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Susan Rich Sheridan, Ed.D.
University of Massachusetts, 1990
Copyright ©1990 by Sheridan, Susan Rich. All rights reserved.

You may download a pdf version of the entire dissertation from this site (Caution: This is a very large (13.2 megabyte) file, so may take a long time to download). Please refer to the pdf version of the dissertation for the entire bibliography and references.

Neuroconstructivism , or “neuro-constructivism,” is a term invented by Susan R. Sheridan in her dissertation, Drawing/Writing: A brain research-based writing program designed to develop descriptive, analytical and inferential thinking skills at the elementary school level (published in February, 1990). Neuroconstructivism places the emphasis on the child’s brain as the active agent in learning. It shares with Piagetian and Vygotskian thought the understanding that the mind of the child is qualitatively different from that of older children and adults, and that knowlege, intelligence and morality spring from the child’s actions, and that this “child-action” has the quality of being playful and experimental.

Children not only construct knowledge, intelligence and morality but they construct their brains on neural levels through thought and action. The point to remember as parents and educators is that the networks children construct determine present and future capabilities for thought and action.

The brain is alone and would be very nearly inert or at least quiescent—a shut-in—were it not for its body’s sensory systems. Each brain constructs its world from experience. That world may be like or very unlike other brains’ constructions. The position of the atheist existentialist is relevant to neuroconstructivism: all things are allowed. Still, if we accept the atheist existentialist position, each brain’s moral or ethical decisions must be made in the context of the common weal, or the good of all. This paradoxical freedom is like that of the Christian existentialist who worships a god “in whose service is perfect freedom.” In a society comprised of many cultures, belief systems, and codes of behavior, when it is unclear what behaviors are and are not allowable, a strategy for determining right action based on compositions in drawing provides a practical approach to ethical decision-making .

The mind might fragment in despair were it not for integrative activities. Dance and song and painting—the applied and performing arts—allow the human spirit to feel as if it were one with creation. Human interaction, on the other hand—communal worship, collaborative productions, parenting and partnering—allows the human spirit to feel as if it were at one with humanity. The brain’s aloneness is its protection and its vulnerability, its joy and its sorrow, its pleasure and its pain. The more lively, the more attentive, the more efficient the brain becomes in its searches, the more expressive it becomes in its outreachings, the more integrated that brain will be within itself, and within the context of the world it constructs for itself.

“The world is infinitely complex, and an individual brain can only know the little that it can create within itself. It turns out that this view is well known to philosophers....Now neurodynamicists can show experimentally that it is true....As existentialist philosophers from Kierkegaard to Heidegger and Sartre have concluded, each of us constructs our self by our own actions, and we know our self as it is revealed to us in our actions” (Freeman, 1997, 69).

The research and the study focus on the problem of dissociated learning. Why do students fail to connect with knowledge?

The purposed of the study are: to summarize research pertaining to brain growth; to describe educational approaches and tactics consistent with this research; to test a brain research-based program designed to connect children to knowledge.

The study rests on two research-based assumptions: strategies that connect dysfunctional or developmentally delayed students with thinking and learning will connect children in general with thinking and learning; educational activities integrating spatial information processing with linguistic processing will develop thinking skills more effectively than programs that do not.

The apparent reason for the success of a spatial/linguistic program is that cross-modal activities mirror, or model, the integrated processes of the brain, impacting attention, emotion and logical operations.

Increasing numbers of students fail to connect with writing. Many of these students can draw. Can drawing be used to connect these students to writing as thinking?

The hypothesis is that a cross-modal activity combining drawing (a spatial activity) with writing (a linguistic activity) will develop descriptive, analytical and inferential thinking skills more effectively than a writing program that does not. The study targets children who receive special services, including those with language- and attention-related problems.

To test the hypothesis, a quasi-experimental/control study was designed, involving 200 students in grades K, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in intact classrooms in two elementary schools. Approximately 2,000 pieces of data revealed a significant effect for the treatment, Drawing/Writing, on writing and thinking skills in the experimental group, including students who receive special services.

The conclusions of the research are that brain research has relevance for education and that cross-modal activities provide antidotes to dissociated learning. The conclusion of the study is that, as a writing program, Drawing/Writing has broad usefulness and appeal.

Pages 81 - 83, section 2.4.10 Constructivism
Please refer to the pdf version of the dissertation for the entire bibliography and references.

The combined research suggests that a good constructivist activity could well combine drawing with writing. It is possible that the contemporary child is crippled in his sensory-motor abilities to know as a result of an extensive system of second-hand knowing. From infancy on, second-hand knowing involves television, videos, computer games. Furthermore, the child spends six hours a day in educational systems where the emphasis is more often on teacher instruction rather than on student construction. The contemporary child may be crippled most particularly for knowing through touch. A Montessorian constructivism would design activities to put children back in touch with their thinking, just as Montessori designed activities in the early 1900’s to get children quite literally in touch with writing and reading.

