Robert L. Hampel

History and Educational Reform.

The history of school reform has continuously fascinated historians of education, but their study ofthe subject has acquired a new urgency in the last quarter of a century as national political discussions have given an increas? ingly important place to educational policy. The recent publication of Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Harvard University Press, 1995), by David Tyack and Larry Cuban, offers the latest comprehensive study ofthe subject. We have invited four distinguished scholars to comment on the book. They are Robert L. Hampel of the University of Delaware, William R. Johnson ofthe University of Maryland, Baltimore County, David N. Plank ofMichigan State University, and Diane Ravitch ofthe Brookings Institute. Professors Tyack and Cuban have, in turn, agreed to respond to the comments.

Repositioning the position papers

Linking theory and practice in graduate school is easier said than done. We trace the history of an Ed.D. program which featured a culminating project, the Executive Position Papers, designed to yoke theory and practice. That marriage proved elusive as “treaties” tilted the balance to practice and downplayed theory. We sketch the recent efforts to right the balance, and reflect on what this case study suggests about reform in general.

Magic Learning Pill: Ontological and Instrumental Learning in Order to Speed Up Education

The purpose of this research is to investigate the phenomenology of learning — people”s attitudes toward their learning experiences that have inherent worth in themselves (i.e., ontological learning) or have value outside of the learning itself (i.e., instrumental learning). In order to explore this topic, 58 participants from the U.S., Russia, and Brazil were interviewed with a central question derived from the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s short story “Profession”: whether participants would take a “Magic Learning Pill” (MLP) to avoid the process of learning, and instead magically acquire the knowledge. The MLP would guarantee the immediate learning by skipping the process of learning while achieving the same effect of gaining skills and knowledge. Almost all participants could think of some learning experiences for which they would take MLP and others for which they would not. Many participants would not take MLP for ontological learning, which is learning experiences that have inherent value for the people, while they would take MLP for instrumental learning, which is learning that mainly serves some other non-educational purposes. The main finding suggests that both instrumental and ontological types of learning are recognized by a wide range of people from diverse cultures as present and valued in their lives. This is especially significant in light of the overwhelmingly instrumental tone of public discourse about education. In the context of formal education, ontological learning was mentioned 35 times (28.0%) while instrumental learning was mentioned 74 times (60.2%). Although ontological learning was often mentioned as taking place outside of school, incorporating pedagogy supporting ontological learning at school deserves consideration.

The National Home Study Council, 1926–1942

Abstract As enrollments in correspondence schools soared in the early twentieth century, unethical practices marred the reputation of this type of learning. Prominent schools created the National Home Study Council in 1926 to combat the proliferation of sham schools. At the same time, council members knew that the better schools also needed to change their advertising, sales, and collections. Analysis of the transcripts of annual meetings traces these pioneering efforts to enhance correspondence schools.

Blurring the Boundary between High School and College: The Long View.

The dividing line between high school and college has never been entirely clear, explains a historian of American education. In fact, for most of the 19th century, it was difficult to distinguish between high schools and colleges. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that high school and university officials drew firm boundaries between the two institutions, and even then, it remained hard to distinguish between high school and college-level work. Moreover, there are some benefits to blurring the boundaries, the author argues, pointing to current efforts to promote dual enrollment, early colleges, and other efforts to blend the high school and college

The Final Three Minutes with 100 Undergraduates

Asking students to write at the end of class is a familiar strategy (Angelo and Cross 1993), and it can be done in many ways. Students might focus on the day’s lecture—What key idea(s) did they learn? What was confusing? What questions remain unanswered? Or they might look ahead—What are their preconceptions of the next topic? Those “minute papers” could also be adapted for the start of class or midway through a long seminar. What happens to the papers varies. We can ask everyone to keep the page (perhaps in a journal), share their jottings with each other, or hand them in as “exit tickets” when they leave the room. As another option, I’ve started to analyze what they wrote and then share the results at the start of the next class. Angelo and Cross (1993, 152) think that “simply tabulating the responses and making note of any useful comments is often all the analysis needed” but I have found that more can be done. Here is one example: After a lecture on the origins of kindergartens and junior high schools in the late 19th century, I asked the class to recall their most vivid memory of each place. I wanted to connect past and present by seeing if the original objectives of kindergartens and junior high schools held true in my students’ lives, and I also wanted to compare the two sites in recent years. At the start of the next class, I summarized what they wrote. Other instructors might prefer to post the replies online or require the students to do so, and then ask the students to analyze what everyone wrote. That approach could be very rewarding and would be especially suitable for outline and hybrid courses, where “just in time teaching” relies on students’ comments to enrich class discussions (Simkins and Maier 2010).

Evaluating the RE:Learning Project— Some Cautions and Constraints

How can the progress of a project such as RE:Learning be measured? Carefully, according to this writer.

The Political Side of Reform: Are Conflicts, Power Struggles Likely to Occur?.

ROBERT L. HAMPEL is assistant professor, College of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, and author of The Last Little Citadel, the third report from A Study of High Schools, cosponsored by NASSP and the National Association of Independent Schools. N Two recent reports suggest we will soon see a turning point in the 1980s crusade for better schools. Tomorrow’s Teachers, the first major publication of the Holmes Group, and the Carnegie Task Force’s A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21 st Century, call attention to an important topic neglected in the early 1980s: the political side of school reform.