Chapter 5
Prosocial Education
A Coherent Approach to Putting Applied Theory into Action
Michael W. Corrigan, Ann Higgins-D’Alessandro, and Philip M. Brown
As mentioned in chapter 1, for nearly a century—but unfortunately unknown to many—some of our best and brightest educators have focused on a hidden curriculum to create excellent schools that many thought only possible in the movies. This hidden curriculum has helped schools develop outstanding students and citizens, increase achievement, and grow successful education systems beneficial to all stakeholders. Transforming this hidden curriculum has been the answer for many educators who have turned failing schools into success stories and given countless students the inspiration and education needed to pursue and achieve the American dream. Schools that have shined a bright light on their school culture by infusing a prosocial pedagogy and interpersonal climate into their hallways and classrooms have also simultaneously rejuvenated the careers of teachers and administrators and provided the motivation needed to once again become the mentor and role model they envisioned when they set out on the calling to become an educator. Unlike many other expensive educational curricula, products, and programs that often come prepackaged in a pretty box with a catchy name or slogan promising dreams of grandeur, however, this hidden curriculum is not available for purchase. This transformation costs comparatively little because it only requires educators to do the hard but rewarding work of adopting and applying prosocial-based foundational behavioral, developmental, or learning theory.
As suggested in chapter 1, this hidden curriculum can be fed by what we refer to as prosocial education, the other side of the educational coin. Unlike the academic side of the coin, the hidden curriculum energized by prosocial education does not focus specifically on math, reading, history, or science. In fact, the majority of the content of the prosocial side of the coin is rarely found on any achievement or proficiency test. Yet, year after year, educators continue to use it with great success and watch their students’ achievement scores rise significantly (see example case studies in chapter 6, case study A, and chapter 9, case study A). Such educators understand that good education outcomes require more than a strict focus on teaching the three Rs (or whatever the latest subject matter identified as essential to defining academic success may be; e.g., STEM: science, technology, engineering, and math). They also understand that theory guides research and practice, and data emerging from theory-based research and practice must be used to drive instruction more systemically as a science rather than as an art. A good education is reliant upon a system that comprises many parts, and is impacted by stakeholders that include educators, school staff, students, parents, and others from the greater community. Educators who understand this and use prosocial education well can mold school climate and alter the hidden curriculum, which is the necessary combination for transforming school culture.
In essence, good education that focuses on both sides of the educational coin can be conceptualized through a systems theory approach. Similar to the happy endings in movies about inspirational educators that pull on our heartstrings and make us determined to remain educators, prosocial education has the power to change the lives of students, parents, and educators. The bad news is that the American education system has not made it a funded mandate or priority . . . yet. As chapter 1 suggests, it is this other side of the coin that has to some degree been ignored or dismissed at the policy level for quite some time. This handbook is written for educators who want to know more about the research and practices that fall under the umbrella that we have coined as prosocial education. Educators who want to understand the nature of the hidden curriculum will find this handbook useful in making more conscious, informed choices that will have a positive impact on the development of their students and improve their school environment.
Why Theory Is Important
This chapter focuses on helping educators and policy makers better understand how a well-balanced, good education is reliant upon applying both educational and developmental theory. The mere mention of theory connected to education, however, may connote for some readers an ivory-tower, disillusioned paradigm that holds little meaning or application to teachers in the trenches. According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, colleges of education focus too much on theory and too little on developing knowledge in core areas and on clinical training (Field, 2009). He also stated that colleges of education pay insufficient attention to student learning, fail to train students to use data to improve their instruction, and don’t do enough to prepare students to work in high-poverty and high-need schools. But as any credible researcher knows, theory drives learning, quality data collection, and analysis. As any knowledgeable educational or developmental specialist is aware, theory informs and guides our efforts to work with youth in high-poverty and high-needs schools. As we hope to share vividly in this chapter, theory can explain how to do this, and more specifically can help teachers turn students into motivated learners who excel academically in the subject areas.
