Letters

From the March 1994 issue

(Page 3 of 4)

Nancy Littlefield
Oley, PA

Jonathan Marshall is right that much education research is weak and politicized, but that still leaves us with a vast reservoir of good, sensible, and useful material. The 1986 Handbook of Research on Teaching from the American Educational Research Association references more than 4,600 researchers in the space of its more than 1,000 densely packed pages. It has much value and little nonsense.

Marshall should look at the stunning gap between the good research that exists and the almost total lack of interest in this research on the part of teachers, school policy makers, and political leaders. In her seminal summary of the great debate on reading instruction, Jeanne Chall said: "Of the many teachers and administrators I talked with, not one ever said that he or she had been influenced to make a change by an article that reported an experiment or that described a finding about the reading process. It seems that research findings, carefully selected for the purpose, serve primarily to back up decisions and commitments already made."

Donald Orlich, whom Marshall quotes, lists 28 citations in support of his well-focused six-page summary--no shortage of worthy research there. The paragraph from which Marshall quotes goes on to state, "We need a national moratorium on reforms so that educators and local policy makers can analyze their own problems." Orlich's recommendation is more useful than Marshall's call for more and costlier national research efforts.

Stanley Wolf
DeLancey, NY

Mr. Marshall replies: Ms. Littlefield's scenario of bright students being victimized by lazy freeloaders in cooperative learning situations is not borne out by numerous, well-controlled studies that document the strong achievement gains from this instructional method. Slower students profit from peer tutoring; quicker students achieve mastery by helping others in the group along. Learning, in other words, is not a zero-sum game. In many well-implemented cooperative learning situations, individuals as well as groups are assessed, discouraging "lazy" students from coasting at the expense of their fellows. And Ms. Littlefield should consider the possibility, admittedly more speculative, that cooperative modes of learning may be more appropriate than purely individualistic ones to the real world of work, which rewards successful teamwork to achieve common objectives.

If Mr. Wolf rechecks my story, he will find that I both decried and analyzed the failure of teachers and administrators to take advantage of what good educational research does exist. But the "vast reservoir" of research Mr. Wolf points to is, in fact, heavily polluted by unreliable work of questionable methodology. The field simply has not adopted sufficiently rigorous standards. To throw more money into bad research would be a terrible waste, but complacency about the adequacy of our knowledge would be equally misguided. Thus Orlich calls for a moratorium on faddish reforms, not on good research.

Prozac Problems

I wish I could be as sanguine about Prozac as is Jacob Sullum in his review of Peter D. Kramer's Listening to Prozac (Dec.). About four years ago, my physician prescribed Prozac for non-specific depression. Within days, I was unable to sit still for more than a few minutes; I sweated profusely and had trouble sleeping. Within the week, I was having dreams of suicide. I ceased taking the pills, and these symptoms disappeared.

I realize that my one account is not sufficient to condemn a product that has apparently brought much relief to many. However, Mr. Sullum's article portrays this drug as a panacea. I know from experience that it is not. I was quite sorry to see him make his portrayal without at least a reference to those who have had experiences such as mine.

Stanley M. Morris
Cortez, NM

Moral Matrix

In his review of James Q. Wilson's book The Moral Sense, Loren Lomasky pays considerable attention to the question of whether a "moral sense" is innate or acquired. The arguments against any form of innate ideas are, I believe, conclusive. It seems clear to many of us that a sense of morality is achieved through cognition, by an acknowledgment of causality, especially the causality of volitional thought and action.

Rationally moral behavior is simply that which is necessary to human survival, well-being, and happiness--both solitary and social. And the best ethics is that set of principles which optimizes the attainment of those goals over the course of each individual's life. The very act of attempting to persuade others of certain moral ideas, by Lomasky and the authors he cites, is tacit acknowledgment that such volitional cognition, with respect to morality no less than other concerns, is possible and necessary.

Joseph Curran
Daly City, CA

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