There is this perspective in education called the deficit model, deficit view, deficit perspective, or some other combination of deficit and some visually oriented term. What learners cannot yet do, or where they fail. It appears in practitioner publications like Edutiopia as well as in scholarly journals. Essentially, the notion frames learners in terms of lacking skills or other knowledge; it foregrounds knowledge deficiencies. It is negative, and it is not helpful.
In the larger picture of educational philosophy, there was once a rage against the notion of tabula rasa (blank slate) which was part of Freire’s theory of banking education, arguing that it is wrong. Learners do not start as blank slates. Everything come from somewhere. It all sounds like mere pontification until hits you in the face as a parent. While we do this to our learners, i would never want this done to my own child. It’s hard to square that.
My daughter created the image on the right, and I immediately recognized learning strides. I was impressed that the illustration had not happened in school. Of course, my daughter is surrounded with art supplies from my doctoral advisor who is also a close friend, but she chose to use scrap school paper for this one- sketching an idea while at home. She knew this was not for production; rather, it was meant as a sketch, a learning tool. She documented a memory of a trip to Niagara Falls when discussions came up about another trip. Most importantly, she was not instructed to do this learning. My first thought after “cool!” was that if anyone else saw it, they might immediately jump on the inaccuracies rather than the successes.
I think there is more to the realization. Relative to other more grown up fields of study, instructional design is still working on sketches and learning. I think there’s a bit of bad press that might be holding the field back, and all too often it looks wiser to give up in the face of others recognizing our errors. At the same time, we are still limiting our research to things that are meant to appear like drawings other people did. I am less worried about ID learners not being recognized for their value. In fact, they are doing quite well. I do not know I can say so much for their teachers. Are we recognizing our successes and building on them?
craig dennis howard 