DISORDERED LEARNING
HOW MODERN EDUCATION HAS PRODUCED LEARNING
DISORDERS
by William
Michael
February 11, 2009
Note: In writing this article, I know that I am taking a risk.
I am not an expert in psychology or biology, but I don't believe the
answers to our questions are to be found there anyway. The topic
of learning disorders is a sensitive one that requires careful handling
and I do not wish to cause trouble. However, in order to
accomplish our goal of reorienting education God-ward, this is a topic
that must be addressed and discussed. In this article, I wish to
take a historical and philosophical look at learning disorders that I
hope brings a sense of order to the disorder we find ourselves in.
I ask that you not respond until you have read the article in its
entirety. I intend to expand this article as time allows.
"I will rather boast most gladly
of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me."
St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:9
There was never a generation that did not
recognize different ability levels among children in different spheres
of behavior. The most ancient writers acknowledge the difference
between Nature and Art. Nature was
understood to be the collection of innate abilities unique to a person,
while Art was understood to be the range of knowledge and skills
accessible to all by study and practice. The ancients knew that an
industrious child could often surpass the achievements of a naturally
gifted child who did not work. The ideal, of course, was the
gifted child who joined to that natural giftedness the virtue of
diligence. Nevertheless, most people believed that natural gifts
were God's business and that it was not for a man to question the
Creator, "Why have you made me thus?", but to make the most of his
gifts, knowing that God's grace would provide all that he needed to
fulfill God's will for his life.
Since the late 1800s, this faith-oriented
worldview has been undone on a large scale by the advent of Naturalism.
As the modern age dawned and the use of the Scientific Method was
allowed to extend beyond its proper limits, Divine Wisdom ceased to be
the exegete of nature and a "natural"--rather a mechanical--explanation
of everything was sought. This was the beginning of a modern
crisis we face in education, namely the notion of learning disorders.
A large part of this turn toward Naturalism
involved the transformation of schools from school rooms where children
studied Catechism, Grammar and Arithmetic for a few hours each day into
social institutions that were organized to mass-produce a new society,
particularly in America. The roles of the church and family were
supplanted by the roles of counselors, teachers and therapists.
The child's society changed from Mom, Dad, Grandma and his siblings of
various ages to Jimmy, Tommy, Lucy, David, Joey and a dozen (or two)
other classmates--all five years old.
As the public school system has grown, all
other institutions have grown around it. Every element of American
life--from food to fashion, and holidays to healthcare--is oriented
toward this created public school society. We forget that the
public school system and the model of education it endorses is a modern
experiment that is NOT essential to human society and is in direct
opposition to traditional Christian culture.
Today millions of children live in a school
environment from shortly after birth until they reach adulthood, with
many away from home for over 10 hours per day. In recent
generations, it's hard to distinguish childhood from schooling--and this
is the problem: The public school environment is now assumed
to be a natural part of human society and the standard by which "normal"
human behavior is gauged.
This is absolutely false and the
consequences are terrible. Children are labeled according to their
"disorders" based on how they differ from the group. These
disorders are considered to be more than social but biological and
chemical, leading to the use of drugs to control their effects. We
must "zoom out" that we may take a look at this world of trouble from
above. Only through a fresh philosophical critique can we deliver
ourselves from this perspective and consider (a) wherein its errors
consist and (b) where the truth may be found. We shall see that
the truth will set us free.
Let's consider a few of the common "learning
disorders".
I. DYSLEXIA
The Mayo Clinic reports that
1 in 20
elementary school-age children have dyslexia--the inability to read
properly. It is amazing to think that of every 20 children God
brings into the world, 1 of them has a significant functional disorder.
When we consider the millions of children in the world, we
realize that those diagnosed with dyslexia form an entire society of
their own.
The question we ask is this: Did God
design the human race so that 5% would have an inability to perform a
skill of such great importance as early literacy seems to be, or
is it possible that reading is not as important for every 7 year old as
the modern school system suggests?
Our desire is to explore the second
option--that modern schools, by creating a system that makes age the
standard of performance, have created this apparent crisis among human
beings. The assumption, again, is that a child must be able to sit
with a group of children of the same age and perform like the group.
If not, he or she has a "disorder".
We will come back to this later.
II. DISCALCULIA
Discalculia is the name given to any
learning disability that has to do with mathematics. It is assumed
that every student must understand mathematics--not simply mathematics
for everyday use, but abstract mathematics or more precisely school
mathematics. After all, most of the stuff kids are pressed to
learn in school math is never used once the assignment is completed and
the state curriculum checklist is satisfied. Nevertheless,
children who fail to meet the expectations are said to suffer from
discalculia.
Once again, these disabilities are hard to
define because all of the standards are artificial and depend upon
comparisons with peers. The standards are determined by
expectations of where a student should be at a given time of life, yet
this is not a necessary human standard. It is artificial and
therefore should not be allowed to identify a person as "disabled"..
III. ADD/ADHD
The National Institute of Mental Health
reports that
"between 3 and 5 percent of children have ADHD, or approximately 2
million children in the United States.". Once again, we find
that a large percentage of human beings are being labeled as
"disordered".
What are the symptoms this so-called
disorder? There are three: (1) Inattention, (2) Hyperactivity and
(3) Impulsivity. Now by labeling these children as "disordered",
the assumption is that the expected behavior is natural for human
beings. What exactly is the behavior that is being expected of
these children? Let us consider the details of the symptoms.
First, with regard to hyperactivity and
impulsivity, the NIMH lists these problem behaviors--read them carefully
(emphases mine):
- Feeling restless, often fidgeting
with hands or feet, or squirming while seated
-
Running, climbing, or
leaving a seat in situations where sitting or quiet behavior is
expected
- Blurting out answers before hearing
the whole question
-
Having difficulty
waiting in line or taking turns.
