It’s
Not Scaffolding, If You Never Take It Down!
by Jack Farrell
Consultant Teacher
One particular term in educational
jargon has received wide circulation of late, especially in discussions of
reading and reading strategies. The
literature is replete with references to scaffolding the learning, as in
building a support system for learners that will facilitate the mastery of a
particular skill, often related to reading and reading comprehension. I am intrigued by the term and its
metaphorical origin and possible implications.
I have encountered it in oral and written contexts for the past several
years, and have been told that it was popularized by Vygotsky in his research
on learning. However, scaffolding, in a
metaphorical sense, has a long history, which I have been able to trace back to
the New Criticism and its labor of love with T.S. Eliot’s inscrutable
“Wasteland,” a poem which never seems to fully exhaust the mental faculties of
any graduate seminar in American literature.
In his article entitled “The Poetry
of T.S. Eliot,” first published as part of the Principles of Literary
Criticism in 1926, I.A. Richards, by way of an attempt to explain the
absence “of any coherent intellectual thread upon which the items of the poem
are strung,” makes the following argument:
The only intellectual activity required takes
place in the realisation of the separate items.
We can, of course, make a ‘rationalisation’ of the whole experience, as
we can of any experience. If we do, we
are adding something which does not belong to the poem. Such a logical scheme is, at best, a
scaffolding that vanishes when the poem is constructed. But we have so built into our nervous systems
a demand for intellectual coherence, even in poetry, that we find a difficulty
in doing without it. (North, pp.
170-171)
Richards’ use of the term here, a
temporary structure, perhaps a rationalization, external to the poem, but
necessary to intellectually grasp it, is completely consistent with its
contemporary educational usage and quite instructive for our purposes. The use of a scaffold to facilitate learning
is consistent with the didactic nature of instruction and appears an
unavoidable pedagogical tool, which our brains are hard-wired to employ in
order to make sense of difficult and abstract ideas.
Miriam Webster gives us the
following definition on its website:
Main Entry: scaf·fold
Pronunciation: 'ska-f&ld
also -"fOld
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old North French escafaut, modification
of (assumed) Vulgar Latin catafalicum, from Greek kata- cata- +
Latin fala siege tower
Date: 14th century
1 a : a temporary or movable platform for workers (as
bricklayers, painters, or miners) to stand or sit on when working at a height
above the floor or ground b : a platform on which a criminal is
executed (as by hanging or beheading) c : a platform at a height
above ground or floor level
2 : a supporting framework
The etymology from the Latin and
Greek, a “siege tower,” and, certainly definition 1b: “a platform on which a
criminal is executed (as by hanging or beheading),” are a bit terrifying, but
even these definitions point toward the creation of a structure for temporary
use, which is consistent with the main definition, “a temporary or movable
platform for workers,” and the secondary definition: “a supporting
framework.” In the classroom, the
workers are the learners, and the teachers design and erect scaffolds for
temporary student use. But therein lies
the problem!
As a consultant teacher I have spent
countless hours observing the practice of beginning teachers in my district,
most of whom are products of the latest educational theories and quite adept at
scaffolding learning and talking knowledgeably about it. I have also scheduled observation days where
my beginning teachers witness veteran teachers in their own version of
scaffolding learning and the results have been much the same. The scaffolding is erected, but it is never
taken down. To continue with the
metaphor, a building is constructed with the scaffolding permanently
attached. Educators build supports
systems for learning, but they never take them down.
At some point, you have to ask what
the end result of education is. I would
posit that the end result is an independent learner, who has the skill to know
where, and how, to locate the answers to his questions, and who is also a
self-starter. If this is indeed the end
result, then all pedagogy should point this direction. I would further posit that the end result of
permanent scaffolding is a dependent learner who must be externally started and
who will seek a teacher or surrogate to answer all his questions.
A decade after I. A. Richards,
Cleanth Brooks, in his own attempt to solve the mysteries of the Wasteland,
updated slightly this sense of scaffolding to unlock the puzzles of poetry:
I
prefer not to raise here the question of how important it is for the reader of
the poem to have an explicit intellectual account of the various symbols, and a
logical account of their relationships.
