Here is the article for the Leo Buscaglia post.
YOU MEAN A RABBIT CAN BE TAUGHT TO FLY?
As an individual you must not be satisfied with just becoming like everybody else.
By Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D.
Busscaglia: "I teach seminars in graduate school. It's amazing how people have learned to parrot by then."
A rabbit, bird, fish, squirrel, duck and so on, all decided to start a school. The rabbit insisted that running had to be in the curriculum. The bird insisted that flying be in the curriculum. The fish insisted that swimming be in the curriculum. The squirrel insisted that perpendicular trees climbing be in the curriculum.
All the other animals wanted their specialty to be in the curriculum, too, so they put everything in and then made the glorious mistake of insisting that all the animals take all of the courses. The rabbit was magnificent in running; nobody could run like the rabbit. But they insisted that it was good intellectual and emotional discipline to teach the rabbit flying. So they insisted that the rabbit learned to fly and they put her on this branch and said, "Fly, rabbit!" And the poor old thing jumped off, broke her leg and fractured her skull. She became brain-damaged and then she couldn't run very well, either.
The same way with the bird -- she could fly like a freak all over the place, do loops and loops, and she was making an A. But they insisted that this bird burrow holes in the ground like a gopher. Of course she broke her wings and everything else, and then she couldn't fly.
We know this is wrong, yet nobody does anything about it. You may be a genius. You may be one of the greatest writers in the world, but you can't get into a university unless you can pass trigonometry. For what? Look at the list of drop outs: William Faulkner, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Edison. They couldn't face school. "I don't want to learn perpendicular tree climbing. I'm never going to climb perpendicularly. I'm a bird. I can fly to the top of the tree without having to do that."
"Never mind, it's good discipline."
As an individual, you must not be satisfied with just becoming like everybody else. You must think for yourself. For example, art supervisors. I can remember when they used to come to my classroom in elementary school, and I'm sure you can remember it, too. You were given a paper, and the teacher would put up the drawing in front of you and you were really excited. It was going to be art time. You had all the crayolas in front of you, and you folded your hands and you waited. And soon the art teacher would come running in, because she had been to fourteen other classrooms that day teaching art. She ran in, and she'd huff and puff and she'd say, "Good morning girls and boys. Today we are going to draw a tree." And all the kids would say, "Goody, we're going to draw a tree!" And then she'd get up there with a green crayola and she'd draw this great big green thing. And then she put a brown base on it and a few blades of grass. And she'd say, "There is a tree." And all the kids would look at it and they'd say, "That isn't a tree. That's a lollipop." But she said that was a tree, and then she's pass out these papers and say, "Now, draw a tree." She didn't really say, "Draw a tree" -- she said, "Draw my tree." And the sooner you found out that's what she meant and could reproduce this lollipop and hand it to her, the sooner you would get an A.
But here was little Janie who knew that wasn't a tree, because she'd seen a tree such as this art teacher had never experienced! So she got magenta, and orange, and blue, and purple, and green, and she scribbled all over her page and happily brought it up and gave it to the teacher. She looked at it and said, "Oh my God...."
How long does it take somebody to realize that what they're really saying is, "To pass, I want you to reproduce my tree." And so it goes through the first grade, second, third and right on into seminars in graduate school. I teach seminars in graduate school. It's amazing how people have learned to parrot by then. Think? Don't be ridiculous. They can give you the facts, verbatim, just as you've given it to them. And you can't blame those students, because that's what they've been taught. You say to them, "Be creative," and they're fearful. And so what happens to our uniqueness; what happens to our tree? All this beautiful uniqueness has gone right down the drain. Everybody is like everybody else, and everybody is happy. R.D. Laing says, "we are satisfied when we've made people like ourselves out of our children.
Excerpted from the book, LIVING, LOVING & LEARNING by Leo Buscaglia
9 comments:
I have read this article several times now and I still feel it has a strong point to make. I think the problem that it illustrates, however, is one of degrees. While I agree that everyone will not be talented in all areas, I don’t think that Buscaglia meant that we shouldn’t challenge ourselves beyond our own comfort zones. Just as students will excel in a few of the Multiple Intelligences, there will be some in which they feel less comfortable and confident. This doesn’t mean, however, that they should not be exposed to all the M. I. areas and, periodically, required to enrich and challenge themselves by creating projects or assignments in the intelligences in which they may not be as naturally inclined.
Should we force all students (or, people, for that matter) into round pegs? No! Learning to parrot an answer is truly just learning to regurgitate. Some things do need to be learned by rote, such as multiplication facts, but, where there can be a different perspective or slant, students should be able to deviate from the teacher’s particular learning style and make that learning their very own. This should not come at the expense of the talents and strengths that they already possess. I think, above all, this is the point that Leo Buscaglia was trying to make and I do believe that it holds true today as well as it did when he wrote it.
THE MAIN POINT OF THIS ARTICLE IS THAT WE WANT ALL STUDENTS TO LEARN THE SAME MATERIAL AND LEARN IT THE SAME WAY. I AGREE THAT ALL STUDENTS NEED A MINIMUM NUMBER OF CLASSES IN ENGLISH,MATH,SCIENCE, AND HISTORY TO GRADUATE. STUDENTS NEED TO HAVE SOME BASICS TO SURVIVE IN THE REAL WORLD. I DO NOT AGREE, FOR EXAMPLE, WITH MAKING ALL STUDENTS TAKE 3 MATH CREDITS OR 4 HISTORY CREDITS ESPECIALLY IF IT IS NOT NEEDED FOR THE PROFESSION THEY CHOOSE.
