NMLE: A Developmental Approach 1
New Media Literacy Education (NMLE): A Developmental Approach
Diana Graber
Fielding Graduate University Capstone December 17, 2010
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 2
Abstract Record high participation of school‐aged children in a new digital world has adults wondering how to teach new media literacy. To date, much of the educational focus has been on technical skills, but what students need most are skills that will prepare them to navigate the ethical challenges that loom in cyberspace. While most schools are too over‐burdened to undertake this task, Waldorf‐inspired schools are laying a foundation for new media literacy without using technology at all. By extending these strategies into the digital world, these schools could be the first to get new media literacy education right.
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 3 New Media Literacy Education: A Developmental Approach All media work us over completely. They are so persuasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. (McLuhan, 1967, p. 26) When renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote the passage above, he scarcely could have imagined the Internet we know today, let alone the plethora of digital devices and assorted networks that have cropped up since the general public was first granted Internet access in 1992. Social networking, blogging, gaming, video and picturesharing, Ipods, Iphones, virtual reality, YouTube, Twitter, Wikis, Facebook, Second Life, LinkedIn and more have all become part of the common vernacular of our time. It is hardly believable that less than a decade ago most of these devices and networks did not exist. Yet McLuhan’s words are as salient today, if not more so, than they were when published over four decades ago. While for many of us, it feels as though the ground is continually shifting beneath our feet, for “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001), otherwise known as those who have grown up during these digital times, this environment represents the world, as they know it. A survey published this year by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 8- to18-year-olds spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) using media on a typical day (and this does not include time spent using the computer for homework, texting or talking on the cell phone). Additionally, because today’s youth are so good at multi-tasking, they actually fit 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours. This represents an increase in media usage of more than an hour a day compared to just five years ago (Rideout, et. al., 2010). In fact, today’s young people spend more time online, texting, watching TV and movies, and playing video games than they do in school or with their parents (Common Sense Media, 2009). Even for those families and groups who urge their youth to just turn it all off, the fact remains that media is so ingrained in our cultural milieu, it is literally inescapable
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 4 (Thoman & Jolls, 2008). And what about those young people who may not possess computers and Internet access in their homes? They are still participants in a shared culture where social media, digital media distribution and production have become commonplace (Horst, as cited in Ito, et. al., 2010). “Media no longer just influence our culture. They are our culture” (Thoman & Jolls, 2008, p. 21). However, it is not simply the amount of media exposure that has changed so dramatically, it is the nature of this exposure. Jenkins, et. al. (2006) refer to the nature of the changing environment that today’s youth find themselves immersed in as: a participatory culture. He defines a participatory culture as having the following attributes: low barriers for artistic expression and engagement, strong support for creating and sharing, informal mentorship whereby experienced users pass their knowledge on to novices, an atmosphere that encourages a sense that contributions matter, and an opportunity for social connection. This new landscape seems ripe with fresh opportunities for education. However, as Jenkins and his colleagues point out, schools have largely been either slow to react or have missed the mark completely when it comes to capitalizing on what this new participatory culture has to offer traditional education. But this is hardly surprising, few institutions are as slow to respond to change as education; and few changes today are as mercurial as technology. It is no wonder that these two forces have had trouble learning how to co-exist. A Short History of Media Literacy Education Take One- A Focus on Technology Literacy The proliferation of the Internet during the mid 1990’s kick-started a national debate about how to best use digital technologies for teaching and learning, causing many to rethink education in light of all the new possibilities technology afforded schools (Ohler, 2010). When computers started finding their way into the classroom, driven primarily by proponents of educational technology (i.e., vendors of product) and enthusiastic government leaders, the educational focus was primarily on one thingteaching students how to use the tools (Ohler, 2010; Jenkins, et. al., 2006; Cordes & Miller, 2004; Oppenheimer, 2003). One of the most influential groups spearheading this approach was the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). In 1998, ISTE developed the first national standards for students (referred to as the NET’s),
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 5 followed closely by standards for educators and administrators. This was significant because it finally allowed educators to “point to a nationally recognized professional group for support, recognition and the articulation of standards that were specifically developed to address the presence of computers in the classrooms” (Ohler, 2010, p. 19). Although ISTE was not the only organization to develop technology standards for education, they were and still are the most active group in advocating for these standards at state and national levels (Cordes & Miller, 2004). ISTE’s efforts thrived in a political climate that also propelled the broader standards movement. In fact, over $55 billion was spent on computer technology and related services during the ten-year span from 1994 to 2004 (Cordes & Miller, 2004). The impact of this investment was disappointing however; study after study showed little or no improvement in student learning as a result (Oppenheimer, 2003). In fact, Susan Patrick, director of the United States Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, affirmed in 2004 that, “despite a decade of investment (in educational technology), most achievement indicators are flat.” (Branigan, 2004, ¶6). The research also showed that even schools that went to the trouble and expense of fully training teachers and integrating technology into the daily work of their students, underperformed when compared to other schools (Schmitt & Slonaker, 1996, as cited in Oppenheimer, 2003). Cuban (2002) writes that, like technology that preceded it, the computer had little effect on learning in school. The list of reasons cited for this is long and varied: inadequate teacher training, lack of technical support, too much focus on drill and practice programs, not enough time during the school day, stubborn adherence to traditional instructional methods rather than more constructivist approaches, and on and on. MIT computer scientist Seymour Papert, who spent five years studying with Swiss childhood development expert Jean Piaget before becoming one of America’s leading experts on children’s technology, summed up the state of affairs as follows: “[a]s long as schools confine technology to simply improving what they are doing rather than really changing the system, nothing very significant will happen” (as cited in Oppenheimer, 2003, p. 25).