The constructivist Emilia Ferreriro differs from Maria Montessori in her understanding of the nature of writing, and of reading. For Ferreiro, tracing or copying is not writing, nor is associating spoken language, in a kind of sound-to-letter or letter-to-letter deciphering, reading (Ferreiro, 1979, p. 272). Ferreiro feels that children come to school knowing a good deal about language (7). Traditional education is “based on two assumptions, both false: that six-year old children do not know how to distinguish phonemes…and that alphabetic writing is a phonetic transcription of oral language” (10). “These thinking children play an active role in learning written language” (12). Ferreiro maintains that contemporary psycholinguistics “coincides (although unintentionally) with the conception of learning sustained…by Piaget (9). By this Ferreiro means that, despite the fact that Piaget did not write about reading and writing, within his theoretical framework it is possible to “introduce written language as an object of knowledge and the learner as a thinking individual…introduc(ing) the notion of assimilation” (15).

Ferreiro sets about discovering how children construct the writing process. Writing is not copying, but a “conceptual task…Although far removed from conventional calligraphy and orthography,…children begin to write (by producing) visible marks on paper, putting into play their hypotheses about the very meaning of graphic representations” (21). Children produce not only early drawings, but early text, using curvy lines, or discontinuous lines (178) which are precursors of writing. Because their names are so important, children “include signs representing their own names in their drawings” (178). Drawing/Writing also observes a nearly simultaneous development of child-differentiated drawing and writing marks.

Ferreiro suggests that, at first, children “move back and forth between picture and text with ease” (Ferreiro, 1979, p. 186). Ferreiro sees only “momentary” difficulties with differentiating writing from drawing in the psychogenesis of child writing (185). Children believe that “drawing supports writing,” and that it is “a complement to it” (186). Drawing “guarantees the meaning” of the writing as if writing alone could not say any specific thing (186). Whether “drawing is an escape from the difficult task of writing or whether drawing serves a certain function in relation to writing, the data leads us to favor the second interpretation” (186),

Contributions from Piaget to the kind of constructivism that would tally with the combined research are these: Piaget suggested that, “No matter what the content domain, young children think in qualitatively different ways from older children and adults” (Devries, 1987, p. 18). The neo-, or, more properly, neuro-constructivist would ascribe the differences between children’s and adults’ to fundamental developmental differences in thinking styles, and would agree that teaching children in ways that adults have learned to think may create learning disabilities (Devries, 1987). This point of view coincides with Montessori (1912/1964), and of Emilia Ferreiro. Ferreiro writes, in connection with the traditional teaching of writing, “Attempting to unveil the mysteries of the alphabetic code, teachers proceed...from simple to complex...defined in terms of adult notions...The underlying assumption is that all children are prepared to learn the code...school is directed toward those who know...The others fail, accused by the school of having incapacity to learn, or ‘learning disabilities’...What is only a difference in the timing of the child's conceptual development is viewed as a deficit” (Ferreiro, 1979/1982, p. 280).

The pedagogical consequences of Fereiro's understanding, she says, are that reading and writing must not be taught mechanistically, “as something foreign to children” (282), but as something they actively construct, by being allowed “to reinvent the written language to make it their own” (285). Key to Ferreiro's understanding of writing is “the writing system itself permits new processes of reflection which cannot easily take place without it” (284).

A neuro-constructivist program would insist upon developmentally appropriate, interactive, child-centered approaches to thinking and learning. Drawing would be combined with writing to encourage reflective thinking and knowing.

Page 179, section 5.7 Conclusions from the Research and from the Study
Please refer to the pdf version of the dissertation for the entire bibliography and references.

Research in neurobiology (Bloom et al., 1985; Changeux, 1985; Gottlieb, 1978; Harwerth et al., 1986; Haskins et al., 1978; Otternbacher et al., 1987), and in education (Piaget, 1960, 1962; Ayres, 1974, 1977; Levine et al., 1977; Read, 1956; Freeman, 1980; Freeman & Cox, 1985; Pauls, 1988) explores and describes the ways in which intelligence develops through experience, over time.

Research in neurobiology (Rosenzweig & Bennett, 1978; Changeux, 1985; Diamond, 1988; Huttenlocher, 1988), and in education (Piaget, 1960, 1962; Papert, 1980; Perkins, 1981, 1984; Read, 1956; Weir, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1982; Brigham, 1974; Holt, 1967; Howard, 1971; Kegan, 1982; Kemp, 1987; Zinnsser, 1988) suggest that the kind of experience that develops intelligence best is exploratory learning.

Research in neurobiology (Allport, 1985; Johnson, 1988; Fox, 1985, 1988; Telzrow, 1988), and in artificial intelligence, including the use of the computer as a tool to think with, as well as a model for thought (Minsky, 1975; McCormick, 1979; Papert, 1980; Weir, 1980, 1981, 1982; Winograd & Flores, 1986) suggest that the kind of exploratory experience that is most effective for developing intelligence is cross-modal in character.