Second, as for inattention, these are
listed:
- Often becoming easily distracted by
irrelevant sights and sounds
- Often failing to pay attention to
details and making careless mistakes
- Rarely following instructions
carefully and completely losing or forgetting things like toys, or
pencils, books, and tools needed for a task
- Often skipping from one uncompleted
activity to another.
At first, all of this may look simple.
However when we look more critically at these behaviors we find that the
public school program is being used as the norm by which children's
behavior is judged. These children can't sit well, wait in line
well, follow mechanical instructions for completing tasks, etc..
Why are these activities considered natural for children?
Moreover, if these activities are necessary,
we may wonder whether the child is simply immature or in need of
discipline. To help us understand whether the condition is
behavioral or "natural", health professionals look to see whether the
behavior negatively affects "at least two areas of a person's life.
What are these "areas"? The NIMH lists:
-
in the schoolroom
-
on the playground
-
at home
-
in the community
-
in social settings
The problem here is that the public school
provides an artificial environment of its own making for at least
two of these! Therefore, if a child doesn't perform up to the
"norm" in the schoolroom or on the playground, he's already reached his
two areas of life and is fit to be labeled as "handicapped".
What is equally troublesome is that one of
the key players in the diagnosis of the child's troubles are his
teachers. The NIMH explains (emphases mine):
The child’s teachers, past and present,
are asked to rate their observations of the child’s behavior on
standardized evaluation forms, known as behavior rating scales,
to compare the child’s behavior to that of other children the same
age. While rating scales might seem overly subjective, teachers
often get to know so many children that their judgment of how a
child compares to others is usually a reliable and valid
measure.
This does indeed seem overly subjective!
For a person to be defined as "handicapped", we would expect that the
problem was absolute. For example, blindness is not tested on a
relative scale, but absolutely: a blind person cannot see.
However, this "handicap" is merely relative to the group: a group
defined by biological age in a public school environment.
THE REAL DISORDER
The notion that all children are to be
judged as "normal" or "handicapped" based on a set of criteria
established by men without reference to God is the only real disorder
here. This entire perspective is based upon an atheistic,
mechanical worldview that does not seek to understand human beings in
reference to God's will, but in reference to their own understanding of
man's purpose.
The Christian faith teaches us that God has
a specific purpose for every human life and that He is intimately
acquainted with every one of us. He knows all the circumstances of
our births, our strengths and our weaknesses. Over and above all
these He calls us to fix our eyes upon Him and promises us, "My grace is
sufficient for you."
|
Understanding
ourselves with reference to other men rather than God
is the very definition of foolishness and the root of the
problem. |
As His creatures, we are to discern what it
is that He calls us to do, that is, our vocation. Only when we occupy
our place in God's will may we find true happiness for it is in
this--understanding ourselves with reference to God--that we become
wise. Wisdom then showers her blessings upon us, as the Proverbs
explain so beautifully.
Neither Revelation nor Reason teach us that
human beings are to be grouped and judged according to age. We are
not robots put together on an assembly line and then sent through
quality control to have the defects removed or retained. The
pressure to do this has grown out of the foolish plan to take children
away from their natural environment (the family), gather them together
in great numbers in an artificial environment (the school), and then
judge them relative to other members of their age groups. This is
unnatural and a source of error. The magnitude of this error has
led to false ideas and practices that now spiral out of control.
We are God's workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk
in them. Just as there are many parts of the body, all with a
different purpose, so God intends different works to be done by
different individuals, who are wisely equipped to do them as God wills.
The prerogative is His alone to set the standards for what a child
should be or not be. It is our duty not to "be what we want to be"
as the schools teach children, but to be what He wants us to be.
When order is thus restored there will be no
more talk of "learning disorders". We will learn what God wishes
for us to learn and we will learn it according to our own abilities and
with reference to our own vocations. Fathers will not judge their
children according to the expectations of the state curriculum experts,
but by those which wise Solomon taught:
"Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is man's all."
ORDER RESTORED
Obviously, we would not write this article
if we did not believe the CLAA provided an answer to this great problem.
After all, modern science did not discover learning disorders: it
created them. The classical liberal arts program sets Wisdom
and Goodness as its ultimate goals and provides flexibility for every
child to learn at their own pace. Science and mathematics are beat
back to their proper place, in subordination to sacred studies and God's
will is restored as the criteria for human behavior and achievement.
We do not doubt that within the frame of
reference in which most of these conversations exist there are real and
demonstrable differences among the abilities of students of the same
age. What we doubt is whether these differences really matter.
Moreover, we believe that many of them simply disappear when a
philosophically sound educational program is restored as it is in the
classical liberal arts curriculum.
Classical grammar studies relieve the
effects of dyslexia as the simple orthography of classical Latin and
Greek facilitate early reading and writing. The progressive study
of the liberal arts relieves the challenges of ADHD as children's time
in "school" is reduced, their attention is concentrated on fewer
subjects and all studies aim at one clear end. A properly
prioritized classical mathematics program avoids judging children by
their understanding of abstract mathematical concepts and leaves
abstract learning for its proper time.
In the end, we will find that God has
designed us perfectly for our purpose within His Church, and as for our
weaknesses, they will prove to be the means by which God is glorified as
His power is seen by all to be the source of our success. When we
embrace this freedom to be weak, and triumph despite our weaknesses, we
will sing with the Psalmist:
Not to us, LORD, not to us but to
your name give glory
because of your faithfulness and love.
Questions?
Comments? Send them to: mail@classicalliberalarts.com. |
