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Seymour B. Sarason,
Ph.D. shares insights of his half-century career
(August/September
2006 Issue)
At 84 years old, one would think that Seymour B. Sarason, Ph.D.,
would slow down a bit. Over the course of his half-century career,
the Yale University Professor Emeritus of Psychology has published
44 books on education and he's not done yet. Last year, he published
his first novel and his 45th book, "Productive Learning: Science,
Art, and Einstein's Relativity in Educational Reform" (Corwin Press),
with an expected August release date.
Known for his extensive work in educational reform, Sarason received
the American Psychological Foundation's Gold Medal Award for Life
Contribution by a Psychologist in the Public Interest.
New England Psychologist's Catherine Robertson Souter spoke
with Sarason about his career thus far, his ideas about the problems
facing education and his future plans.
Q: From 1962 to 1970, you operated the Yale Psychoeducational
Clinic. What were the goals of the clinic?
A: I was director of the clinical training program at Yale when
I started the clinic in 1961. It was designed to work with teachers
in classrooms where they were experiencing problems. We worked where
the action was, where the problems were being manifested.
I was very much interested in the culture of the school - and
you have to be in it, not see it from your office. Under those circumstances,
you learn a lot about teachers and about how their training has
shaped them…usually for bad.
Q: And this hands-on approach led you to writing educational
reform books?
A: All of my books have been oriented towards one question:
'Why is it that, in the post-World War II period, every attempt
at a major improvement in our schools has failed?' I wrote the books
to explain different aspects of why that was true.
Q: Which of your books would be a good introduction to your
theories?
A: I'd recommend my book, "And What Do You Mean By Learning?"
They've got to understand what the differences are between a context
of productive or unproductive learning. For example, in a context
of productive learning you start where the learner is, not with
a prescribed, calendar-driven curriculum. And it requires of the
teacher a sensitivity to where the child is coming from.
I also wrote a book called "Teaching As A Performing Art'' and
if you just read that little book, you'll get what I mean. The poet
Yeats once said that education is not filling empty vessel, it's
lighting fires and that's the last thing that's lit in our classrooms.
Q: When you say 'selection' of teachers and administrators,
what does that mean?
A: Well, just because you want to be a doctor, that is not sufficient
reason for being allowed to be a doctor. It's the same for lawyers,
psychologists, etc., and it should be the same for educators. For
too long, schools of education have not been in the position of
being able to be selective because they don't have enough of a pool
to choose from.
Q: Have you seen any improvement in recent years?
A: There is no change at all. There have been attempts at improvements
here and there but it is basically what it has always been. The
improvements are more window dressing. They say, 'well, classes
have got to be smaller' but an average teacher with a class of 22
or 23 is going to be an average teacher with a class of 15 and a
lousy teacher with a class of 22, 23 is going to be a lousy teacher
with a class of 15. So this idea that small classes are the answer
is ridiculous.
Nothing is going to change unless the differences between productive
and unproductive learning are made clear and you radically transform
the schools of education.
In 1965, orally and in print, I predicted the downward course of
efforts to improve educational outcome and I've been 100% correct.
The latest is Bush's 'No Child Left Behind Act,' which is the worst
reform of them all.
Q: Why?
A: It is the grossest oversimplification of the differences
between productive and unproductive learning. I write at great lengths
where those two contexts of learning differ and the different consequences
they have.
You can't pass a law saying you are going to change the rules.
Where do you start? There are a number of starting points but the
one that's absolutely crucial is the selection and training of teachers
and administrators.
Research has shown that as children go from elementary to middle
to high school, their interest in and respect for school learning
steadily decreases. The average number of questions asked by students
in a 55-minute period is two. Classrooms are boring on average.
There are always exceptions. You can always find a classroom here
and there where the criteria for a context of productive learning
are evident. But it doesn't spread.
Q: Tell us about your latest book?
A: Why is it that 99.9 % of all college-educated people have
not the foggiest idea of what Einstein was grappling with and what
he did? Why do students stay away in droves from math and physics
courses?
The book explains how, if you take it seriously, the context of
productive learning opens up new possibilities. It is the best book
so far serving as an introduction, not a popularization, to what
Einstein was trying to understand and how he finally did it. The
book was written with a professor of particle physics. It has promotional
blurbs on the cover from a Nobel laureate in physics and two internationally
known physicists and two educators. There are practically no equations
in the book, except there's an extended appendix for those who want
to see the math of it.
Q: Let's talk about your novel: "St. James and Goldstein at
Yale." With all the work you've done in education, why now with
fiction?
A: I think I've said practically everything I wanted to say about
education.
Also, for me it was liberating to write a novel. I didn't have
to worry about what was true and what was not true. I didn't need
footnotes or a bibliography or an index.
Q: These are not historical characters?
A: No, they are not factual. They are composites. It's the story
of two fantastically different academics who meet for the first
time on the train from Grand Central to New Haven. One is an Episcopalian
anthropologist and the other is a Jew, a psychologist. The book
covers the forging of that relationship through to the end of their
lives with chapters on the House Un-American Activities Committee,
Vietnam, the Black Panthers, basically the 60's.
Q: How much of this is autobiographical?
A: You cannot write fiction and not be in almost all the characters
in your head.
I was contacted by House on Un-American Activities Committee but
I didn't go. They can subpoena you, but they didn't.
The main theoretical reason I wrote the book is that I wanted to
show how relationships between people are influenced by what is
happening in the wider world - and as the world changes, they change
and their community and relationships change.
Q: Do you think you'll write more?
A: I've written a second novel. That novel is about a woman in the
first class of women admitted to Yale College in 1969.
It's in draft form and I hope to get it published…if I live long
enough…
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