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 6 But another part of this complicated puzzle may simply be that computers were introduced to education ahead of their time, in the era proceeding Web 2.0, or the social net, which transformed computing from a passive viewing experience into an interactive one, thus setting the stage for what was yet to come… Jenkins’ (2006) participatory culture. Take Two- A Shift to Media Literacy Ironically, the explosion of information made possible by the same technologies that failed to transform schools, instead transformed the world around the hallowed halls of education. As the digital environment transformed, so too did everyone’s ideas about how to teach students about these technologies. It became increasingly apparent that it was entirely unnecessary to teach young people how to use the tools; they were already using them far more proficiently than their “digital immigrant” (Prensky, 2001) parents or teachers. Consequently, the importance of teaching technology literacy paled in comparison to teaching new media literacy. This realization sent everyone scrambling to determine what skills students would need to become new media literate in the 21st century. The definition of media literacy most frequently cited during the 1990’s was simple and concise: “Media Literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms” (Aspen Institute of Media Literacy, 1992). However as we headed full speed into the 21st Century and new varieties of media seemed to pop up every day, it became evident that this definition needed revising. So the Center for Media Literacy expanded the definition in 2003, placing it more squarely in the context of the current cultural environment: … Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms – from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy. (Center for Media Literacy, 2003) This expanded definition of media literacy presented a conundrum for traditional education. After all, for the last several decades, public schools in America have focused
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 7 primarily on teaching facts prescribed by a pre-determined curriculum, and administering standardized tests to see how well students memorize these facts. The No Child Left Behind Act reinforces this standards-based system by holding schools accountable if certain benchmarks are not met. This well-established method of educating America’s youth, however, starts to lose its relevancy in an environment where up-to-date facts are available at the click of a mouse. Suddenly the skills that become important are those that help students find and evaluate what they need to know, when they need to know it, “basic higher-order critical and creative thinking skills (Thoman & Jolls, 2008, p. 6). In addition, as Collins and Halverson (2009) write: The new literacy extend the symbolic decoding and manipulation skills of traditional print media by integrating video, images, music, and animation a comprehension that give rise to new kinds of production. Teens who are creating web pages with animated computer graphics and sound, remixing images to develop music video, participating in web chats and forums, and writing their own blogs are engaged in developing a sophisticated media literacy not taught in schools. (p. 13) In order to keep up with the changing times, ISTE updated its National Educational Technology Standards (NET’s) in 2007. As Ohler (2010) points out, in these refreshed standards “[t]he word digital seems to replace references to ‘technology’ found in the first set of standards. This signifies a move away from a machine focus and toward a focus on content and communication. That is, our interest has shifted from ‘the gear’ to what we are doing with the gear” (p. 23). In Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Jenkins et. al. (2006) write that a participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from individual expression to one of community involvement. The authors of this report write of the urgency to help young people “develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed for full involvement” (p. 4) in this new media environment. Skills Needed for New Media Literacy Several scholars and media advocacy groups have written extensively in recent years about the skills they think young people need in order to become new media literate in the 21st century. For example, Jenkins et. al. (2006) suggest that while textual literacy
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 8 (the ability to read and write) remains a central skill, the other essential new media literacies are all social skills: play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, and negotiation. Three obstacles, however, prevent young people from successfully acquiring these skills. The first obstacle is the participation gap. More commonly referred to as the digital divide, this refers to the fundamental inequalities in young people’s access to new technologies and all the opportunities inherent in that access. The second obstacle is a transparency gap; a gap that exists because young people are limited in their ability to examine media carefully and thus need to develop critical thinking skills. The third problem, the ethics challenge, requires young people to consider the choices they make as users of new media. “One important goal of media education should be to encourage young people to become more reflective about the ethical choices they make as participants and communicators and the impact they have on others” (Jenkins, et. al., 2006, p. 17). Ethical thinking is the central theme in a Goodwork Project Report (2008) from the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero. This report suggests “for the promises of the NDM (new digital media) to be positively realized, supports for ethical participation- indeed for the creation of “ethical minds” (Gardner, 2007a, as cited in James, 2009, p. 42)- must emerge” (James, 2009, p. 42). Because young people don’t just use media, but help shape it, becoming thoughtful and reflective about their actions is essential. These key skills “are not learned in a vacuum, and certainly cannot be assumed to accompany technical skills. Here the responsibility lies with adults (educators, policymakers, parents, etc.) to provide young people with optimal supports for good play and citizenship” (James, et. al., 2008). Prensky (2010) concurs, suggesting that ”installing ethical behavior- figuring out the right thing to do and how to get it done- ought to be our number one concern. We need to best configure students’ brains so that they can constantly learn, create, program, adopt, adapt, and relate positively to whatever and whomever they meet, and in whatever way they meet them, which increasingly means through technology” (p. 12). Likewise, in an article exploring how Web 2.0’s unique capabilities influence learning and teaching, Drotner (2007) asserts that media literacy education needs to extend
