9/6/05
LEARNING DISABILITIES GURU MEL LEVINE COMING TO OMAHA;
BUT IS THIS A GUY TO BUILD STATE POLICY AROUND?
There's a
state-subsidized, two-day staff development conference coming up Sept. 13-14 at
the Hilton Hotel in Omaha. It features popular pediatrics professor Mel Levine
of the University of North Carolina Medical School, author of the education
blockbuster, "A Mind At a Time."
He's handsome, he's
doctorly, he's been on Oprah, and he
obviously cares a lot about kids. But is he someone around whose theories and
ideas Nebraska should rearrange its public policies about learning problems?
I'm afraid not. And
here's why:
In a theory similar to
Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences," Dr. Levine says that understanding
how the mind works will help teachers help kids with academic weaknesses such
as attention deficits, disorganization and shyness to find their strengths and
develop new strategies to learn better and experience success. The short answer
to that one is: "No! Duh!" Like Gardner's theories, Levine is restating the
obvious; good teachers have been doing this for years.
But he takes it a step
further with his beliefs about HOW to help every child to succeed. He says a
child with a problem remembering things should be allowed to use notes to take
a test, for example, or be given more time than the other children.
It sounds compassionate
and common-sense. The problem is, there isn't a shred of scientific evidence
that making special accommodations like that is the best thing to do. There's
far more evidence that the vast majority of kids are learning disabled
temporarily, not permanently, simply because they weren't taught to read
correctly in the early grades. When you can't read, you can't gain knowledge,
and you slip further and further behind and make funkier and funkier attempts
to compensate. When you can't read correctly, you can't think correctly, and
vice versa – so making special accommodations just "enables" the disability
instead of curing it.
Meanwhile, questions are
being raised about Dr. Levine's scientific grasp of mental processes that would
imply that his theories are inaccurate, and the interventions he proposes thus
would be counter-productive.
Despite the lack of objective, outside evidence on his
behalf, though, Dr. Levine's model has been adopted by the States of North
Carolina and Oklahoma, and by New York City. They will pick up the cost of
teacher training in his centers, and adapt school methods accordingly, because
they like what he says, even though there's no evidence it's true. And now
Nebraska is looking at following their lead.
The two-day workshop, advertised on Dr. Levine's website, www.allkindsofminds.org, for $495
per person, is being offered to Nebraska educators for $190 per person through
Aug. 31, and $240 per person after that, with teams of at least four people
from each school recommended. Registrations have been promoted through the
Nebraska Department of Education's website, www.nde.state.ne.us
The workshop is going to end with a pitch for Dr. Levine's
staff development and teacher training package, "Schools Attuned," available
for purchase and plugged as a great foundation for a statewide approach to
curriculum and instruction that would be much more individualized and
subjective than what we have now.
I see two problems:
- I bought Levine's 2002 book, "A Mind at a Time,"
for $3 at a book sale this past summer;
comparing the table of contents to the workshop agenda, it's the
same information as the Nebraska educators are going to be getting. So why
should taxpayers have to foot the bill for these educators to go hear this
in person for nearly $500 apiece, plus draw their regular salaries, plus
have to get substitutes or be off duty for two days? Can't educators just
buy a book like the rest of us do?
- I hate to be churlish, but there is ample
counter-evidence about Dr. Levine's theories which needs to be exposed
before Nebraska even thinks about changing the very way we approach the
learning process just because he's popular and has been on Oprah. See, for example, this
scholarly article by Daniel T. Willingham of the University of Virginia:
http://www.educationnext.org/20052/pdf/65.pdf
He calls
Levine's theories "riddled with error," says Levin is "often wrong" about
mental processes, and lacks objective, outside corroboration and empirical
research for much of his teacher-training program.
I'm not saying Levine is
all wet, and that ALL staff development workshops are wastes of time and money
– but I hope somebody will take a hard look at this and at least get the other
side of the story to the educators and policymakers before we line up to spend
a big bunch of money on a dog that won't hunt.
You know what
learning-disabled students in Nebraska really need? Not Mel Levine. They need
systematic, intensive, explicit phonics in the early grades, and the quality
curriculum that they then will be capable of understanding.
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9/6/05
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