It may well be that such rationalization is not more than a scaffolding
to be got out of the way before we contemplate the poem itself as a poem. But many readers (including myself) find the
erection of such a scaffolding valuable – if not absolutely necessary – and if
some readers will be tempted to lay more stress on the scaffolding than they
properly should, there are perhaps more readers who will be prevented from
getting at the poem at all without the help of such a scaffolding. (North, p. 185)
Brooks here acknowledges that the scaffolding is
not only necessary for some readers, but may, in fact, be perpetually necessary
to make any sense of the poem at all. At
this point, of course, it ceases to be scaffolding, and simply takes the place
of the poem; the criticism replaces the art.
If the scaffolding becomes permanent, for some at the graduate level,
for a work of art as complex as Eliot’s Wasteland, then might it also
become mortared to the building it erects for primary and secondary students in
multiple disciplines representing myriad concepts? And is there a danger in that?
In his Poetics, Aristotle, rather
inductively, examined the extant drama and generated a description of the
elements he saw common to these plays.
The results were both his well-known theory of tragedy, with its
high-born hero undergoing a fall through a tragic flaw which simultaneously
instills in the audience a sense of pity and fear, as well as his three
unities, of time and place and action.
Over the centuries, his description of Greek drama became a prescription
for future western dramaturgy, leading to the ridiculous constraints of the
well-made play. The action must take
place in real time [in the manner of the Fox television show “24 Hours”] in a
place one could travel to in 2 hours, with a corresponding unity of plot. And it was not until the 20th
century that Arthur Miller, in his preface to Death of a Salesman, was
able to expand the boundaries of the tragic hero, to add Willy Loman, a poor
traveling salesman, to a list which, heretofore, contained only the likes of
Oedipus, Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet.
Aristotle’s observations became western dogma, to the detriment of drama
for some 2,000 years. What transpired
with Aristotle’s theories becomes an object lesson for current pedagogy. A good idea is offered somewhat
descriptively, perhaps even tentatively, and soon is written
prescriptively. Pedagogy becomes dogma
and the quiver, which should contain many arrows, becomes restricted to a few
which must be shot first.
I use this example not to indict western literary
scholarship; on the contrary, the path from innovation to dogma is a well-worn
one. I use it as an object lesson. We should be on-guard against
institutionalizing any attractive theory, especially in education, where
continuous assessment of the needs of the learner should drive instructional
decisions. There should be no default
strategies. To return to the
metaphor: all scaffolding should be
temporary. Never erect a platform for
learning without a simultaneous strategy for dismantling it as soon as the
learner can stand on his own. Assess
relentlessly for independence.
I would like to offer up some examples of
permanent scaffolding. Madeline Hunter
is often credited with formulating the 7-step lesson plan. I would assert that any lesson plan design is
a piece of scaffolding whose purpose is to support the beginning teacher in
embedding the cognitive steps in conceiving of, and presenting, such a
lesson. But in many areas of the
educational world, this lesson design has been canonized, offered an imprimatur
by the educational establishment. Is
there any value in a secondary student being subjected to an anticipatory set 6
hours in a row times 180 days of school?
The 7-step lesson is one possible design, out of many, and will work
well occasionally, especially when it creates a nice fit between the needs of
the student and the content of the learning.
The master teacher, having embedded the cognitive steps in multiple
lesson conceptions, should certainly be free to craft a lesson which fits no
particular design. The lesson may, in
fact, be a singularity.
Another piece of scaffolding mortared permanently
to the building is the day’s agenda posted on the front board. There are administrators who will write up a
teacher who does not have his daily agenda up on the day of his
observation. While posting an agenda
serves well for many meetings and lessons, as an advance organizer to
cognitively prepare for and guide the learning, it is as well a scaffold that
should be designed for temporary use. It
does not work in all situations, especially when the lesson design calls for a
more inductive approach. An inquiry
lesson can be utterly spoiled by the steps involved being posted in
advance. Some teachers relish the
students not knowing exactly where they are going during a given class
period. The absence of an agenda, in
this particular case, perfectly suits the learner’s needs.
