The Current Ineffective Presuppositions in our School System

 Our school systems are based upon a shaky foundation of bad assumptions or presuppositions that dictate how we behave and operate the system. These faulty presuppositions have been inherited through the years and feel natural as though "they are just the way we do things". Taking a hard look at them gives us a real opportunity for some significant changes. Some of the presuppositions are:

Students naturally know how to learn in the classroom.

I have been in education for many years and this never occurred to me until I started noticing that what students would attempt to do to accomplish the academic tasks we gave them would not work and they did not know what to do differently. Then it dawned on me that NOBODY (or at least no official part of the system) was taking responsibility for teaching children how to learn in the classroom. Sure, some individual teachers would share some of their learning strategies with students that struggled, but no part of the school system does it on a systematic basis.

The result is devastating to students because they assume something is wrong with them if they can't do the tasks assigned to them. So do their parents. So does everybody else. The truth is that most students do the best they can with what they know to do. If it doesn't work or if it doesn't work very well, they don't know they are supposed to do something different. The idea hasn't been broached because we have presupposed they already know how to learn in school.

All students learn at the same rate and in the same way.

Back in the industrial age, we designed our schools to resemble factories. We placed students in the same room according to age and proceeded to teach the content of that particular grade level. This presupposes that all the students learn in the same way and at the same rate of speed. We know this is not true, yet we continue the practice. This presupposition combined with the next one practically guarantees that many students will be traumatized and do poorly or fail.

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A certain percentage of students will fail and/or do poorly in school.

The bell curve has become almost an icon in education which justifies the presupposition that some students will fail and/or do poorly. In fact, if a teacher gave all A's and B's, they would be accused of being too easy or of grade inflation. But what if we assumed that all students were capable of learning equally well and we taught them to succeed in the classroom? What if we expected all students to learn easily and quickly in the classroom? What would we do with the bell curve? How would the different attitude affect our schools? How would it affect the students? How would it affect parents and our society?

How long would any business expect to last in the corporate world if 20-30% of their product was expected to be shoddy or poorly made?

The school system is more important than the individual student

The most common response to some of these presuppositions is "How else could we operate the schools?" Even if we know we are hurting students, we continue the practice so that the system can operate. We seem to be in some sort of denial regarding the trauma we are causing students.

 More money will solve all the problems of our schools.

Asking for more funding for schools dominates our lobbying and legislative activities and even our public relations. My concern is that more money is just going to be used to perpetuate the current system. And, if these presuppositions truly are symptomatic of the faulty foundation on which our schools are operating (as I believe they are), then more money will simply deter us from dealing with serious defects and we will not look for structural solutions.

 Students are motivated only by punishment and/or reward.

Our whole grading system is based upon this presupposition including the threat of suspension, expulsion, and other radical punishments. The truth is that there are far better ways to motivate students that will fit into their natural motivation strategies. Natural motivation strategies which utilize the highly valued criteria of the student provide a win/win situation that offers valued and motivating choices.

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 Learning activities cause learning to occur.

So many times I have had students tell me that they were good at learning spelling words or vocabulary words, etc. And yet, in my experience, the student's learning strategy for these tasks was inadequate. When I would inquire further into how they were judging the success, I would find that they would be handing in assignments that did not contribute to the learning process but yet would be easy to do. For example, they would be asked to simply copy down each spelling word 5-10 times and hand it in. Or, asked to look up definitions of vocabulary words in the text glossary or dictionary and copy them down and hand them in. When the student would do this boring task as asked, they would get high grades but very little learning would occur. Since most teachers are not trained in how the mind works or how learning occurs at the process level, they are left to assignments designed by textbook publishers. NLP has a golden opportunity to be a major force in teaching others how learning best occurs.

 Something is wrong with a student who does poorly in school.

We are a society accustomed to placing blame or finding who is at fault when something goes wrong. Unfortunately, when a student is doing poorly in school we almost automatically blame him or her. Usually, we accuse the student of not studying hard enough, or of not being motivated, or of being lazy, or of being rebellious or stupid. Many times we will label them with some form of learning disability. After a while, when the feedback becomes overwhelming, the student starts to believe the labels and it affects their self-esteem in a devastating way and many students will start acting out in an anti-social manner.

The better the teacher, the better the learning.

The reason I include this is not to demean great teachers but because it takes away from where the real responsibility lies in the learning process-- with the student. Also, believing that it depends upon finding the right teacher keeps us from solving the real problems that are limiting our schools. Besides, if we did change the presuppositions that form the foundation for how we conduct our schools and how we treat each other, the great teachers would really be empowered and could do their job even better.

Presuppositions of Rediscover the Joy of Learning

These are discussed in more detail in the article "Presuppositions in school - Part 2 " to be released soon.

• All behavior has positive intention behind it.
• If it is possible in the world for anybody else, it is possible to learn.
• Anything can be learned if it is chunked properly.
• There is no such thing as failure, there is only feedback.
• We choose the best behavior we know based upon the choices we have in our model of the world.
• More choice is better than limited choice.
• The way we experience the world is only a perceptual model.

Success Skills specializes in helping struggling students of all ages who are experiencing all sorts of different kinds of difficulties. Penn Henthorn currently runs Success Skill, Inc., and the processes that he uses are very different from the normal type of help struggling students receive. He is a Personal Development Coach. He teaches students HOW to use their mind to succeed in school. He teaches them learning strategies that really work. He also teaches them ways to think about school and learning that "turn them on" to school and motivates them to want to succeed.

 He also specializes in helping students who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities such as Dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

 Contact Penn Henthorn today for a free initial interview to find out how he can help by calling him at 1-405-562-6670 or by e-mailing him at info@nlpok.com. More information can also be obtained off of the web site www.nlpok.com.