So Erica Stanford Thinks All Brains Learn the Same?

ByAllan Alach

A couple of articles back I wrote about Stanford importing a one size fits all curriculum  form overseas. Going by the view count this article seems to have been well received,  so let’s do some more unpacking of Stanford’s love fest with the knowledge curriculum. 

Once again I am going to base this article on Bevan Holloway’s very thorough and comprehensive delving into the hidden underworld of Stanford’s education agenda.

I will highlight specific sections and add my own commentary. 

This particular article is wide ranging and there’s so much of value that I really encourage you all to read it. 

Early Warning Signals: Stanford in the USA With ED Hirsch and the American Enterprise Institute, Parroting Rata’s Language of Erasure

The opening paragraph is about Elizabeth Rata – much has already been written about her pernicious influence on Stanford, so I don’t need to revisit it here.

However I’m sure you will be pleased to know that Erica Stanford is an educational expert based on a life time of study and research…. yeah, right. 

“Stanford read a book during Christmas 2023 that had a profound impact on her: E D Hirsch’s The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them. Hirsch founded the Core Knowledge Foundation in the USA.”

So there you are, that’s the foundation for her education agenda. Most (all?) of her policies derive from here, influenced by the Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) led by cognitive psychologist Dr Michael Johnston – we will come back to the role of cognitive psychology later on. Anyone care to guess who may have recommended Hirsch’s book to Stanford?

She obviously became a convert to the cause, overlooking the fact that Hirsch and others promoting the core knowledge curricula are but one very small part of the extensive number of pedagogical researchers who go back at least to John Dewey in the early years of the 20th century,  a scholar whose educational influence was felt in New Zealand education until 1990.  Many other luminaries have also contributed to this research, e.g., Dr Guy Claxon, whom I will discuss later on, but either Stanford is ignorant of these people or she has chosen to ignore them. Take your pick.

“In June, she went to their conference and shared a stage with Hirsch, along with Sir Nicholas Gibb, former UK schools minister and Paul Givan, Northern Ireland’s Minister of Education. The plenary session was led by AEI Senior Fellow Robert Pondiscio.

Now, the AEI is a right-wing think-tank with connections to the Koch brothers. They were leading champions of the neoliberal project during George W. Bush’s presidency, and remain a significant force in right-wing American politics. They have a history of distorting the science of climate change, and lead campaigns for school choice, among other things.”

The very fact she has chosen to associate herself with this group is a very clear indication of the ideology she is bringing to her role as Minister of Education, and, by extension, also signals the ideology and influences of the government as a whole. To repeat myself from previous articles, she is known by the company she keeps.

Here is a video of the conference. I’m wondering what qualified her to be a speaker here? Her presentation starts at 15.23, should you want to watch it and if your stomach is strong enough…

No Boundaries, Just Possibilities: A Worldwide Call to Action for Knowledge

“Stanford spoke fluently about the curriculum reform process she has led – “based on your book” she said to Hirsch – and hit all the key words as she espoused the virtue of the changes: knowledge-rich, science of learning, automatising, cognitive load, serve and return … you get the idea.”

And then:

“She also spoke about how all brains learn the same, regardless of circumstance or culture, and therefore all kids deserve this approach as it’s how we’ll address the equity gap.

In that one sentence she reveals she doesn’t know what she is talking about.  What about ADHD or autistic kids, for a start?

She continued:

“no matter what culture … what family you’re from you have the very best possible instruction, the very best possible curriculum, a knowledge-rich curriculum based on the science of learning, that even if you’re from a poor family and you don’t have the resources at home, when you walk into that classroom you have everything you need to succeed the same as every other child – that’s the reforms we’re driving.”

Hmmm…

And lastly:

“sometimes you can misdiagnose the problem and think it’s a … we need to be more cultural, that will help with our reading and writing. Well, it’ll be good because it’s important to help children feel comfortable in the classroom, but reading, writing, and maths is around the curriculum and explicit teaching in the science of learning”.

So here we are back in the days of the Key led governments when all that was needed to address education achievement was proper teaching and standardised assessments, totally ignoring the wealth of worldwide research that shows the biggest impact on children’s learning is inequality and deprivation, not just in physical needs such as food, housing, and clothing, but in the richness of out of school experiences.

The phrase ‘Science of Learning’ is frequently referenced by Stanford and those influencing her so it’s time to unpick this.

