The Misleading Hierarchy of Numbering and Pyramids

This week, I took a training for the Y because I want to teach some of their adult health classes.  In this course, there was a section called "levels of awareness."  Level 1 was simply being aware of yourself.  Level 2 was focused on one other.  Level 3 was focused on the room you are in, and level 4 is global awareness.  

Let's set aside that there should probably be several levels between the room your are in and the whole world. The instructor asked what our level of awareness should be during group problem solving sessions.  One of the participants answered, "Ideally, anything level 2 or above."  I resisted slightly because if you are thinking globally in the moment, you will not be able to pay attention to the people in the room with you. There are times for thinking globally, but that time is not DURING class.  Part of the reason this woman initially answered the way she did is that we all accidentally misinterpreted level 2 to read "one another" instead of "one other," a problem easily solved by adding a word to the end of the sentence - person (or individual).   But the other reason is our strange interpretation of numbered hierarchies.  As soon as we attach numbers to something, we all want to race up to the highest levels.

Enter all of the educational books.  Whether it is Bloom's taxonomy or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or the SAMR model, you have seen diagrams of pyramids or rows with numbered levels and been told to aim for the highest levels on the list.  I don't know if this is a natural human trait or a cultural Western one, but as soon as we see rankings, we want to be at the top as quickly and as frequently as possible.  

The problem with that thinking is that we tend to think less.  What was meant to deepen or lessons makes them shallow because we stop thinking about what our class needs.  We stop planning for a solid foundation.  We stop being responsive to formative assessment.  Instead, we take the mental shortcut that the higher level of challenge must be good for them and that all struggle is "productive struggle."  

It is worthy to note that we don't do this in other areas.  When I began taking weight lifting classes, my instructor did not say, "Load up that bar and struggle through it."  Instead, he said, "Go light until you get the form." and "See how it feels. Perhaps, you add an XS next week."  When a parent is seeing their child take their first steps, they don't immediately jump to, "Now, honey, here is the proper form for running marathons."  That would be absurd.  

When you are doing your lesson plans, don't take out all of your pyramids and choose activities that are all at the top.  Take the time to ask yourself some questions.  "Do my students have the knowledge required to think deeply about this topic?"  If not, you need to teach an introductory lesson to equip them with that knowledge.  (You can also blend this during class with interactive direct instruction in which you teach them some facts and then ask them to analyze something with them.). Ask yourself "How am I going to require my students to use this knowledge?"  If it is going to be plug it into one equation, it is likely worth putting it on a list.  If it is going to be use for problem solving the rest of the semester, it is worth having them memorize it.  As we have seen with the recent reading controversies, students needed to understand how words work before we set them loose on reading books on their own.  

This requires more thought than the mental shortcut of getting them to the highest levels of the pyramids, but it provides for better learning because you are giving students what they actually need.