A wonderful example of this problem is a language
arts lesson dealing with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. This sonnet demands an inductive
approach. For Shakespeare to achieve his
effect, which is really the point, and for the teacher to meet his goal, which
is a happy confluence of needs, the students must see the sonnet first and
wrestle with its fascinating imagery and notions, without the teacher, or the
textbook, “connecting to his prior
knowledge,” or an agenda forecasting the nature of the learning. This sonnet is discovery learning at its best
in language arts.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is as follows:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red.
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hairs be wires, then black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks.
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And
yet, by Heaven, I think my love as rare
As
any she belied with false compare.
Nearly all students have some
conception of Shakespeare as a poet or dramatist. Calling on this prior knowledge, which
normally consists of overblown language from emotion racked characters, and
something to do with tortured lovers, most students are stunned, bewildered,
appalled, or, quite commonly, a mixture of these and other emotions, in
response to this poem. Since the imagery
is so stark and accessible, few students have any difficulty understanding what
Shakespeare is saying. A good question
to start them writing or thinking is, “what does Shakespeare’s mistress look
like?” The better follow-up question is
“Is Shakespeare’s mistress beautiful, homely, or something in-between?” This question moves them from recounting
specific details in the poem to generalizing off these details. Invariably a small cadre within the class concludes
that she is homely on the outside, but beautiful on the inside, and they try to
feel good about this interpretation, although most females admit they would not
like their boyfriends to think of them in this way and would certainly not like
to receive such a poem. It often takes
considerable questioning from the teacher and intense focus on the ending
couplet to turn the sonnet on its head by exposing its ironic tone. And it is certainly better if the students
can move there on their own. But, even
if they cannot, they should have to do the hard thinking, even if it stalls and
leaves them lost.
This is an assignment in British Literature,
normally found in 11th or 12th grade textbooks, and
eventually, a student or two might postulate that the target of the sonnet is
not Shakespeare’s mistress at all, but his rival, or fellow, poets, who
Shakespeare cleverly accuses of hyperbole by countering with his own gritty
realism. No matter how much in love with
your girlfriend you are, she walks upon the ground. She does not really float through the air
like a goddess. The ardent passion of
Francesco Petrarch and Dante Alighieri, who
popularized the courtly love sonnet, had become so conventionalized by the
English Renaissance that Shakespeare felt the need to mock it with the whimsy
of this anti-Petrarchan sonnet. The
better students begin to realize that there may not even have been a girl in
Shakespeare’s mind when he wrote this piece of mockery, just as there may not
have been a girl in mind for the sonneteers he mocks. It is really the conventions that are under
assault and Shakespeare wants to impress his fellow poets with his wit and not
anger them with his malice. After 129
sonnets, Shakespeare was taking a break to have a little fun with the form.
With the right class and a little luck, this can
be one of the best discovery lessons of the year. The reason I detail it here is that the
latest textbook writers, heeding the call to scaffold learning and connect to
students’ prior knowledge, have front-loaded all the necessary information to
spoil any chance for intellectual discovery on the part of the student. They have always spoiled things with the
questions they write at the end of literary pieces. Now they have moved this pernicious material
in front of the poem or story or essay.
Here is the way Sonnet 130 is introduced in the newest version of the
Holt, Rinehart, Winston series:
This sonnet ridicules the fashionable, exaggerated
metaphors some of Shakespeare’s fellow poets were using to describe the women
they loved: Your eyes are suns that set
me on fire, your cheeks are roses, your breasts are snowballs. Such metaphors, known as conceits, are
traceable to Petrarch, but by 1600 they had become, through overuse, tiresome
or laughable. (Note that the word mistress in this poem simply meant
“girlfriend” in the Renaissance.) (Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1997, p.
229)
Let me re-iterate. This passage, supplied by the editors of the
textbook, PRECEDES the poem. On the
surface this should be evidence of a contempt on the part of textbook writers
for the intelligence, curiosity and ingenuity of high-school upper-classmen, if
it is necessary to front-load such crucial information. But, sadly, it is not contempt that motivates
them. They are merely responding to the
latest prescriptive educational theory that calls for the activation of prior
knowledge. The paragraph that precedes
the poem then becomes the prior knowledge the student will link to while reading
the poem. This is educational theory run
amuck and scaffolding which should never have been erected.