The combined research suggests that it is the cross-modal character of a highly visual activity like Drawing/Writing, that is particularly successful. Neurobiology and artificial intelligence provide an understanding, and appreciation for the appropriateness, and the power of cross-modal processing.

Pages 187 - 189, section 5.11 Profile of a New Approach: “Neuro-Constructivism”
Please refer to the pdf version of the dissertation for the entire bibliography and references.

Some of the most cogent contributions to a sensory knowledge-based theory of early education are neurobiological. The contributions have to do with enrichment, vision, attention, and cross-modality. If these contributions from neurobiology are combined with parallel understandings in education, it should be possible to design a program that integrates both sets of understandings. A logical name for such a program is “neuro-constructivism.” Neuro-constructivism suggests that interactive learning constructs both brain and mind.

Neuro-constructivism would be in agreement with certain aspects of 19th century medical, and educational thinking about the education of the deaf, the mute, and the deficient developed by Itard, and Sequin (Montessori, 1912; Lance, 1976). It agrees with the twentieth century Russian medical and educational thought propounded by Luria (1979) and Vygotsky (1978). It is in accord with Maria Montessori’s thought (1912). Neuro-constructivism also appears to be in line with several aspects of Piagetian theory (1955/1959). Taken together, this series of connections suggest that the work of Itard, Sequin, Vygotsky, Luria, Montessori, Piaget, Orton (1937), and Lowenfeld (1964), culminating in the present-day philosophy of the Italian preschool director, Loris Malaguzzi, forms a tradition. This tradition could be called “What’s Good for the ‘Deficient’ is Even Better for the ‘Normal,’” or “Special Education in the Regular Classroom,” or “Neuro-Constructivism,” or “The Thinking Child.”

The common denominator of this ad hoc tradition is an acknowledgement of the usefulness of touch to knowledge, most particularly in the young. An appreciation of the general usefulness of the kind of knowing that is informed by touch brings these papers full circle to the definition of art provided in Chapter 1 (From page 5, section 1.3, of this dissertation, “Development of an Idea:” “The simplest, most accessible definition of art I have come up with, after eight years of searching, and a lifetime of doing it, is that art is knowledge informed by touch. Art is intelligence informed by the senses. This kind of knowing, through direct interaction, is natural to children. This kind of sensory knowledge appears to be the bedrock of mature thought (Piaget, 1960; Montessori, 1912/1969; Papert, 1980; Arnheim, 1969; Lowenfeld, 1964).”). When taken together, strands of neurobiological and educational theory provide strong arguments for the everyday inclusion of the arts with academics for the sake of encouraging the kind of personal knowledge through literal and figurative approaches to touch that are the basis for effective mature thought. The kind of knowing that is informed by touch should be an integral part of curricula designed to encourage thinking skills in children.

5.11.1 Tenets of Neuro-Constructivism

The research and the study recommend that the following be tenets of a “neuro-constructivist” approach to education; such an approach operationalizes an intertheoretic integration between neurobiology and education;

5.11.1.1 Active Problem-Solving Causes Brain Growth

Let the child take responsibility for brain building. Education should provide visually arousing activities. Teachers should underscore feelings of control and self-esteem. Teachers should work from what a child knows and is good at, to what the child can know and can be good at. Children learn to scaffold learning skills.

5.11.1.2 Attention is Both Automatic and Self-Regulatory

Teachers can design effective attentional activities, including those that are effective with children who are on attention-remediating drugs (Shaywitz, 1984). Good learning activities may provide a nonpharmacological approach to learning, impacting central nervous system imbalances and morphology in positive ways. Greater central nervous system elaboration may help to mitigate attentional deficits in general. The research suggests that an enriched environment can cause cortical, and possibly remedial growth (Telzrow, 1988).

5.11.1.3 Children Move In and Out of Risk

Remediate before it is necessary. Children's brains are dynamical processes. At some point in time, every brain is at some critical stage, at risk for developmental lags, dysfunction, or damage (Brazelton, 1969; Denhoff, 1981; Diamond, 1988; Haskins, 1978). It may be possible to tune up a weak or dysfunctional attentional, emotional, or visual system through carefully designed educational activities.

5.11.1.4 Learning is a Lifetime Possibility from a Neural Point of View

Education should include curricular activities that have inherent appeal and lifetime usefulness. Education should honor the regular child as well as the special needs child and the talented and gifted child. It should honor the adolescent as well as the pre-school and elementary age child. In connection with language use and general thinking skills, the adolescent, too, is growing and changing (Kuhn, 1979).

5.11.1.5 The Immature Human Central Nervous System is Plastic

The human central system is plastic; it is trainable in habits and strategies for thinking that may stabilize as habits of thought. Teachers should not sell short or give up on the slower student. Early training may reap intellectual benefits later.

5.11.1.6 The Young Human Central Nervous System Represents Thought Using Symbols

If the young human central nervous system makes and uses a variety of non-verbal and verbal symbols to represent experience, then experience and practice with a variety of symbol systems should be encouraged. Educators must recognize, allow, and prepare the way for children to grow comfortable and skillful with a variety of symbol systems.

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