As I (Corrigan) instruct my preservice teachers every semester, “Theory is your friend and the secret to your success.” Nearly every effective curriculum, product, or program that can be purchased in the educational market is typically built upon a theory that is taught in colleges or schools of education every semester. For example, last semester (in front of the entire class) a student told me that she did not find the theories taught in my educational psychology class interesting or useful to her future career. She stated that she found approaches such as “discovery learning” shared in her science methods course to be of more use and much more interesting and applicable to her career. Though happy to hear that one of our elementary majors was interested in science, I was slightly shocked by her bluntness and open dismissal of foundational education theory. Regardless, in an effort to save face and politely defend my field of educational psychology, I asked her if she could explain the approach of discovery learning to the class. She began by saying, “It is important to let the student build their own knowledge.” She explained how discovery learning allows the student to discover this knowledge and as a result they retain the knowledge. She explained further how discovery learning, the foundation for many science programs, allows students to learn at their own levels and helps a teacher to better approach differentiated instruction.
I agreed with her and asked, “So students can construct their own knowledge?” She agreed enthusiastically. I then asked if she could name one foundational learning theory similar to such an approach. She did not have an answer that day because reading the required course text was not yet of interest or importance to her. I then asked the class what foundational theory might be behind discovery learning, and several students in unison answered, “Constructivism.” Slowly the tide started to roll my way again as the discussion progressed.
To be honest, this experience was not enjoyable or comfortable for the student or me. However, the interaction provided a perfect teachable moment beneficial for the entire class. I continued the discussion that day by explaining that many programs, products, approaches, and curricula are guided by education’s foundational theories. Many of the examples I provided that day (and cover in this chapter) were related to prosocial education. This chapter is intended to illustrate the utility of theory as an answer to many of our educational challenges and as the backbone of today’s successful approaches utilized in education.
“As researchers learn more and more about how things are (descriptive studies), what variables are associated with one another (correlational studies), and what events cause what outcomes (experimental studies), they begin to develop theories that integrate and explain their findings” (Ormrod, 2011, p. 11). These theories allow researchers and practitioners to more accurately speculate about the underlying (and often hidden) mechanisms involved in thinking, learning, development, maturation, motivation, and other aspects of the education process. By helping us to better identify such mechanisms, theories ultimately help us create learning environments and instructional approaches that facilitate better student development, learning, and achievement.
An Equal Partner
Beyond illustrating how applied theory is at work in our education systems, this chapter also intends to further the case for prosocial education as a necessary and equal partner with academic education by asserting the indivisible dual nature of education—developing the whole child while simultaneously teaching cognitive skills and the content knowledge of academic fields. These two sides of the coin are indivisible for several reasons. Ask experienced successful educators and they will tell you that to be highly effective in teaching academics, equal amounts of focus on student behavior, development, and socialization are required. The prosocial education side of this process is closely related to learning and is connected to the expectations associated with the taught curriculum, school rules for conduct, determination of status and compliance through grades and test scores, and other institutional systems of rewards and sanctions placed upon students. Other aspects of socialization in schools are also implicit, unacknowledged, or hidden as well. Here are some questions to consider about socialization in schools:
Whether you are a current believer in prosocial education or just exploring its promise, you cannot ignore the fact that America is still barely graduating two-thirds of our students. Close to a third reported dropping out because they think no one cares for them and the course work has little importance to their adult life (Yazzie-Mintz, 2007). The failure of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has clearly indicated that a strict focus on academics is not working to increase test scores or increase the number of students we graduate. According to a Center on Education Policy report, the proportion of schools failing to make adequate yearly progress under NCLB rose to 38 percent in 2010, up five percentage points from the year before (McNeal, 2011). Common sense and good educational practices confirm that if we have a class or school of students and educators that respect others, care for others, feel welcomed and supported, and realize that basic tenets of behavior are expected and required, both students and educators will experience a much more positive learning environment.
