Person:

Duckworth, Eleanor

Discussion of reports: A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform prepared by the National Commission on Excellence in Education; Action for Excellence prepared by the National Task Force on Education for Economic Growth; Making the Grade: Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Policy; and America's Competitive Challenge: The Need for a National Response by the Business-Higher Education Forum.

Explaining that no definitive pedagogy flows from the developmental theory of Jean Piaget, the author explores ways that classroom teachers can nevertheless make powerful use of that theory. For her, the essence of the child's intellectual development lies not in the progressive accomplishment of Piagetian tasks, but in the child's testing out the ideas that she or he finds significant. This process of testing out ideas, she argues, is critical for the child's cognitive growth. Teachers can assist this growth primarily by accepting the child's perpective as the legitimate framework for generating ideas—allowing the child to work out her or his own questions and answers. This approach—and the importance of providing varied settings and materials which suggest ideas to children—is discussed with particular reference to the author's classroom experience and her evaluation of an elementary science program.

In this article, Eleanor Duckworth focuses on the nature of understanding by leading the reader through the process of extended clinical interviewing. Duckworth describes some of her own explorations of science and how those experiences showed her what learning could be like. Those experiences included working with "a highly imaginative bunch of scientists and teachers of science" while developing the Elementary Science Study, a curriculum development program. As she describes it, Duckworth "got hooked" on the excitement of learning and has been an educator ever since, working to develop engaging learning experiences for both teachers and students. This article continues her effort to do just that, with lengthy descriptions of her own and her students' struggles — and enjoyment — as they attempt to understand and define various phenomena. And with that, she opens the discussion of "keeping it complex.

This essay is a response to the history of American reactions to Piaget's work—skepticism about his findings, followed by a desire to accelerate development. Influenced by the mass of psychological research devoted to these issues, educators have adopted them as their concerns as well. Eleanor Duckworth sketches this history, reviews recent Genevan learning research, and in so doing, suggests that the dilemma is both false and beside the point. She turns to a consideration of issues of greater educational concern,bringing Piaget's work to bear on them.

After an extended account of two features which she considers to be the essence of teaching,Eleanor Duckworth describes how such teaching can, at the same time, be seen as a form of research. In conclusion, she proposes a vision of teachers as significant participants in theoretical and pedagogical discussions on the nature and development of human learning.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the author discusses an article on students' engagement, teaching, and counter-intuitive responses on the part of teachers.