Zones of Learning

Following is a little piece I wrote for my company newsletter. Kinda lame? Maybe.

According to the educational theorist Lev Vygotsky learning occurs in what has been called the “zone of proximal development” or ZPD. This zone refers to the relationship between a student’s current level of ability and a proposed direction of development. For our boys learning in the ZPD means being engaged in activities that are difficult enough that abilities must grow to accomplish them. At the same time, tasks should be easy enough that students can experience success. By working in the ZPD students can make efficient progress because they are both challenged and reinforced for their exertions.

Although this idea is pretty straight forward, the ZPD is not always an easy thing to find for students and teachers on Penikese Island. Because many of our students have missed out on school for one reason or another, they are frequently behind in their academic skills. Students are usually very aware of this and often feel a great deal of shame when asked to perform feats of scholarship that fall a certain level below that accomplished by their peers. Rather than feel this shame boys will often refuse to participate in school work especially when they believe that the teacher is treating them like they are “dumb.” This can complicate a teacher’s attempts to discover a student’s ZPD and can effectively make that zone smaller.

The story of Randy makes a good example of how with certain students the zone can seem to disappear completely. Randy came to us having ditched a lot of school and spending time in programs with little or no classroom learning. As a result he had fallen significantly behind in his math skills. Although he was of the age to be in 9th grade his math level was more consistent with 5th or 6th grade. Randy was given instruction and work appropriate to his ability level but would at times run into problems that were novel or confusing in some way. Whenever this happened, Randy would feel too ashamed to ask for help and would instead start yelling at the teacher. When the teacher figured out that the difficulty of the math was resulting in this behavior he offered the student an opportunity to review earlier math concepts and develop automaticity in areas that would make the current work less difficult. Again, Randy refused to do work that was easier in order to protect his self-esteem from the implication that he was “dumb.” On Penikese teachers acquire the challenge of finding ways to help students make academic progress despite limitations imposed by the boys’ preexisting perceptions, expectations, and emotional situations. It is among our goals to use this process in school as an instrument for helping students make progress in their overall treatment.

There is another zone of effective teaching that can be diminished on Penikese. In accordance with state and district requirements and with a desire to help our students pass the MCAS and obtain high school diplomas, our curriculum seeks to satisfy the goals of the Massachusetts Learning Frameworks. However, we can see from our students’ failures in other school settings that the Frameworks themselves are inadequate enticement for our boys to exert themselves in learning these skills. As a consequence, Penikese teachers work hard to find ways of meeting state goals in ways that have valence for our students. In other words the zone we try to work in is the overlap between student interests and the requirements of the Frameworks.

Unfortunately our students often come to us with a form of tunnel vision and have difficulty finding interest in any but a narrow range of things in life, let alone school. It has been known for Penikese Island teachers to prepare elaborate lessons loaded with learning opportunities that meet Frameworks goals that die in the classroom due to student apathy. Sometimes teachers create lessons with aspects that are so engaging that the real learning goals are frustrated. A recent example of this involved a teacher’s attempt to use Play-Doh in a lesson about fractions. The modeling material itself was so interesting to the students that they failed to engage in the math lesson preferring to create objects from their imaginations.

In spite of the difficulties Penikese teachers strive to meet these challenges and provide engaging and effective learning experiences for our students. We hope that in doing so we can enlarge our students’ zones of learning. As we succeed minds will grow and our boys lives will obtain chances for greater satisfaction.