Service Learning: Criticisms

There are some critics of service learning. For various reasons, they believe that service learning does not work.

Criticisms of Service Learning

1. Neo-imperialism - Service learning can begin with a presupposition that the community is bad and that they need the students to "fix" it. This can have a shaming effect on the community and breed resentment over the long run.
2. Not academic - The activities themselves can sometimes lack the academic rigor that other curricular activities require. It is hard to justify making phone calls and planning an activity rather than reading a book.
3. Too isolated - Many of the projects are singular, isolated experiences that do not lead to long-term, sustainable change.
4. Not enough reflection - Many programs fail to engage students in deep thinking during the reflection. Thus, students end up summarizing what they did rather than delving deeply into the reflective process.
5. Reinforces stereotypes - If they are not careful, it can reinforce stereotypes (all Africans are poor, for example) In the activities themselves, there can be a tendency toward gender stereotypes or unintended reinforcement of hierarchichal structures.

Multiple Intelligences: Criticisms

CRITICISMS

1. Too many "intelligences" without enough science. For some, the addition of naturalistic and culinary intelligences are unrealistic to a classroom and do not seem to be a different way of information processing.
2. Why classify students? In other words, in the goal to reach all students, there is a certain danger in labelling students. If we tell a child that he is kinesthetic because he works on cars, it could simply be his socialization that led him to that point. When teachers make that assumption without knowing the science of multiple intelligences, we can accidentally stereotype students.
3. Knowledge doesn't fit into cute categories. The fact that we dice up intelligence into all these categories suggest a very Newtonian, modern view of knowledge. This denies the post-modern critique of fluidity and the newer sciences that break away from rigid classification.
4. It doesn't take account for the cultural and social changes that occur. For example, Neil Postman developed the theory that Western civilization began with an oral culture and shifted to a print (or text) culture after the printing press. This was followed by the emergence of a visual culture and now a digital culture. Is it any wonder, then, that students would be so visually-driven?
5. It leads to excuse-making. Rather than encouraging a student to develop another form of intelligence, teachers (or worse, parents) can use multiple intelligences as an excuse for failing to learn. In fact, this seems to be the most common critique of Multiple Intelligences: that it denies the fact that there are smarter students and that all students need the same skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. Those within the Core Curriculum movement are often the most vocal opponents to integrating Multiple Intelligences into instruction. Instead, they advocate a return to the traditional modes of instruction. A critic might quip, "A kid doesn't need to split a pie to learn fractions or hit a baseball to learn percentages."
6. Some have argued that multiple intelligences might be better understood using the older, Jungian archetypes and the newer ideas of the Myers-Briggs tests. For example, sensate and intuitive processing might be more accurate than the views that Gardner posits.
7. It can reinforce negative stereotypes associated with hereditary intelligence. While Gardner does not suggest an either / or approach to hereditary, the application is often that children are born with a specific intelligence, which some critics say reinforces stereotypes.

Critical Pedagogy: Criticisms

CRITICISMS OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

Criticisms
1. Ignores Virtues of Dominant Culture - Critical Pedagogy disregards the values implicit within social structures. For example, in its criticism of American Imperialism, critical pedagogy ignores the virtues of America. They miss the fact that our foreign intervention has liberated people and stopped genocide, even if it has also killed civilians and created totalitarian governments.
2. Critical Pedagogy Indoctrinates – Because they do not believe that education can be neutral, there is a subtle temptation to indoctrinate students. Critical theorists point out that the current system already indoctrinates and that critical theory at least allows students to develop their own convictions. However, critics of Critical Pedagogy feel that this undermines the work of parents, churches, family and other social institutions in instilling values among their children.
3. Limited in Scope – Critical theory makes sense in language arts and in social sciences. However, it is difficult to see how it can apply to math or science. Though there is some validity there, critical pedagogy could be applied in certain circumstances to math and science. For example, critical pedagogy encourages students to challenge assumptions, create hypothesis and test it with action. After all, Albert Einstein grew up in an oppressive learning environment and faced harsh rebukes because of his lack of conformity to rules. Yet this is precisely why he was able to discover the theory of relativity.
4. Hypocritical - Most adherants to Critical Pedagogy will be quick to attack Benjamin Franklin or Abraham Lincoln, but will be slow to criticize Malcom X or Che Guevara.

Responding to Criticisms
Perhaps the hardest barrier to overcome is critical theory’s association with Marxist dogma. With the fall of Communism, it would seem that there is not much of a place for critical pedagogy. However, many more “conservative” educators have redefined critical pedagogy. Neil Postman, for example, pioneered a new method of media studies, blending together Marshall McLuhan’s notion of the non-neutrality of technology with social sciences and literature.

I find it sad that critical pedagogy has been interpreted so narrowly by educators. In reality, it harmonizes well with other theories. For example, the use of dialogue and small group interaction fits well with cooperative learning. The notion of collective wisdom and a democratic approach meshes well with the Social Learning Theory. The idea of students thinking critically about society, about presuppositions and even about authority fit well with Bloom’s Taxonomy – especially in terms of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Moreover, the call to action, which is part of Freire’s learning cycle, involves Bloom’s idea of application.

Cooperative Learning: Criticisms

CRITICISMS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Cooperative Learning can have some drawbacks, especially if it is not applied correctly:

1. The use of competition: Whether this is between groups or within the group, competition tends to fight against collaboration. Often teachers will add this as an additional motivational factor only to watch the motivation move from intrinsic to extrinsic and the quality drop as result.
2. Classroom Management: If groups have not learned the specific procedures of Cooperative Learning, they can easily get off-task (hence the need for accountability) or get too noisy.
3. Group Think: Groups can reinforce misonceptions and engage in groupthink when members do not have a chance to challenge others. It creates a culture of conformity, which can be dangerous to any child's education.
4. Group Dysfunction: If groups are chosen too poorly, students at the bottom do no work while the students at the top do all the work. At times, this can be an issue of perfectionism at the top or a low sense of self-efficacy at the bottom. Other group dysfunction includes bullying, gossip, slander and avoidance.
5. Too complicated: Often times, teachers make Cooperative Learning too complicated. It might be an issue of creating elaborate roles or instructions that are too detailed. Simplicity is key to Cooperative Learning success.
6. Dependency on Groups: Students who are too accustomed to cooperative learning can have a hard time adjusting to learning environments where it is entirely independent. For example, they might have a hard time in college, when a professor stands up and lectures.
7. Not enough collaboration: Some critics have suggested that students need to develop roles in an authentic process and work collaboratively on a larger project without being confined to the procedures of cooperative learning. The chief criticism is that cooperative learning is not reflective of how true collaboration occurs in the real world.

Constructivism: Critcisms

FIVE CRITICISMS OF CONSTRUCTIVISMS

1. The world doesn't work that way. In other words, companies often require isolated, boring tasks, dutiful employees. Work doesn't have to be meaningful and motivation is almost always extrinsic. If things like bonuses and higher salary weren't motivational, why would companies still use them? In response to this, many constructivists point out that in the New Economy, things are shifting toward a more constructivist paradigm.
2. It can be watered down. Sometimes, in an effort to follow the process, to make things experiental or toreach the "whole student," constructivists can sacrifice parts of the curriculum.
3. It ignores the need for remedial work. There is a time and a place for drill and review and for targetted work on isolated skills.
4. Too much reliance on group work allows students to be lazy. It can also mean that they lose the individual drive to accomplish tasks. In some cases, group work can lead to a dangerous "group think."
5. Misinterpretations are common. For example, people confuse being active with actively engaged, using computers with mindtools, fun with intrinsic motivation. All of these can be dangerously applied in classroom settings.