As the research and case studies in this handbook will share, educators who focus on the prosocial side of education often report experiencing better school and classroom climates with much less chaos. When a classroom or school has people whom others do not respect, who show no caring for others, who do not feel welcomed and supported, and who ignore the behavioral code, chaos and academic failure will incubate and spread. To supporters and practitioners of prosocial education, the beneficial prosocial qualities of students can be nurtured and developed when we equally focus on both sides of the educational coin. Additionally, research throughout this handbook clarifies further how prosocial qualities are highly correlated with increasing academic success. We are losing more than a third of new teachers within three years of starting their educational careers due to their feeling undersupported, unappreciated, underpaid, and experiencing a high concern for student misconduct (National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 2008). Prosocial education offers great promise in helping educators experience greater career satisfaction and effectiveness. Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, common sense is not that common in today’s educational improvement environment (Corrigan, Grove, & Vincent, 2011).
Currently in the United States and many other countries, teaching for academic knowledge has been the norm, with much less attention given to the prosocial aspects of education. In numerous school districts, the interest in what we are defining as prosocial education is limited to reducing behavioral challenges for special needs children and reducing discipline incidents. The potential of more robust support for prosocial behavior—a focus on broad developmental outcomes and helping students fit socially within a school—is often unrecognized. Yet the theory behind prosocial education recognizes the indivisible nature of the two sides of the education coin. The choices of curricula content and programs as well as instructional methods utilized to deliver such curricula and programs can either hamper or promote prosocial behavior and development in a child.
The method a teacher uses to deliver the content can have beneficial or detrimental effects upon student educational attitudes, self-esteem, and academic performance. For example, we know that students have different learning styles and that, even within one grade level, children are at different developmental stages. If a teacher is mandated to use a specific curriculum that relies on a restricted pacing guide crammed into a short time frame, she or he might choose to use a straight lecture format in order to “get through” the curriculum. For the more visual students or students who need more one-on-one attention, this approach and pace might result in increased anxiety and alienation as well as a decrease in personal academic empowerment and achievement.
The two sides of the educational coin exist in a reciprocal relationship. Curricula and instructional practices affect students’ prosocial side of education in some fashion since behavior, development, and socialization are ongoing, dependent upon, and influenced by environmental forces experienced in school settings. On the other hand, the level and types of prosocial education infused in the curriculum can either hamper or promote academic development. Teaching from a prosocial perspective that focuses on better enhancing behavior, development, and socialization can promote learning and more effective teaching methods. Prosocial education can also complement academic content choices by offering a clearer understanding of the developmental assets, budding capacities, and needs of students of different ages and developmental stages. By focusing on these components, prosocial education optimizes learning. Case studies in part 2 of this handbook illustrate this kind of practice leading to successful learning outcomes. Chapter 18 provides two case studies (one on American Indians and one on “facing history and ourselves”) that highlight how wrong we are when we do not focus on individuals and attempt to teach with a curriculum that assumes one size fits all. Furthermore, chapter 23 illustrates how prosocial education is associated with better academic outcomes internationally.
Another example of what happens when prosocial education is ignored can be seen on any school day in thousands of schools when the adults’ ability to provide a positive school climate has collapsed. When asked how she would describe her school’s climate, in a loud voice to overpower the roar of the students behind her, an administrator we worked with recently replied with a nervous grin, “Controlled chaos.” What do you think the administrator meant by those words? Was she implying that things were under control and of a positive nature? Doubtful. Did the grin suggest the school’s staff were satisfied with the learning environment? Not likely. Or was she admitting that things were slightly out of control and nonverbally suggesting that the school (and more specifically her leadership team) was desperately in need of help? Assuredly. Regardless of how one interprets the administrator’s description, controlled chaos does not equate with optimal education. Like many schools across our nation experiencing controlled chaos, much work needs to be done.
Some schools appear to be doing well by the current measures of academic achievement, but the pressure of the single-pointed focus on curriculum as the input and standardized test scores as the output has other consequences. According to the Center on Education Policy (McMurrer, 2008), among the consequences are the prioritizing of a few subjects and the thinning of the curriculum, as well as the loss of recess and other nonacademic time so that play and creative expression are diminished. Some schools operate in a state of high anxiety if the failure of a few students (frequently disabled students or limited-English proficient students) on high-stakes tests causes their school to miss the established parameters for achieving adequate yearly progress (AYP).