I will offer one final example of
permanent scaffolding. One of the
hottest strategies in use concerning reading comprehension is what is termed
the “read-aloud.” Typically, the teacher
reads to the class from material the students do not have in front of them and
which is written at the instructional level for the class, that is, the
majority of the class could not read this material with satisfactory
comprehension without the support of a teacher, or aide or parent. There is strong research about the efficacy
of this strategy. It models good reading
habits, especially if it is paired with another strategy called a
“think-aloud”, wherein the teacher pauses to discuss the thought process
attendant to reading comprehension, for instance questioning the text or
predicting where the text will go. One
strong argument in favor of the read-aloud is that the teacher can move through
challenging material and, over the course of the year, read perhaps as many as
6-8 books to students that they would not have read on their own. But there are drawbacks to this
strategy. Often this material is not in
front of the students. They are not
following along with the teacher in their own text. While they may enjoy the books and retain
essential information, the actual growth in their own reading skill is minimal,
especially the longer the strategy is employed.
I am not arguing that you cannot learn this way; the oral model is
deeply ingrained in the western educational system. I am arguing that the pay-off in independent
reading skill is rather minimal. There
are likely to be a number of students in any given class who could master this
material independently. How much more
valuable would it be for these students to do so, rather than to be passively
read to?
I would further argue that the
read-aloud is a scaffolding device and, as such, should be a targeted strategy,
the result of a needs assessment, and should be for temporary student use. Use the read-aloud the way you should use any
other scaffold, to temporarily support student learning. Test constantly for independence and remove
the scaffold as soon as you can. Since
it is a targeted strategy, it may not be necessary to ever use it with the
entire class, since reading levels differ as markedly in the classroom as any
other testable skill. If it is used with
the whole class, it should be done sparingly, to begin a chapter or unit, for
instance. The students should be reading
independently as soon as possible.
Continue to support those who cannot.
The read-aloud is a worthwhile
scaffold, but its popularity has made it permanent in many classrooms where
teachers read to their students daily for the entire school year. The scaffold is erected, but never taken
down. It has become another prescribed
educational strategy, and it violates what I posited as the goal of education,
to produce independent learners who are self-starters. In order to promote independence, the
scaffold must come down in a timely way.
The teacher training programs have
multiple methods classes. Student
teachers are exposed to a variety of classroom strategies. There is current research, based on
meta-analysis, about which strategies show the largest gain in student achievement. Even veteran teachers travel to weekend
workshops and summer institutes in search of the latest strategies. Education does not suffer from a dearth of
strategies. But there is a problem, which is two-fold. Most beginning teachers and many veteran
teachers are weak on entry-level assessment, where the student’s level of
mastery can be evaluated and particular strategies chosen for targeted
use. The second half of the problem
deals with the strategies themselves.
Most are scaffolds which should be chosen for targeted and temporary
use. They too often become default
strategies and a permanent part of the way a given class learns. And this brings to mind the image of the
siege tower from the origin of the word scaffold. Strategies are used for siege learning and
rotated as necessary to re-engage and re-focus students drifting from
task. Many of the strategies assume a
disengaged and reluctant clientele and are employed more to seduce the bored
than to scaffold the concept.
And this brings us finally to
definition “1b : a platform on which a criminal is executed (as
by hanging or beheading).” Why would a
platform used for public execution be called a scaffold? In small towns throughout
From
Principles of Literary Criticism (1926; rpt. New York: Harcourt Brace,
1949), pp. 289-95, as reprinted in The Wasteland, T. S. Eliot, ed.
Michael North, A Norton Critical Edition, 2001, pp. 170-171
North,
Michael, ed., The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot, A Norton Critical Edition,
2001, reprinted from Principles of Literary Criticism (1926; rpt.
Elements
of Literature, Sixth Course, Literature of
© Jack Farrell, Conejo Valley Unified School District, 2004