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 9 beyond teaching technical skills to encompass the skills and ethical issues surrounding all the digital activities that young people are engaged in, including texting, blogging, editing images and sound, circulating files through mobile phones, and gaming (as cited in Greenhow, et. al., 2009, p. 252). Even the ISTE is in agreement on this, as evidenced by their reworked standards which place less emphasis on technology operations, and new emphasis on the five skills they list before it: creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking; and digital citizenship (ISTE, 2007). In his new book about digital citizenship Ohler (2010) writes that the new digital environment calls on all of us to “develop a personal ethical core that can guide us in areas of experience that are in many ways unfamiliar” (p. 4). He even suggests that technical literacy “may become a second-tier skill set” (p. 215). Finally, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Education Technology Plan (2010) sets five goals they believe, if reached, will transform technology education. The first goal they identify emphasizes ethics: “[a]ll learners will have engaging and empowering learning experiences both in and out of school that prepare them to be active creative, knowledgeable and ethical participants in our globally networked society” (p. 14). A New Tool While critical thinking will always remain an essential media literacy skill, new media literacy clearly requires the addition of a new tool to the toolkit: ethical thinking. It is important to remember that critical thinking was first called into service during the 1960’s in order to help students understand the mass media and its efforts to persuade viewers to think certain ways and to buy certain products (Ohler, 2010). However, this one-to-many characteristic of mass media has changed dramatically in the recent past, giving way to the many-to-many pattern that enables anyone and everyone to become a producer as well as a consumer of media. With this new power of participation comes new responsibility, making ethical thinking skills increasingly vital. Every time a student creates, shares, interacts, produces, downloads, uploads or remixes, he or she has to make a choice: do I credit the photographer for the photo I just cut and pasted into my paper? Should I post that unflattering picture of a classmate on Facebook? So while critical thinking is still, well, critical… ethical thinking (which has
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 10 largely been given a back seat in education in recent years) is becoming the skill du jour. The question that new media literacy educators should be asking themselves now is this: how do we cultivate ethical thinking skills? A Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Ethical Thinking The aim of education is growth or development, both intellectual and moral. Ethical and psychological principles can aid the school in the grates of all construction – the building of a free and powerful character. Only knowledge of the order and connection of the stages in psychological development can institute this. (Dewey, 1964, as cited by Kohlberg, 1975) Overlooked By The ISTE Standards When the ISTE formulated its original NET’s in the late 1990’s, it called for “developmentally appropriate uses of advanced electronic media in the classroom” (ISTE, 1998), yet the authors provided no accompanying research references to support what they considered to be developmentally appropriate. This was a bone of contention for many who pointed to a large body of uncontested research on what comprises healthy cognitive development in a child’s early years: face-to-face contact, creative play, handson activities, and physical movement (Siegel, 1999; Strauch, 2003; and Diamond & Hopson, 1999 as cited in Cordes & Miller, 2004). The ISTE standards, which advocated for a “technology-enhanced” (ISTE, 1998) learning environment beginning at ages three or four, was a huge departure from what was recommended by the existing developmental research. This failure to acknowledge what many considered healthy cognitive development in children is often cited as one of the reasons why computers so miserably failed to transform education in the mid-90’s. This reason, whether it is the reason or not, bears a closer look. Cognitive and Moral Development As Ohler (2010) writes, Cognitive and moral development are linked, with the latter preceding the former. In plain English, the smarter we become, the better able we are to puzzle through ethical decision making. In the process, we become more capable of autonomous moral reasoning. Thus critical thinking is the solid
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 11 foundation upon which moral development rests. (p. 174) While the terms ethics and morality are often used interchangeably, Ohler (2010) makes an important distinction, “morality deals with how we act, while ethics deals with how we think about how we act. That is, ethical consideration informs moral actions” (p. 157). Gardner (2006, in press, as cited in Davis, et. al., 2010) uses the terms neighborly morality and the ethics of roles to explain the distinction he makes between morality and ethics. He describes neighborly morality as the “understandings and relations that govern a person’s connections to those whom he sees every day and with whom he has a reciprocal relationship” (¶15). In contrast, the ethics of roles relate to “those individuals, both known and unknown, to whom relations are more formal, more tied to roles, and may not even involve person-to-person contact” (¶15). While morality requires an understanding of what is deemed appropriate by certain groups, ethics requires more abstract thinking or, “an attempt to extract universal principles governing moral conduct” (Lee, 1928, as cited in Davis, et. al., ¶15). It is impossible to consider moral and ethical thinking without a familiarity with the two most prominent figures to study cognitive and moral development, Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. While Kohlberg focused primarily on moral development, he based his theories on the cognitive development understandings of Piaget who forged what is still considered the single most comprehensive and compelling theory of intellectual development for children (Crain, 2005). Piaget identified four stages of cognitive development: sensori-motor, preoperational, concrete and formal. According to Piaget, children in the sensori-motor stage, from birth to two years, experience the outside world through their immediate actions, senses and feelings. During the pre-operational stage, which encompasses ages two to seven, children are able to solve one-step logic problems, and begin to think using symbols and internal images. The concrete stage occurs from ages seven to eleven. At this time children begin to develop their capacity to think systematically, but only when they can refer to concrete objects and activities. From twelve on children are in the
