin, D. Kim Reid, Robert T. Smith, Richard Tucker, Gerald Wallace, Judy Wilson