To be fair, many of our nation’s best administrators and educators have had their hands tied since the NCLB indoctrination and have had to focus strictly on meeting AYP. When one’s job security rests upon one number, many of the sound suggestions made by researchers or professors regarding foundational theory, child development, leadership, and classroom management fall on deaf ears (Corrigan et al., 2011). Research critical of the ability of state tests to serve as valid measurements of students’ fullest abilities and knowledge (Crone, 2004; Harris, 2003) has been overlooked or ignored. Though the lower types of validity such as face and content validity might be addressed in the development of such tests, adequate research supporting construct validity (do the tests measure what they say they measure?) is harder to find. Plus one must ask if a test measuring only two to four subject areas can come close to providing a valid measure capable of representing whether a school or teacher is being effective. Perhaps even more important for teachers, test scores are rarely tracked by individual students to offer formative or summative assessments that could show how a teacher could be of specific assistance in the learning process and, more importantly, demonstrate whether a teacher has helped the student to improve. Teachers are often graded (held accountable or evaluated in some instances) on the cross-sectional test scores of new students they are assigned every year and not on how well they helped students improve. As many experienced educators will confirm, the distribution of “smart kids” in individual classes varies from year to year: some years you have a smart class; some years you have a not-so-smart class. Teachers’ accountability under the current system often rests upon the luck of the classes assigned by the administration. Furthermore, since nearly each state conveniently designed, used, and could change such tests at will under NCLB, comparing states’ outcomes from year to year was, and to some extent still is, impossible, primarily due to the inability of the states’ tests to provide a generalizable measure of academic success. Even worse, when comparing state-mandated tests aligned with state content standards to national assessments (such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], which focuses on critical-thinking skills), the two different measures rarely paint the same picture for the same student.
To illustrate, a recent West Virginia study found that 81 percent of students were proficient in reading according to the state’s standardized achievement test (Westest), while only 22 percent were proficient in reading on the NAEP, and 73 percent were proficient in math according to the state’s test, though only 18 percent were proficient on NAEP’s math test (Rosenberger, 2008). These discrepancies between state achievement tests and NAEP scores are rampant across many states in America and are not exclusive to West Virginia.
In the business world, a good corporate executive, whose job security often mainly rests upon one number (e.g., total annual sales or net profit), knows that such a number rises and falls for many reasons—the economy, product life cycles, overhead costs, and so forth. As a result, businesses focus on improving a host of variables, such as employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and service, product development, and other avenues needed to boost the bottom line. Similarly, economists know that one number (e.g., national trade deficit, unemployment rate, jobs created) cannot reflect the complete state of our nation’s economy. Therefore they create an assortment of indexes made up of many variables that help to provide a more definitive picture. In 1993, James Guthrie at the University of California–Berkeley asked, “Do America’s schools need a ‘Dow Jones Index’?” The question was posed because education lacked a comprehensive and useful indicator of the state of education. Now is the time to acknowledge that, as with any complex system, no one indicator is sufficient to gain a true perspective on the functioning of a whole school or district—and especially on a student’s outcome. Prosocial education can provide the additional variables needed to better determine the formative and summative data essential to better informing and documenting educational success.
Given the dual nature of our education system, focusing simultaneously on learning and development, imagine if, at the end of each year, schools were not only held accountable for meeting AYP but were also given the chance to shine on measurements that considered the following: (1) increases in academic achievement using a broader set of variables (number of students sent to college, student performance on college entry exams, level of student test score improvement from previous year); (2) nonacademic challenges such as decreases in conduct violation incidents and dropout rates, and increased teacher retention; (3) increases in parent and community stakeholder involvement; (4) improved curriculum and instructional delivery; (5) demonstrations that students are becoming better citizens through service activities tied to the curriculum; (6) improved student attitudes toward education and learning; (7) teacher progress toward becoming more highly qualified and effective; (8) principal improvement in leadership skills; and (9) improvement on dimensions of school climate such as making school a safer, more caring environment in which learning can take place.
