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Teaching Teachers to Empower the Self of Students: A Book Review of Educational Psychology. Greg S. Goodman, (Ed.). Peter Lang: New York, 2008 Henry G. Brzycki, The Pennsylvania State University The discipline of educational psychology (Thorndike, E.L., 1914) emerged out of the need to measure people’s intelligence in the early 1930’s in order to justify categorizing students during a time of dramatic growth in the industrialization of America’s school system. At this same time period in our educational history, John Dewey (1900; 1902; 1944), the father of progressive education, provided a vision of childcentered pedagogy where he “formulated the aim of education in social terms, but he was convinced that education would read its successes in the changed behaviors, perceptions, and insights of individual human beings” (Cremins, 1964, p. 122). When taking a look at who won this struggle for the hearts, minds and souls of American educators from today’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era, past Harvard University School of Education dean and historian Ellen Condliffe Lagemann declared, “Thorndike won and Dewey lost” (Lagemann in Gibboney, 2006). This declaration is sadly accurate when viewed from both schooling and the well-being of our children perspectives – our schools are cold, inhuman places, and trends in child well-being statistics are tragic. Thorndike had faith in the scientific value of measurement and many types of mental tests (Ravitch, 2000) in education. This ‘faith’ is central to NCLB policies and practices, which detaches the learning of content from the whole self of the learner; indeed, it objectifies the student by elevating intelligence measures above character or other personality or human traits. This

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objectification produces people from our system of education who are disengaged and not motivated to care about themselves, their futures, nor each other which impacts wellbeing. Examples of present day, NCLB era, and tragic child well-being and school performance statistics include the following. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) approximately 60% of our children are overweight, and 20% obese (CDC, 2005), and in 2003 – 2004 there was an increase of teen suicide of +76% among 10-14 year old girls; a +32% increase among 15-19 year old girls; and a +9% increase among 15-19 year males (CDC, 2007). In one study in a Boston wealthy suburb, approximately 33% of adolescent girls “cut” themselves, a symptom of emotional distress. Additionally, epidemiology studies and health economics experts estimate that approximately 75% of all health care dollars go toward treating behavior based illness (Henderson, et al, 1997; Sallis, et al, 2008). Our system of education is intended to provide school aged children with the tools to succeed in life, but a large percentage are not taking advantage of this system of education. School dropout rates are approximately 25% for all students in the United States, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES, 2005). Most recent statistics found that graduation rates for the largest 50 cities are 51.8% (EPE Research Center, 2008). Further, in 17 of the 50 largest U.S. cities, less than half of

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Teaching Teachers to Empower the students who entered high school in 2003 ended up graduating. In Detroit, not even one in four students finished high school (Chronicle of Higher Education, April 11, 2008). In Pennsylvania less than 50% of 11th graders are proficient in math, 20% are not proficient in Reading, just 44% of students attend college, only 28% receive college degrees, and only 44% of highschool graduates possess a college-ready transcript (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2005). Therefore, school aged children are not engaged in their schooling and are not learning the essential academic tools nor self understanding to succeed in life (Brzycki, 2009). Whichever manner you assess student outcomes from PK-12 schooling, well-being or academic, we are not meeting even minimum standards, let alone a higher vision for what is possible for each student. These well-being and schooling statistics are compelling and should be of concern to all teacher educators, and Goodman (2008) and his contributors attempt to offer solutions and solve these myriad of problems through this textbook. Editor Greg Goodman wins in Educational Psychology: An Application of Critical Constructivism when he echoes Dewey’s inspiring vision that will resonate with both pre-service teachers and seasoned master teachers alike in that he calls for “teachers to consider their role as fundamental to the development of their students’ leadership, and awareness of social justice and equality in education as critical for a healthier and saner world” (back cover). Additionally, he challenges educators in modernity to take responsibility for developing the professional perspective and skills to empower all children’s learning so as to develop their full and unique potentials in life, not merely to be measured in state administered standardized tests