This science comes from the cognitive psychology world (which brings us to Dr Michael Johnston), and studies how people acquire, process, and retain knowledge and list a number of key principles. If you want to know more ask the AI of your choice. 

Effective learning leverages these principles to optimise attention, memory, and application of knowledge (so far so good) but this is where the issues start. 

The Knowledge Curriculum devotees envisage classrooms where children are fed knowledge in a teacher led ‘didactic’ process, akin to university lectures for those who’ve experienced them. 

This is where they divert away from the century’s worth of pedagogy that has researched how children actually learn (research Jean Piaget if you’d like an example).  

A few articles back I referenced Brazilian educator Paolo Friere’s banking model of education (outlined in his book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’)

“The banking model of education, coined by Paulo Freire, critiques traditional education where teachers deposit knowledge into passive students, limiting their critical thinking and ownership of knowledge.”(Wikipedia)

And also

“Education is thus seen as a process of depositing knowledge into passive students. Teachers are the epistemological authority in this system; students’ pre-existing knowledge is ignored, aside from what was expected to be ‘deposited’ into them earlier. Freire also refers to a banking paradigm as regarding students to be “adaptable, manageable beings. ... The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.” (Wikipedia)

Is this the underlying agenda of the knowledge curriculum movement? 

Time to bring back Dr Guy Claxon  (“a cognitive scientist, education thought leader and prolific author interested in expanding human intelligence through research, writing and education.”).

In his article ‘The Future of Teaching: Is It for You?  he discusses teacher dominated ‘didactic’ learning. As usual I recommend you read the full article.

“There are no good scientific grounds for believing that only Direct Instruction ‘works’ and that anything that involves students in thinking, grappling and discussing before they have everything explained to them ‘doesn’t work’. 

Such sweeping and simplistic claims are not supported by an accurate and up-to-date reading of the research literature. What the research shows is that didactic teaching is good for some audiences, for some topics, and for some purposes – but not for all. “

He explains that direct instruction does have its place, e.g., in the teaching and learning of skills and rote knowledge  – learning times tables for example, or for short term gains in test performance: 

But:

“…if your aim is for deeper and more long-term understanding, or for the parallel cultivation of useful, transferable dispositions such as self-discipline, intellectual humility, curiosity, skepticism and imagination, then ‘direct instruction’ is not the pedagogy of choice.”

The next quotes are key to the discussion over Stanford’s embrace of the Knowledge Curriculum:

“My fight is only with a particularly virulent form of traditionalist extremism that claims (a) that there is only one effective method of teaching, (b) that this one size fits all students, all topics and all purposes; and, most critically, (c) that cognitive science provides an unarguable mandate for such a view. “

And:

“In particular these pronouncements have been gleefully weaponised by reactionary policy-makers and politicians keen to promote an antiquated and simplistic model of education.”

To pre-empt the inevitable comments about New Zealand education being in crisis, this is  unfounded and any current issues with achievement are the results of a) inequality and b) the last National led government’s attempt to standardise education through National Standards. 

The frequent claims about this ‘crisis’ are made by those who have their own agenda, for example the New Zealand Initiative, to justify the imposition of their own ideologies.

So there you have it. This is the untested education system Stanford wants to impose on the country’s children, an ideology that disregards the wealth of pedagogical knowledge. 

The tragedy is that our children are the guinea pigs for this, and it is their future that is at risk.

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18 Comments

  1. Ask any parent or real teacher and they will tell you that all kids do not learn the same .The back to the 60s school exams that are coming will cover that up because under that system 50% must fail so the ones that dont learn the same way as the sheep kids will be in the 50% deemed to be dumb or stupid .

    1. Is there not a case to be made that children are different? The parents’ ability is a major factor in the child’s ability, along with any substance use during pregnancy, the family’s financial circumstances, and the quality of teaching; all these factors contribute to what children achieve in school. I can agree that it is unfair to label children as failures if they don’t pass certain exams, although it is equally clear that not all children can become brain surgeons, for instance. Our society has the habit of glorifying winners and ignoring the also-rans, which may be acceptable in sports. Still, when applied in education, it creates an unnecessary barrier in the future choices of those who do not succeed academically. We need high standards in various occupations, so I believe we should offer suitable career choices for individuals with different abilities, enabling them to contribute to and enrich society through their efforts.