A cursory review of the history of American education reveals that many of the above goals existed when our nation’s education system began (see chapter 6). This handbook offers additional evidence that these are also many of the goals that prosocial education seeks to accomplish. Using this multifaceted approach, teachers would no longer be graded on one number based solely on content knowledge. Rather, assessment would include the breadth of preparation an educator goes through to maximize the learning, socialization, and development of students. Imagine a different report card for teachers, administrators, and school performance. Imagine a chance to focus on truly developing classrooms of youth who become outstanding students and citizens. Unfortunately, some educators and policy makers deem this exercise in imagination as surreal, alien, and out of reach.
Though measurement is not the primary focus of this book, assessment is the guiding light in today’s data-driven education world. Because prosocial education encompasses and impacts numerous variables that are impacted in schools, we need to consider the full breadth of variables that require focus for accountability. We recommend using a multidimensional approach for measuring educational progress, a more comprehensive report card to drive school improvement efforts that includes assessing such areas as climate, community engagement, curricula delivery, and the character of the stakeholders and school educators. Our experience indicates that this kind of system puts educators in a much better position to integrate a comprehensive view of student and school functioning as a means for continuous annual improvement (Corrigan et al., 2011). Although bad news may be discovered during this assessment process, most schools also find plenty of good news to embrace and celebrate, a much-needed motivation for administration and staff dedicated to continuous improvement (see chapter 9 on school climate and the accompanying case studies). Although the Common Core State Standards Initiative is an ambitious attempt to improve the testing model by creating one test for all states to use and thus be comparable in analyses, the movement is falling short of what could be accomplished with a system that collects the data needed to explain why test scores are falling or rising. The system we envision should look at individual growth in academics and utilize something better than the cross-sectional comparison of last year’s class to this year’s class. We believe that an approach that encompasses prosocial education as defined in this handbook would be much more useful than the strict focus on student achievement scores that currently dominate, assess, and guide our education processes.
Instead of looking at achievement scores as the outcome and using it to determine systematic or additive model solutions for improvement (i.e., low reading scores mean that schools should spend more class time reading or change existing reading curricula), this multidimensional report card offers a broader conceptualization of educational success, providing a more accurate measure of academic achievement, as well as of factors that contribute to or detract from academic success. Moreover, a theory-based prosocial approach applied to the current state of education would provide more insight about whether schools are succeeding and would represent a proactive approach to education that applies the foundational theories of education. Unlike the current state of education, prosocial education seeks to prepare students for the test of life rather than a life of tests.
Applied Theory behind Prosocial Education
Building upon but yet moving beyond Eisenberg’s (Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989) work defining prosocial behavior and the research demonstrating that prosociality impacts academic achievement (Capara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, Bandura, & Zimbardo, 2000), prosocial education augments schooling by helping students develop and nurture voluntary empathic behavior that benefits others as well as themselves, and increase their interpersonal skills in the context of core ethical values of responsibility, caring, and relational trust. It represents an approach that promises to improve education for all stakeholders involved. In the midst of writing this handbook, a meeting of the editors concluded with a slogan: “Just Dewey It!” (hats off to Nike’s “Just Do It!”). We had come to the realization that much of what we are proposing is based on John Dewey’s perspective of education. We were focusing on tying community and education together. The more we discussed the direction this handbook would take, the more we realized that prosocial education efforts are a direct reflection and application of many of the foundational theories and philosophical views of education and child development that are taught in college psychology and education courses.