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which continue the cold technical rationality (McLaren & Kincheloe, 2007) begun by Thorndike and acculturated through NCLB . My pre-service teachers, who are products of NCLB system of education, and have been taught to value their academic intelligence over their own self understanding, well-being and innate drive to empower children. When they enter their pre-service teacher training they are not certain they want to be teachers if they have to teach to the test as they experienced so directly. Therefore, when I use Goodman’s book and teach them to experience their own innate higher purpose to transform lives, the text’s message resonates with this higher understanding and students become grounded in their own beliefs about helping children, as human beings not merely as intellects. Goodman and all contributors to this edition win with today’s preservice college students who want to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose in life, to make a difference beyond their own self interest and to help make life better for all human beings in our global community. Their thesis is that educational psychology can be used to release the full and unique human potentials of all people through learning and schooling processes – where today’s pre-service teachers connect to this higher calling with passion and excitement. As valuable as this book and thesis are to college students and university professors of education, I would prefer to see less emphasis on using the lens of critical pedagogy to see our world, which inherently limits the very potential the editor and the book’s contributors intend to empower. Critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Giroux, 2001) as the book’s contributors see it is the education pathway to liberation

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Teaching Teachers to Empower through changing the power and domination dynamic of various groups. Goodman and his colleagues would move even further on their admirable path to creating a new paradigm of teaching and learning where teachers are helping students see and achieve new possibilities in their lives, if they were to further reinforce those elements which focus upon that which is common to all human beings – the self – with its component yet highly integrated parts, including: souls, feelings, psychological well-being, intrinsic motivations, hearts and minds, purpose and meaning in life, and the capacity to create a better life and world for ourselves and each other – in essence, the self attributes of positive psychology (Csikszentmihalyi, 1993; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Goodman and his contributors accurately make the argument that as teacher educators we should be teaching preservice teachers about transformative thinking, that an individual can impact society, and that a student’s personal epistemology and ontology include knowledge and beliefs about one’s self. We use the information gathered from our everyday realities when living life to construct our understanding of our worlds and our selves, or what is commonly referred to as “the self as an architect of social reality” (Swann and Hill, 1982). Indeed, we reference every moment to our selves in a “looking glass” (Cooley, 1926) social interactionist (Cooley, 1926 Mead, 1934) manner. “The self is not seen lying inside the individual like the ego or an organized body of needs, motives, and internalized norms or values” (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007, p. 29), but rather is constructed through interactions with the world. Considering the lives of children and adolescents therefore, the self is constructed through meanings made through schooling experiences. Reflecting the social

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interactionist’s view, educational theorist and thought leader Professor David P. Baker asserts that in every moment we are presented with the opportunity to change ourselves and the world in which we live through the sociocultural construction of reality, including knowledge and beliefs (Baker, (in press) The self is a social construction, while at the same time, is the mediator of the social construction of reality. The book’s contributors in their specific chapters provide many helpful examples of applications of the new role of the self in education. One example in chapter 1 is Jeff Duncan-Andrade’s descriptions of emancipatory pedagogy and transformative thinking that are consistent with this new paradigm of teaching teachers about the self of students as a powerful pathway to realizing student potentials. Today’s preservice university students genuinely connect in meaningful ways with this pedagogy. As a response to this chapter, my undergraduate students created a series of drama skits about “bullying” aimed at empowering middle school adolescent students to be better people, and in the process, they learned that they could make an impact and express their higher purpose in service to others. Goodman’s use of Constructivist Action Learning Teams teaches pre-service teachers the use and importance of cooperative learning (Vygotsky, 1978) in today’s classrooms, and when my preservice students use this approach, they learn experientially how to socially construct a better society through meaningful and purposeful pedagogy. Goodman is able to take traditional educational psychology concepts and make them come alive in a preservice classroom through multisensory, experiential ways.

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Teaching Teachers to Empower When reading the vivid, experiential examples in his work one gets the impression of being on Hurricane Island in Maine or in the White Mountains of New Hampshire on an Outward Bound expedition learning how to empower one’s self and others in your group. Teacher education is changing and the ways in which teacher educators prepare future teachers will require views that integrate instructional methods with human development and learning. Here Binbin Jiang in chapter 10 makes an important contribution in applying a new paradigm of teaching and learning that places the soul of the self at the heart of her work with English Language Learners. In chapter 9, Patty Kolencik provides invaluable insights into the new paradigm of teaching and learning called for in this edition with her concepts on “affective and motivational factors for learning and achievement.” Today’s college students are products of the NCLB era of cold technocratic rationality and they connect in important and emotional ways to Kolencik’s thesis that “affect is the fuel that students bring to the classroom, connecting them to the ‘why’ of learning” (p. 167). How important it is, especially in this era of disassociated education (a clinical psychologist’s term to describe the separation of our feelings from our experiences in life) to teach future educators that the “teachers who have the best success are the ones who deeply care about their students. This caring covers not only the academic competency their students’ achieve, but it extends to the whole child. A caring and compassionate teacher knows that the feelings that the child experiences are an integral part of his or her life” (p. 180). I think Dewey would be pleased and proud!