  2. Look, do you really think Stanford’s hopes will get off the ground? We have a three year term. Add to that the grounded expertise of those on the ground , teachers themselves. Sure, all teachers are not the same but when it comes to learning they know that student are diverse, that they learn in different ways. Even Stanford much appreciate this from her recent involvement with OPC’s. The stats back it up. Not sure of the figure but I’ve heard 20% of any given school cohort – notwithstanding the practice of streaming kids – are on some kind of spectrum, dyslexia, auditory processing, ADHD, autism. Many of these kinds learn to cope and in fact excel given optimum learning environments.

    Want to lift productivity? Isn’t that behind it all? Addressing socioeconomic disadvantage, examining literacy and numeracy as a social practice in the lives of people – and using this viewpoint as a starting point, rather than simply seeing such skills in measurable terms associated with ‘exchange value’, the view that skills are a commodity. Capability should be in the forefront. And providing meaning pathways after schooling for everyone, irrespective of how well they do on standardized tests. That last one is a real challenge in the changing world of employment. The curriculum, and teaching and learning are important but the challenges go well beyond that.

    1. Apologies. Too many spelling errors. Clearly in need of more schooling. Or a simple proof read might do!

  3. The problem is, if you are a jellyfish floating in the plankton, looking down on the bottom feeders below, your perception of the world is quite different from other sentient creatures with a brain.
    A basic neural network is all you have to lead your life by. You can respond to environmental cues, coordinate movements in a rudimentary way, maybe even detect light, gravity and touch, enabling you to reflexively inject toxin into any victim that comes within reach.
    And every other one of the spineless, brainless, and heartless jellyfish is exactly the same, even sex is difficult to establish as they all appear the same.
    So it is no wonder that jellyfish have a world view that may be quite different from that of a homo sapiens.

    1. Neural networks – there are some very disarming pics on youtube of octopi placing their bead bulging eyes on things; interested in food, and working out how to get it. And they can manage out of the water too. And I think they have clever bits in each tentacle or something. Shocking – shouldn’t be allowed.

      And the insects – economists productivity measures would go over the top when looking at them, their size, how fast their wings can go; fleas and jumping ability and all. We can learn things and then dismiss them, learn about the abstract and then ignore its importance.

      Come rushing to the media about somethong that happened billions of years ago, and have it printed up alongside of how a policeman let someone die because he had his knee on their windpipe, or somewhere. Perhaps there can be a lively discussion on whether it was the windpipe and lack of air, or the major blood vessel and a lack of blood. Call in the experts on this. The fact that it was someone’s death being deliberately or carelessly (argument about that) caused by said police officer (was he full time, or part, fully trained or a temp from a security firm); discussion about that.

      Our thinking, cognitive system doesn’t know a bull from a steer, and liefer from a heifer.
      We have the immense abilities of goods but get distracted by things along the way. It’s all been said and shown before probably in folk tales, yet we keep on hurting and killing each other though we could prevent this, stop it, but suggest that and you get laughed at. Perhaps once a year we have an election on how we are going to run our personal world and influence our local, kindly or fine them, and raise all the money from fines to spend on a huge big fireworks display with free booze, and free sex, fairly discreetly, over there under the trees by the portaloos. The scenarios are various, let’s decide to be brutal or joyful or… Make it official. Don’t be so wishy-washy.

      1. The neural network – I think of gods but put goods – not quite the point I wanted to make.
        And Ms Standforth – the legs are good. It is too late to show them off to Jeffrey Epstein but he had a tendency for younger females for his enlivening massage. If one is Min of Ed one is expected to have a wide knowledge of subjects which are taken seriously, beyond the essential ME.

  5. It’s all driven by a desire to shift the blame for inequality from the real cause – how the economy works – onto the performance of the education system. Cynical and twisted it may be, but it’s not without a few deluded true believers. I think Stanford is stupid enough to be one of the latter

  6. It really depends on how you define “all brains learn the same way.” While the concept of distinct learning styles has been debunked, as there are more effective methods for learning different concepts, the biggest difference among learners is their prior knowledge. In terms of how they learn, children are more similar than they are different because the fundamental makeup of our brains and our information processing is so alike.
    There are also significant misconceptions about the knowledge-rich curriculum here. While traditional education may receive support from the political right, that doesn’t invalidate the educational research that backs it. Researchers like John Hattie and Dylan Wiliam have co-authored works that highlight the benefits of a knowledge-rich curriculum. Furthermore, direct (explicit) instruction is not the same as a university lecture, and students in these lessons are not passive learners, contrary to what some, like Paulo Freire, have suggested.
    Ultimately, you appear to be drawing conclusions and making connections that don’t exist, and these last few articles are bordering on conspiracy theory. You seem so deeply entrenched in your position that you can’t see the situation clearly, and you have unfairly portrayed Rata as a monster.

