In the past year or so there has been much discussion about the use of cognitive load theory and how teachers can best use it in the classroom. John Sweller is the godfather of cognitive load theory and here he is talking to the TES about this work. Reading the articles and watching the debates online, we can appreciate the idea that we should not overload our students in order for good learning to take place.
However I believe that the problem we are faced with is that much of the cognitive strain put on the most under-performing students in schools will not have anything to do with the classroom. Therefore whatever individual schools do, they will have very little impact, no matter what the evidence says.
In the recent bestseller by Rutger Bregman called ‘Utopia for Realists’ he looks at the work done by Elder Shafir, a Psychologist at Princeton University and Sendhil Mullainathan, an economist at Harvard on the science of scarcity. They have done research that shows that those in poverty are likely to make bad decisions due to, what they describe as a ‘scarcity mentality’. If you are constantly thinking about where your next meal is coming from or whether you’ve got enough money for the bus home, you are going to make bad decisions. Ultimately poverty makes you less smart. In fact Shafir says that their research shows poverty has a negative impact on IQ of about 13-14 points, the equivalent of losing a night’s sleep or the effects of alcoholism.
Therefore it is easy to understand why growing up poor leads to two years’ less educational attainment, as a 2013 study in the US showed. The researchers concluded that investments in education won’t really help, the key is getting them above the poverty line first!
Rutger Bregam also looks at the work of Jane Costello from Duke University who has been researching the mental health of youngsters in North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains since 1993. Her results show that those growing up in poverty were much more prone to behavioural problems than other children. This is unsurprising, as research as far back as 1855 has pointed this out but what she wanted to find out was whether there was a genetic reason or whether it was a consequence of poverty. To cut a long story short, she had the opportunity to test this out when a casino was set up in 1997 that was owned and run by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. From 2001 their incomes rose from $500 a year to $6000 a year and a quarter of the students she studied were from the Cherokee tribe. Her research showed that those students’ behavioural problems dropped by 40% (and put them at the same rate as those who had never known poverty), crime rates fell, drug and alcohol use fell and their school scores improved enormously. Her work has shown that the earlier students left poverty, the better their teenage health was. In fact Professor Costello showed that an extra $4000 per annum resulted in an additional year of education attainment by the age of 21. We can see how this links to Shafir and Mullainathan’s work – if you are not continually thinking about money, you can use your ‘scarce’ thinking time in a more productive way.
We can see how poverty can consume students so much that even if we plan lessons to cognitive load theory perfection, that still doesn’t mean they will not get cognitive overload due to all the other problems they are having to think about. Throw in the odd non-uniform day, the cost of school lunches, paid educational visits and so on, you can see how a school day can make their brains practically explode with worry and how easy little learning will take place, despite the evidence informed teacher’s good intentions.
I believe that for too long the educational profession has been quiet about societal issues but if we are really going to improve education, much of the work in schools (including cognitive load theory) will be relatively pointless if we don’t address them and support policies that help those most in need.
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