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 12 formal operations stage, when they finally develop the capacity for logical and abstract thinking. An important observation made by Piaget was that children think differently from adults, most notably, they start out with a completely egocentric view of the world and are unable to understand how someone else’s viewpoint might differ from their own. Although children slowly decenter from this mindset as they move through the developmental stages, a sense of egocentrism lingers even into the formal operational stage, or the teen years (Blake & Pope, 2008). Like other prominent developmental theorists, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Maria Montessori, Piaget believed that to best foster cognitive development, learning should be a process of active discovery geared towards a child’s developmental stage (Crain, 2005). He also believed that children progressed naturally through these stages, guided by play and direct sensory contact with the environment. In fact, it was through his observation of children at play that Piaget determined that morality, too, was a developmental process (Murray, n.d.). Kohlberg advanced the work of Piaget by developing a stage theory of moral development based upon his predecessor’s cognitive development understandings. He identified six stages of moral development, which were grouped into three levels: Preconventional, Conventional and Postconventional. Kohlberg believed that during the Preconventional Level, which often lasts until age nine, children’s moral judgment is characterized by a concrete, individual perspective. Like Piaget, Kohlberg thought that children at this level slowly progress from egocentrism and the inability to consider the perspectives of others, to the early emergence of moral reciprocity, although they are still only able to reason as isolated individuals, not as members of a larger society (Murray, n.d.). Kohlberg postulated that it is not until somewhere between the ages of 10 to 15, when children enter the Conventional Level, that they start to believe people should live up to the expectations of their community and behave in ‘good’ ways. At this level they begin to understand that “good behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such as love, empathy, trust and concern for others” (Crain, 2005, p. 155). At the completion of this level of moral development children finally have the cognitive ability to perceive themselves as a citizens of a larger society. They reach this understanding
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 13 through social interactions that allow them to consider and work through the competing interests of themselves and others. Finally, the Postconventional Level of moral development encompasses the upper domain of abstract thinking (Ohler, 2010). Kohlberg believed that while this stage could be entered into as early as age 12, some individuals simply never reach this level of moral thinking. Like Piaget, Kohlberg (1975) thought, “[s]ince moral reasoning clearly is reasoning, advanced moral reasoning depends upon advanced logical reasoning; a person’s logical stage puts a certain ceiling on the moral stage he can attain” (p. 671). Thus, children whose logical stage is Concrete (which can last up and into middle school) are still in the Preconventional moral stages. Therefore, asking a child at this stage to reason through the ethical choices often required by powerful electronic devices that connect them to the outside world is, according to these developmental theories, beyond their cognitive capacities. As Piaget and Kohlberg point out, children spend the first 12 years of life developing the cognitive structures that enable them to grasp the abstract, metaphoric, and symbolic types of information that lead to ethical thinking. This understanding of cognitive and moral development requires us to at least consider how electronically mediated interactions may impact the youngest members of our society. A Developmental Trajectory for Digital Media Use Developmental psychological research largely supports a trajectory for digital media use where “[e]arly childhood (up to about eight years old) is a time of high physical activity and low media use with media use at home increasing beginning at ages 9 through 11” (Livingstone, 2008, as cited in Bauman & Tatum, 2009, ¶10). However, traffic on websites for young children (ages 3-12) has increased dramatically in recent years. Data from 2007 shows that monthly visits to one popular site for children (Club Penguin) more than doubled to 4.7 million from the previous year (Buckleitner, 2008). Shellenbarger (2006, as cited in Bauman & Tatum, 2009) observes that many social networking sites compete for subscribers as young as eight, and since many parents don’t even follow this guideline, younger and younger children going online.
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 14 While much attention has been placed on the activities of older children on social networking sites like Facebook, what has largely been absent from the public discourse “is any discussion of the increasing availability and presence of websites designed for younger children that have components of social networking (e.g., Club Penguin, Webkinz, Kidzworld)” (Bauman & Tatum, 2008, ¶7). These sites all include interactive components that are similar to elements found on adult social networking sites. While there are safety measures in place on most of these sites, Bauman and Tatum (2008) suggest, “younger children may not be developmentally ready to understand the dynamics of these kinds of relationships and communication” (¶5). Some concerns that experts raise include the inability of young children to distinguish between reality and the virtual world (Baumgarten, 2003; Buckleitner, 2008; Shellenbarger, 2006, as cited in Bauman & Tatum, 2008, ¶14). For example, attachments to virtual friends or pets that may get disrupted for a variety of reasons (an online friend is no longer on the site, an online pet gets ill) can cause real distress to a child that a parent or teacher may not understand (Fryer, 2009, ibid). Greenfield (2004) expresses concern with the way advertising is integrated within the content of these sites. This is important because children younger than five are unable to distinguish between commercial and noncommercial content and children younger than seven or eight cannot understand that commercials are shown in order to sell things. Often, sites designed for young children that include advertising (which is virtually all of them) are likely to capitalize on this developmental characteristic. Greenfield (2004) also raises issues about sexuality and aggression. Noting that while the possibility of sexual predators lurking about these sites receives considerable media attention, what is actually more common are references to such things as ‘being a couple’. References like these are developmentally inappropriate for an age group still learning how to develop and maintain real-life friendships. And finally, Greenfield (2004) observes that though these sites technically prohibit swearing and aggression, savvy children are able find a way around built-in mechanisms, and bullying does occur. There is a growing concern that the anonymity afforded by these sites encourages some children to say or do things they would not say or do in a face-to-face context.
