BLIND SPOTS

A behavioral scientist suggests improvements for the teaching process.

In this debut education book, Berens challenges pedagogical orthodoxy and argues that all children, including those with neurological differences, can acquire fundamental skills if teachers understand how learning happens and how to measure it. The volume opens with an evaluation of standardized test data that shows how students fail to achieve proficiency and explains how the educational establishment declines to provide most pupils with an environment conducive to learning. The author, drawing on a behavioral science background, sees learning as a pattern of actions, consequences, and responses selected for the desired outcome—praise and encouragement in some cases, tangible rewards in others, with the educator responsible for determining what the student needs. The book explains, with clear examples, how this works in a classroom setting and in broader human development and how contemporary schools can implement the techniques. The volume also addresses the needs of neurodiverse children, arguing that many diagnosed learning disabilities are actually responses to ineffective teaching that can be eliminated through more helpful instruction. Even children with physiological differences can learn in an appropriately designed environment (“The failure to acquire skills results from ineffective instruction, just like for children without disabilities”). Berens is a successful advocate for the behaviorally informed interpretation of the learning process, both explaining the underlying theory and laying out evidence in favor of her arguments. Traditional educators do not come off well in the book’s portrayal, but they are presented as misguided rather than malicious practitioners of a system based on ideology instead of data. While the frequent mentions of the author’s tutoring business can give the text the feeling of an infomercial at times, they also serve to remind readers that the work’s conclusions are based not only on theory, but also on decades of practical experience with a variety of students. The writing is strong and the topic is intriguing, accessible to readers with little prior knowledge of education practices.

A well-argued challenge to educational orthodoxy that calls for a systemic overhaul.