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Educational Psychology: An Application of Critical Constructivism broadens our understandings of the importance of placing the dynamic parts that make up the whole child at the center of a new teacher education model, an understanding that today’s college students absolutely love and actually use – experientially – to empower the quality of their own lives and that of others. I have used three popular educational psychology texts in my college teaching career: Ormrod (2009), Woolfolk (2004) and now Goodman’s book, all with great success in terms of enhancing my students’ abilities to become highly effective PK-12 teachers. This text with its paradigmatic view is different in that today’s college undergraduates connect deeply with this view that they can impact the well-being of the whole child through pedagogy and can see it applied through each chapter – by using this text, students win!

References Baker, D.P., Thorne, S.L., Eslinger, P., Blair, C., Gamson, D. (in press). Cognition, Culture, and Institutions: Affinities within the Social Construction of Reality. Draft copy available at: [email protected]. Bogdan, R.C. & Biklen, S.K. (2007). Qualitative Research for Education: introduction to theories and methods. Fifth edition. Boston: Pearson Education. Borysenko, J. (1987). Minding the Body, Mending the Mind. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Publishing. Brzycki, H.G. (2009). Teacher Beliefs and Practices that Impart Self System and Positive Psychology Attributes.

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Teaching Teachers to Empower (Doctoral Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 2009)ETD-3819. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2005). CDC Efforts to Reduce or Prevent Obesity. (www.cdc.gov/OD/OC/MEDIA/pres srel/fs050419.htm). Centers for Disease Control (2007, September 8). Teen Suicide Rate: Highest Increase In 15 Years. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 23, 2009. Chronicle of Higher Education. (April 11, 2008). High School Graduation Statistics. Cooley, C.H. (1926). The roots of social knowledge. The American Journal of Sociology 32:59-79. Cremin, L.A. (1964). The transformation of the school: progressivism in American education 1876-1957. New York: Vintage/Random House. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). The Evolving Self. New York: Harper Collins. Dewey, J. (1900). The School and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dewey, J. (1902). The Child and the Curriculum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dewey, J. (1944) Democracy and Education. New York: Free Press. EPE Research Center. (2008). Graduation Rates in America’s top 50 Cities. http://www.edweek.org/info/about/re search.html Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gibboney, R.A. (Oct. 2006). Intelligence by Design: Thorndike versus Dewey. Phi Delta Kappan. Giroux, H. (2001). Theory and Resistance in Education: Towards a pedagogy for the opposition. Westport.CT: Bergin & Garvey.

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Henderson, M.G., Hahn, W.M., Prince, L.E., & Barry, P.M. (1997). Lifestyle behavior risks and their impact on health care costs. Association for Health Services Research Meeting; 14: 33. Available at: http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/Meetings /Abstracts/ma?f=102233459.html. McLaren, P. & Kincheloe, J.L. (2007). Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? New York: Peter Lang. Mead, G.H. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. National Center for Educational Statistics. (2005). Dropout Rates in the United States. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/dropout 05/tables/table_A3.asp. Ormrod, J.E. (2009). Essentials of Educational Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Pennsylvania Department of Education. (2005, June). Pennsylvania Department of Education Press Release. (www.pdenewsroom.state.pa.us). Ravitch, D. (2000). Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform. New York: Simon & Schuster. Sallis, J.F., Owen, N. & Fotheringham, M.J. (2008). Behavioral epidemiology: A systematic framework to classify phases of research on health promotion and disease prevention. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, vol. 22, no. 4, December 2000, pp. 294298. Seligman, M.E.P. & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5-14. Swann, W.B., & Hill, C.A. (1982). When our identities are mistaken: Reaffirming self-conceptions through social interaction. Journal of

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Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 1287-1301. Thorndike, E.L. (1914). Educational Psychology. New York: Teachers College. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Woolfolk, A, (2004). Educational Psychology, 9th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Henry G. Brzycki, Ph.D. is a faculty member at Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania. He can be contacted at: [email protected].

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