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 15 Despite an awareness of developmental issues such as these, children are going online at younger and younger ages, and adults are largely absent from and unfamiliar with these online worlds. While we can do our collective best to shield young people from a digital world they may be developmentally unprepared to navigate, at some point both parents and teachers need to actually enter and understand this world, in order to help young people cultivate the skills necessary to navigate it confidently and ethically. So how do we go about cultivating those skills? Ethical Thinking and New Media Literacy Education While little is known about why some youth use their digital powers wisely and others do not, one thing is clear: few are inclined to actually engage in ethical thinking when they are online (Davis, et. al, 2010). While in the past adults have played an important role in helping young people develop moral and ethical thinking (Fischman, Solomon, Greenspan, & Gardner, 2004, as cited in Davis, et. al, 2010) today they remain largely absent from the online world where children and youth need ethical guides the most. Ethical thinking, characterized as the highest plane of thinking, involves taking the perspective of others, awareness of one’s roles and responsibilities in the online communities in which one participates, and reflection about the more global harms or benefits of one’s actions to communities at large (Davis, et. al., 2010). James and Flores (in preparation, as cited in Davis, et. al., 2010) found that this way of thinking is rarely displayed by young people when they discuss their online activities. While this information is unsettling, it does present a great opportunity for both educators and parents to help children and young adults develop the moral and ethical skills needed for new media literacy, and to lay the groundwork for developing these skills early on. Educating for New Media Literacy Prensky (2010), who suggests that “installing ethical behavior... ought to be our number one concern” (p. 12), also warns that trying to graft such skills onto an existing curriculum is entirely ineffective. Instead the best way to teach the skills that lead to good digital citizenship is to incorporate them into every subject starting in elementary school, “then by the time they left us, students would have practiced these essential skills hundreds or even thousands of times and would likely have internalized them as an
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 16 effective way of doing things” (p. 187). However, the reality in today’s classrooms is that teachers already have a full plate, and as we learned by observing the failure of putting computers into the classroom during the end of the last century without carefully considering this, simply adding more to their workload without looking at the big picture does not work. What is desperately needed, as Ohler (2010) suggests, is a “whole school approach to behavior that sets the entirety of being digitally active within an overall ethical and behavioral context- character education for the Digital Age” (p. 145). Character Education for the Digital Age It seems that we are faced with a remarkable irony: that in an age of increasing artificiality, children first need to sink their hands deeply into what is real; that in an age of light-speed communication, it is crucial that children take the time to develop their own inner voice; that in an age of incredibly powerful machines we must first teach our children how to use the incredible powers that lie deep within themselves. (Monke, 2004, Technology with a Human Purpose section, ¶ 5) One Approach While researching his comprehensive book about technology’s impact on our educational system, Todd Oppenheimer (2003) visited dozens of public, private, urban, and rural schools across the country. In this book and elsewhere, he writes extensively about a pedagogy, Waldorf education, that he views as a “smarter path” (p. 363) towards preparing students for the future. He writes, The notion that imagination is the heart of learning animates the entire arc of Waldorf teaching. When that concept is coupled with the school’s other fundamental goal, to give youngsters a sense of ethics, the result is a pedagogy that stands even further apart from today’s educational system. (p. 366) Although Waldorf schools do not utilize overt methods to impose ethical or moral values upon children, strategies that might be more commonly employed in religious schools, advocates of Waldorf education firmly believe that it lays a solid foundation for
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 17 both moral reasoning and ethical thinking. Yet scant research exists to support these assertions. Hether (2001) addresses this paucity of research by conducting her own, which she writes about in her dissertation, Moral Reasoning of High School Seniors From Diverse Educational Setting. This paper “call(s) attention to the un-heralded and relatively unknown Waldorf movement as an educational intervention that appears to have a notable positive affect on advanced moral reasoning” (p. 150). Using a quantitative survey of the development of moral reasoning, called the Defining Issues Test (DIT), Hether measures and compares scores of high school seniors from different educational settings. She uses the DIT because it is recognized as a valid and reliable measure of moral reasoning development derived from Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental theory and the database of DIT research constitutes the largest and most diverse body of information on moral judgment that exists today (p. 91). Hether’s (2001) study shows that Waldorf educated students scored significantly higher in moral reasoning than students from a religiously affiliated high school*, and students in public high schools. Waldorf educated students scored in a range that that would be more commonly associated with college graduates (the effect was enhanced in the small group of students who received both Waldorf education and non-Waldorf nonsecretarian private school education). While this data is significant, what is particularly interesting about Hether’s (2001) research is its second phase, which explores the aspects of Waldorf education that might contribute to higher moral reasoning; aspects that could be transported into other educational settings. She identifies five areas in Waldorf education that contribute to moral development: an emphasis on educating the whole person; sensitivity to developmental appropriateness; the practice of storytelling; the integral place of the arts in the curriculum; and the preservation of a sense of wonder towards the natural world.
*The religiously affiliated group actually scored the lowest in the DIT, suggesting, “the didactic methods promoted by advocates of character education… do not appear to be the best way advance moral reasoning ” (Hether, 2001, p. 150).