  7. As the comment above refers to a forgetting curve, I have looked up information about it – I have never learned about it so can’t forget it! Or I don’t ‘think’ I did. So:
    Forgetting curve Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Forgetting_curve
    Increasing rate of learning​​ Hermann Ebbinghaus hypothesized that the speed of forgetting depends on a number of factors such as the difficulty of the learned …,
    And while forgetting is mentioned I am going back to reading – which will be a form of self-discipline for which there is a strong argument it is necessary for a person, people to advance, overcome problems.

    The Selfish Capitalist by Oliver James
    https://www.artybees.co.nz/james-oliver/selfish-capitalist-origins-affluenza

    There is an interesting quote from the Introduction on WHO data citizens suffering emotional distress : twice as many people suffer in English-speaking nations – with citizens of mainland Western European ones – 23% to 11.5%…So if American, British, Australian, Canadian or NZr you are on the high side. Why? In the 1970s, the wealth of the richest people in the English-speaking world had been decreasing for several decades. Then a politico-economic ‘creed emerged and was widely adopted. Its avowed object was to benefit everyone by increasing wealth.’ …
    And since the 1970s working conditions for ordinary people became considerably worse;
    ‘Income, wages, workers rights, protection for employees, job security, have remained static or deteriorated but hours of work have increased. If affluence has risen James posits, it is because of a higher number of women working and the longer hours worked.

    The term Selfish Capitalism James applied was because though greater national wealth was recorded it was, in the main, trickle-up, and resulted with ordinary people being disadvantaged. Put bluntly , whether talking of Thatcherism, Reaganomics or Blairism, it enabled the rich to get richer. [And mental illness in increasing numbers of people is caused by the problems and unfairness they experience and find are insurmountable. My comment.]

    I will try to get to earlier books written under the term adopted of ‘Affluenza.’
    Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic is a 2001 anti-consumerist book by John de Graaf, environmental scientist David Wann, and economist Thomas H. Naylor. Viewing consumerism as a deliberately spread disease, the book consists of three parts—symptoms, origins, and treatment. Wikipedia
    Originally published: 2001
    Authors: David Wann, Thomas Naylor, John de Graaf

    and by Oliver James
    Affluenza
    Penguin Books UK https://www.penguin.co.uk › Oliver James
    27 Dec 2007 — Oliver James is excellent at showing why social scientists think that the surge in material affluence can produce the opposite of happiness.
    and
    https://fivebooks.com/book/affluenza-by-oliver-james/
    There is currently an epidemic of ‘affluenza’ throughout the world – an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses – that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions. Over a nine-month period, bestselling author Oliver James travelled around the world to try and find out why. He discovered how, despite very different cultures and levels of wealth, affluenza is spreading.

    Cities he visited include Sydney, Singapore, Moscow, Copenhagen, New York and Shanghai, and in each place he interviewed several groups of people in the hope of finding out not only why this is happening, but also how one can increase the strength of one’s emotional immune system. He asks: why do so many more people want what they haven’t got and want to be someone they’re not, despite being richer and freer from traditional restraints? And, in so doing, uncovers the answer to how to reconnect with what really matters and learn to value what you’ve already got.
    In other words,
    how to be successful
    and stay sane.     [Say it with a lilt, and go for it, but hold your friendly hand out to another.]

    These books and ideas sound hot. And I might learn something helpful that stays in my mind if I concentrate for the next few years left to me.
    The bloke Oliver James: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_James_(psychologist)
    …In 2016, writing for The Guardian about his book Upping Your Ziggy: How David Bowie Faced His Childhood Demons and How You Can Face Yours, James said “There are many ways for us to take charge of our personas, be it simply by self-reflection, with the help of friends, by writing novels or creating art, or through therapy. We simply need to get a dialogue going between our different parts.”…

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