I THINK THERE ARE SOME TEACHERS WHO WANT STUDENTS TO REPRODUCE MATERIAL EXACTLY HOW THE TEACHER PRESENTED IT. I DISAGREE WITH THIS IDEA. IT SHOULD NOT MATTER HOW PEOPLE GET FROM POINT A TO POINT B, AS LONG AS THEY GET THERE. I DO NOT CARE HOW MY STUDENTS GET THE ANSWER AS LONG AS THEY CAN SHOW ME WHAT THEY DID. THIS IDEA GOES WITH DARCYS' COMMENT THAT STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEVIATE FROM THE TEACHERS LEARNING STYLE AND LEARN THEIR OWN WAY.
There are still teachers that expect students to just parrot what they have taught. I think / hope that those teachers are in the minority. I agree with Darcy that students should be exposed to and be challenged to use all the Multiple Intelligences. But I also think that the system is broken for a lot of students. The fact that we are still using a model that was set up to produce factory workers should show us that we are not meeting the needs of all of our current students.
We have great teachers who know that they should be getting students to think and be creative, not parrot. But how do they got around the system? What does the new and improved model of school look like? How do we get the public (which all went to school under that old/broken model) to buy into the idea that the model of school needs to change? I have all these questions with really no answers.
This article makes some valid points in an entertaining way. I think we have come a long way as a profession since this article was written. I think teachers have become much more creative in finding ways to engage students with different strengths and interests while still working toward the desired outcome for all. Providing students choices, cooperative groups, role play and differentiated curriculum are just a few of the ways today’s classroom teachers attempt to meet the diverse needs of their students. In a perfect world all students would have an IEP that addresses strengths/weaknesses, learning styles, etc. That may sound unrealistic and unmanageable, but I'm pretty sure that individual plans for each student would help diminish the number of brain-damaged rabbits we produce.
I agree with Howard that with many of the learning objectives we have there are lots of ways to get from point A to point B. And I too, try to encourage students to find a meaningful/creative way to get themselves to point B. A problem that I sometimes encounter is that I often find myself behind the desired pace for my curriculum. When this happens some of the practices that I know are best for effective student learning seem to go by the wayside.
I think Buscaglia is telling us we have to create community in our classrooms. As our population is becoming more and more diverse, we need to teach students about differences, celebrate their individuality, and make each of them feel an accepted part of the group. The curriculum should focus on problem solving ways to get along with each other and ways to help everyone experience success. Some specialty courses can be offered as students move into middle school and high school, but in the primary grades we can focus on working together to learn the basic concepts in fun and creative ways.
Drawing the tree in art class can work into this philosophy. I suggest making it a combined art/language activity with the children each drawing the tree however they please, but then writing an explanation to accompany it. Activities like this work to highlight the sense that we are all individuals. Classroom agreements would have to include clauses about staying positive, using I statements, and not accepting verbal attacks as Eric Jensen suggests in Super Teaching.
I agree with Brian’s comment that in a perfect world all children would have an IEP. However I’m sure that would bring on another whole set of problems. Some of the most difficult learning in school revolves around the students developing social/emotional skills. We have to create ways to help all students, and staff, work together and feel comfortable enough with themselves to break away from believing we have to parrot the example to be accepted. We want our students to develop strong enough relationships with each other that they can truly demonstrate individuality and creativity in their work.
I too have read this before and it also breaks my heart when reading it. It reminds me how strong the basic human need to belong is, so much to the point where we will strive to fit the mold, to excel, to live up to others standards, to live up to our OWN standards, etc.
In the end, we just hurt ourselves (get stressed out, get sick mentally/physically/emotionally) and never fully realize how we were good enough all along. I see a lot of this when dealing with my older students in that they are striving to succeed so much so that they lose sight of what the purpose of learning is really about (MORE than getting an A) and how there is more to life than a grade.
In response to a classmates response, I find myself like Brian in that there are times where I only have so much time to teach a guidance lesson or where I am behind in my curriculum that I fail to take into consideration if I am teaching to meet the needs of ALL of the students.
I also think that Buscalia makes a good point in this article. With the emphasis on standardized testing brought on by No Child Left Behind schools are forced to try to mold students into one type of learner who can regurgitate facts and knowledge that have been selected as the most important skills and knowledge to acquire. This kind of testing tells nothing of a child's ability to think creatively and to come up with his own ideas and solutions. Teachers need to teach in ways that address many learning styles and interests. I realized reading this article that I myself became, through all my years of schooling, a perfect parrot who could say and write whatever was expected of me without really internalizing knowledge or making it my own. It's as if schools need to turn out a product rather than a thinking human being.
There are still many areas in education where the message in this article holds truth. I've learned how to modify and differentiate for all of my students so they meet their full potential. But, as I watch my son go through high school all of that seems to go out the window. All high school students are expected to understand the same material and learn it in the same way. If one is not successfull learning that way, how will they be successful with their high school career? How will they show their strengths in college? On size does not fit all.
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