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 18
Educating the Whole Person, Waldorf education is firmly rooted in the idea of engaging a child’s diverse modalities, especially in the early years of schooling. This concept is addressed thoroughly in Dr. Howard Gardner’s (1993) book, Frames of Mind. Gardner, the renowned cognitive psychologist and co-director of Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero, is widely known for his theory of multiple intelligences and in this book proposes the notion that we possess not one but eight distinct forms of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. According to Gardner (1993), “only if we expand and reformulate our view of what counts as intellect will we be able to devise more appropriate ways of assessing it and educating it” (p. 4). Waldorf schools, along with a handful of other educational models, consider education of the whole child, head, heart and hands in Waldorf terminology, to be essential, and thus integrate that concept into all aspects of the curriculum. A Waldorf lesson in math, for example, might be taught to the children visually, orally, through song, movement or by working together towards a common goal, such as building a small structure that requires the measuring of surfaces, etc. In fact, in a Waldorf setting children spend a good part of their day making things with their hands, often working together, not only because it engages several of the senses, but also because making something of use contributes to the development of a strong will. Moral development in the Waldorf doctrine is often described as the transformation of will forces into willpower (Hether, 2001). Kohlberg (1975) also noted that the “[w]ill… is an important factor in moral behavior” (p. 672), particularly when informed by mature moral judgment. The concept of educating the whole child, especially in the early years, is endorsed by child development experts who consider it critical to provide children with “a broad base- emotionally, intellectually, and in the five senses” (Oppenheimer, 2003, p. 198). A multisensory approach to learning both deeply imprints lessons in children and accommodates different learning styles, and is especially effective for children who have learning disabilities (ibid). While traditional public schools currently rely heavily on teaching to the linguistic and logical-mathematical modalities, cognitive psychological research suggests, “abstract reasoning grows out of the physical experience of action”
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 19 (Healy, 1998, p. 212). As discussed earlier in this paper, abstract reasoning is a cognitive prerequisite for Kohlberg’s higher levels of moral development. A Commitment to What is Developmentally Appropriate. The advantages of developmentally based learning, which got its start in the Waldorf movement with the opening of the first school in 1919, were later supported by the work of Gesell, Piaget, Gardner and others (Dancy, 2004). In many respects the Waldorf approach aligns particularly well with Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, as close attention is placed on matching curricular content to the student’s developmental stage. For example, when children are in the pre-operational stage (which can last up until age seven), heavy emphasis is placed on hands-on activities and make-believe play. It is through such play that young children develop their imaginations and symbolic thinking, without it an important element of cognitive development falls by the wayside (Crain, 2004). While time for play has largely been squeezed out of the traditional public school day, its importance is being recognized widely outside of education. Play is one of the six essential aptitudes identified by Pink (2005) as necessary for success and personal fulfillment in what he calls the ‘conceptual age’. In the book, A Whole New Mind (2005), he notes that even the Education Ministry of Japan, a country that excels in math and science, is remaking its vaunted education system to “foster greater creativity, artistry and play” (p. 52). Likewise, Jenkins, et. al. (2006) identify play as the first of the core media literacy skills needed for the 21st century, writing: Play, as psychologists and anthropologists have long recognized, is key in shaping children’s relationship to their bodies, tools, communities, surroundings, and knowledge. Most of children’s earliest learning comes through playing with the materials at hand. Through play, children try on roles, experiment with culturally central processes, manipulate core resources, and explore their immediate environments. As they grow older, play can motivate other forms of learning. (p. 22) Attention to developmental readiness is considered throughout the grades in the Waldorf pedagogy. Like Piaget and Maria Montessori, Waldorf educators believe that children develop capacities over time; therefore it is customary for one main teacher to
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 20 stay with a class for up to eight years. This practice allows the same adult to watch the development of a student’s different capacities unfold over many years, and to be ready to meet that development. Much care is taken not to hurry children to do things they are not ready to do. In fact, unhurried time for reflection is hallmark of this educational model. Often lessons are presented over the span of a few days, allowing the children to go home, sleep on the information, and return to school with their questions over the following days. This process “institutionalizes an important principle- to let students struggle toward their answers and individual understanding. Indeed this notion is the foundation of one of the more popular modern-day progressive reforms, the practice called constructivism” (Oppenheimer, 2003, p. 381). For these developmental educators, pressuring children to attempt intellectual tasks before they are developmentally ready for them can lead to what Piaget (1969) referred to as “verbalisms” (p. 164), using words that have no real meaning for them. For example, while children in the concrete stage of cognitive development can be taught to memorize and repeat abstract concepts, they most likely will not understand them on a deep level. This often leads to a dislike for school, or worse, contributes to the schoolrelated stress that pediatricians find is on the rise (Wallace, 2000, as cited in Crain, 2005). Storytelling. Pink (2005) identifies story as another essential aptitude in today’s emerging landscape, saying that stories provide “context enriched by emotion, a deeper understanding of how we fit in and why that matters” (p. 115). For many of the same reasons, storytelling is a key aspect of the Waldorf curriculum. As Hether (2001) points out, “Waldorf schools appear to practice what voices crying for ‘character education’ desire: all elementary grade students are immersed in stories that offer moral lessons, ranging from fairy tales at earlier ages through fables, Nordic and other ethnic myths, and Biblical stories as they get older” (p. 74). It is the Waldorf approach to storytelling, however, that is so unique. First of all, both children and teachers often act out stories in order to make them come alive. Teachers are taught to create this dramatic atmosphere so that the moral principles in the stories they present are not only pondered, but also felt deeply. For example, fourth graders often act out Nordic myths by stomping around the room in rhythm to a poem about Norse gods who symbolize pride, loss of innocence and the power of the intellect,
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 21 issues that are developmentally relevant to fourth grade students (Oppenheimer, 2003). This approach ensures the information that the children are learning is processed in a deep and meaningful way. Current cognitive psychological research supports the validity of this approach, finding that “[t]o ensure memory is available over time, information needs to be elaborately processed in ways so that it is meaningful to us” (Herrmann, Yoder, Gruneberg, & Payne, 2006, p. 87). In a marked contrast to more overt approaches to instilling moral lessons, teachers in a Waldorf setting do not ask pointed questions about these stories or require direct analysis or judgment. Rather, they let moral lessons sink in, and help students build moral images by drawing pictures, role-playing or repeating verses related to the stories. As Oppenheimer (2003) notes, “[l]earning through stories as well as practical experience is a concept long advocated by progressive-education leaders, particularly the great reformer John Dewey” (p. 375). Psychological research into the development of moral intelligence in children also finds that an immersion in moral stories leads to the development of moral intelligence in children (Bettelheim, 1977; Coles, 1997, as cited in Oppenheimer, 2003). An Integral Place for the Arts in the Classroom. While the arts continue to get squeezed out of traditional public education due to budget cuts and a focus on academic instruction, they remain an essential element of the Waldorf curriculum. Painting, drawing, singing, playing musical instruments, knitting, dancing, and more are all entwined in the academic day. This integration of art into the curriculum “builds such thinking skills as analysis, synthesis, evaluation and critical judgment. It nourishes imagination and creativity… it fosters flexible thinking and appreciation for diversity, qualities that appear to be especially relevant to moral reasoning” (Hether, 2001, p. 139). A recent study found that American creativity scores have been inching steadily downward since 1990, and that “[i]t is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is most serious” (Bronson & Merryman, 2010, ¶ 6). Noting that this problem is due largely to the reduction of art classes in elementary school, this study calls the potential consequences of a general decline in creativity dire, pointing out that “[a] recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 ‘leadership competency’ of the future” (ibid, ¶ 7). In Shanghai,
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 22 China, where students rank 1st in the world in math (U.S. students rank 31st), “creativity is part of their national educational plan” (Mayo, 2010). Ohler (2009) calls on schools to “treat the arts as the next R, rising it to a level of importance equal to the traditional 3 Rs.” (¶ 20). He reminds us that the world of new media requires students to possess competencies that will allow them to “consume and produce the media forms of the day” (Ohler, 2010, p. 208), much of which is artistic in nature. Observing that art has become mostly expendable in today’s schools, he points out that the world of work is built upon “visual presentation and the media collage“ (p. 209) and says that art should be infused across the entire curriculum. Poets and writers alike have linked art and morality, perhaps none more eloquently as Ingersoll (1888): Art cultivates and kindles the imagination, and quickens the conscience. It is by imagination that we put ourselves in the place of another. When the whigs of that faculty are folded, the master does not put himself in the place of the slave; the tyrant is not locked in the dungeon, chained with his victim. The inquisitor did not feel the flames that devoured the martyr. The imaginative man, giving to the beggar, gives to himself. Those who feel indignant at the perpetration of wrong, feel for the instant that they are the victims; and when they attack the aggressor they feel that they are defending themselves. Love and pity are the children of the imagination. (¶1) Preserving a Sense of Wonder Toward the Natural World. Finally, preserving a sense of wonder for the natural world is a hallmark of the Waldorf pedagogy. Nurturing a children’s relationships with other human beings and the rest of the living world is seen as “the most essential preparation children need for grappling with the daunting social and ecological choices that technology will pose in the 21st century. Young people need to have direct experience of the natural world in all its diversity, messiness, and beauty if they are to appreciate its fragility and irreplaceable value” (Cordes & Miller, 2004, p. 61). Furthermore, it is held that “when students are separated from a direct experience of nature, they develop a passive attitude toward the environment and environmental problems” (Hether, 2001, p. 144).
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 23 It is important to note here that in general Waldorf-inspired schools resist introducing any type of technology to students until well into the middle school years, often after 8th grade. Additionally, it is customary for these schools to ask families to limit their children’s home access to technology to weekends only. The reason for this is the consideration that “the ubiquitous presence of electronic technology is an assault on the senses and diminishes children’s natural sense of wonder and curiosity about natural events” (Hether, 2001, p. 143). Furthermore, there is a general belief that it could have a negative impact on the moral development of children, as formative years spent interacting with a machine, rather than with other humans or the natural environment, inhibits healthy cognitive development. This stance, however, has softened in recent years. Many in the Waldorf schooling movement are realizing that, though they may be right about limiting access to technology in the early years, by middle school it is time to equip students with the skills necessary to become creative, competent and ethical users of the tools of their day. Ironically, by providing children with an imaginative and moral base, this educational model may actually be giving its students the ideal foundation for digital citizenship, without a single piece of technology in sight. Digital Citizenship for Middle School Students It’s Not About the Tools Joseph Weizenbaum, professor emeritus of computer science at MIT and inventor of the first talking computer system, believed that students could learn all the computer skills they needed to know “in a summer” (Slonaker & Schmitt, 1996, as cited in Oppenheimer, 2003, p. 180). He felt that, given the rapid pace at which today’s computer products and software come and go, any computer program a child might learn in school was likely to be obsolete by the time he or she entered the workforce. Weizenbaum’s concern therefore was focused on “our internal architecture of values and morals…” (ibid, p. 189). As pointed out earlier in this paper, this concern is being heard more and more, particularly given the fact that few guidelines exist to help students navigate the ethical dilemmas of the day. What is becoming abundantly clear is that as young people increasingly participate “in networked publics, their ability to grasp the moral and ethical
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 24 potentials of their participation is critical – for their own futures, for that of their friends and peers, and for the communities in which they are citizens (Santo, et. al., 2009, p. 5). Middle School Students and Networked Publics Early adolescence is the time when young people’s interest in all things digital reaches its peak. The Kaiser Family Foundation (Rideout, et. al., 2010) reports, “the jump in media use that occurs when young people hit the 11-14-year old age is tremendous. Their usage increases by more than three hours (3:00) a day in time spent with media (total media use), and an increase of four hours (4:00) a day in total media exposure” (p. 5). It is important to note that during this time, Their emerging moral framework is being developed in an environment where there is little affective feedback, where there is a reduced risk for authoritarian-delivered punishment but the potential for being ostracized as a consequence of inappropriate behavior, where an individual is judged on the basis of what they write and not who they are, where there is a constant need to authenticate information to determine its truthfulness, where there is a high level of interaction with people from throughout the world and where there is the ability to act out different personas. The impact of interactions in this kind of an environment on the development of moral reasoning is unknown. (Willard, 1997, p.1) In an effort to better understand these unknowns, Dr. Howard Gardner and his colleagues at Harvard University School of Education’s GoodPlay Project have been conducting research to discover what ethical issues young people encounter in the digital world. They have identified five areas of interest: Identity (how youth handle and perceive self-expression and identity online); Privacy (how, where and with whom youth share personal information); Credibility (how youth establish trustworthiness of people and information); Authorship/Ownership (how youth perceive intellectual property and practices like downloading/remixing content); and, Participation (the meaning of responsible conduct and citizenship in online communities) (Santo, et. al., 2009). Although each of these individual areas is important, Gardener (n.d.) recently stated in an interview that his team found the issue of Participation to be particularly troublesome. It seems that characteristics that make the digital environment so appealing
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 25 to young people, its communal and participatory nature, are also what make it so challenging. Because these spaces are so different from anything any of us have experienced in the past, they are void of established ethical practices or boundaries. Media scholar dana boyd (2007) states that what sets these networked publics apart from any other type of public space we may be familiar with are these properties: persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences. In short, whatever information a young person may post to a public space, say, an a photo or comment on Facebook, remains in the digital stratosphere forever, can be searched for and found by anyone and everyone, can be copied and shared, and has the potential to be viewed by strangers around the world. While young people can’t be expected to understand the enormity of all this, nor can any of us for that matter, participation in networked publics by middle school students is on the rise. This has the potential to either empower them with a feeling of enormous positive impact and/or be incredibly damaging. Any way you look at it, community participation has taken on an entirely new meaning in the digital age. Teaching Digital Citizenship Recognizing the need to equip students with the ethical skills to become good digital citizens, Common Sense Media (2010) has developed a Media Digital Literacy and Citizenship curriculum. Based upon the digital ethics research of Dr. Howard Gardner and the GoodPlay Project, their curriculum for middle school students is divided into five units that directly align with the five ethical issues identified by Gardner and his team. The overall goal of this curriculum is to “empower young people to harness the power of the Internet and digital technology for learning, and for them to become safe, responsible, and respectful digital citizens” (Common Sense Media, 2010). Following is a brief overview of the units in this curriculum and ethical issue each corresponds with: Digital Life Unit (aligns with Participation): Students explore the positive and negative impact of digital media on their lives and communities, and define what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. Privacy and Digital Footprints Unit (aligns with Privacy): Students learn that the Internet is a very public space, and therefore they must carefully manage their information and respect the privacy of others online. Self-Expression and Identity Unit (aligns with Identity): Students identify
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 26 and explore different ways they can present themselves online while also learning to recognize when playing with identity crosses the line into deception. Connected Culture Unit (aligns with Credibility): Students explore the ethics of online communities – both the negative behaviors to avoid, such as cyberbullying and hurtful behavior, and positive behaviors that support collaboration and constructive relationships. They also learn about how to clearly communicate by email. Respecting Creative Work Unit (aligns with Authorship/Ownership): Students learn about the value and responsibility of being a 21st-century creator: receiving credit for your own online work and giving others respect by properly citing their work (Common Sense Media, 2010). Visual Portion of this Paper The visual presentation that accompanies this paper explores lessons and activities included in each of the units above. Conclusion The power of social networks and participatory culture create a Digital Noblesse-Oblige to produce ethical and responsible citizens (Buckner & Rutledge, 2010). We inhabit a unique place in time with unprecedented power at our fingertips and opportunities for connection and collaboration that were unimaginable just a short decade ago. The digital world is full of both possibility and peril, with rules of engagement being hashed out as we go. While schools are still “hesitant to embrace new technologies as a backlash from the significant, and largely ineffectual, investment in classroom computers as an instructional panacea during in the mid-1990’s” (Collins & Halverson, 2009, p. 140), young people have taken to the digital world and all its participatory wonders like ducks to water. Although they certainly don’t need our help learning to operate the devices or the software (we need theirs!), they do need us to prepare them to use these powerful technologies responsibly and ethically. By nurturing healthy cognitive development in young students, we are also laying down the building blocks of ethical thinking, a necessity for true new media literacy.
NMLE: A Developmental Approach 27 Without fully realizing it Waldorf-inspired schools have stumbled upon a successful formula for the early development of new media literacy skills. By providing rich sensory experiences and social interactions for students from the time they are very young, these schools are actually sowing the seeds of digital citizenship. The challenge they now face is taking the next step. The Common Sense Media curriculum based on the work of Dr. Howard Gardner’s GoodPlay project is an ideal place to start. By incorporating aspects of this curriculum into its existing pedagogy, Waldorf-inspired schools can model Ohler’s (2010) vision of a “whole school approach to behavior that sets the entirety of being digitally active within an overall ethical and behavioral context” (p. 145). In doing so perhaps some of these practices will find their way into traditional schools, giving even more students a chance to experience a developmental approach to new media literacy that will equip them to be creative, capable, and ethical users of today’s technology, or technologies that are yet seeds in their imaginations.
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NMLE: A Developmental Approach 32 Vandewater, E.A., Rideout, V.J., Wartella, E.A., Huang, X., Lee, J.H., Shim, M.S. (2007) Digital childhood: electronic media and technology use among infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Pediatrics 119(5). 1006-1015. Retrieved on November 2, 2010 from www.pediatrics.org Downloaded from Willard, N. (1997). Moral development in the information age. Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting, #222, 215-222. Retrieved on November 9, 2010 from http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/articles/willard.html