Many theories support schools paying attention to prosocial education. One early theorist often taught in preservice education is John Locke. At a time before the insights provided by the human genome contradicted his stance, Locke insisted that humans are born as blank slates (tabula rasa), and we become what we learn or encounter (Ormrod, 2006). Another influential theorist is Erik Erikson (1950), whose psychosocial work suggests that skills and attitudes are acquired. Vygotsky and other sociocultural theorists placed emphasis on the impact of societally based interpersonal and environmental interaction on youth development (Ormrod, 2006). According to Piaget’s (1969) concept of heteronomous morality, the moral sense is reliant upon being developed under the authority of other people. Kohlberg (Kohlberg, Levine, & Hewer, 1983) found significant evidence that moral development is externally influenced. Bronfenbrenner’s (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000) bioecological model illustrated the role that schools and the greater community play in the development of children and education. Finally, Dewey (as cited in Cruz, 1987), showed clearly how education, community, and communication go hand in hand. Considering the number of theorists (introduced in teacher preparation programs) who focus on the social interaction components essential to youth development, the evidence is overwhelming that prosocial education is required as a focus for educators as a means to ensuring full development, socialization, and learning for students.
Theorists such as Vygotsky and Kohlberg suggest that environmental structures, especially social relationships, can hinder, help, support, or enhance the development of thinking and understanding, and to a lesser extent behavior. According to these theorists, two assumptions are widely accepted today. One, interaction between the individual and the social and physical environments occurs, and they influence each other. Two, children enter the world with different temperaments and physical maturity, which determine the aspects of the environment they can “use” and that they can ignore (Kagan, 2010). We know more now about the biological basis for temperament and the unequal distribution of talent and ability in human beings. We can’t all be Nobel scientists or Olympic athletes, but we need to be able to live successfully with others in society and be helped through the socialization process to find ways to contribute our unique gifts and character to the larger good.
Social learning and reinforcement theories (Bandura, 1977; Skinner, 1969) suggest that the future probability of a behavior will be influenced by consequences provided by individuals, including educators. A host of social learning (or cognitive) theories, as well as socio-cultural and other development theories (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000; Dewey as cited in Cruz, 1987; Erikson, 1950; Kohlberg et al., 1983; Piaget, 1969; Vygotsky as cited in Wertsch, 1985), provides a clarifying lens that supports a broad learning process and the development of the whole child through behaviors modeled by adults in students’ lives. The manifestations of these theories in school settings are primarily on the prosocial side of the education coin.
Many other psychological theoretical underpinnings relate to prosocial education efforts, linking constructs like motivation, trust, self-esteem, and sense of well-being to education and learning. As B. F. Skinner (1969) determined, motivation and attitudes toward learning have been found to impact education significantly. Motivation is a key factor in learning (Skinner, 1969) that typically accounts for a significant percentage of achievement—10 percent or more, according to Uguroglu and Walberh (1979). The social determination theory of intrinsic human motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985) maintains that “the design of a school-reform approach must begin with the realization that teachers and students alike have inherent psychological needs to feel competent in relation to their environment, autonomous in regulating their behavior, and related meaningfully to others” (Deci, 2009, p. 246). Also, one’s feelings about the subject matter or schoolwork play a key role and account for an equally significant percentage of academic achievement. Ellis and Shockley-Zalabak (2003) found that trust in the teacher has an indirect effect on motivation and cognitive learning mediated through receiver apprehension, which is defined as “the fear of misinterpreting, inadequately processing, and/or not being able to adjust psychologically to messages sent by others” (Wheeless, 1975, p. 363). Curzon-Hobson (2002) proposed that trust is an integral part of higher learning and argued that teachers’ own actions and reactions are vitally important in creating a sense of trust with students by communicating effectively that the students’ contributions will be welcomed and rewarded by the teacher.
We believe that factors such as trust in teachers, motivation to learn, one’s self-esteem, and a sense of well-being in the school setting contribute greatly to developing the relationships needed for learning to take place and to develop the behavior, maturation, and performance of students. These classic psychological theoretical underpinnings and constructs relate closely to the foundational developmental and learning theories, and when combined, the nonsummative nature of these theories creates a system of theory or metatheory that must be considered as a whole when approaching or viewing academic success through a prosocial education lens. Prosocial education challenges educators to consider applying many theories to their instructional practices and to focus more on the developmental and socialization aspects for learning supported by the foundations of education.
Numerous aspects of these theories can be used together or even integrated to make the case for prosocial education. While they have different perspectives, the theories provide significant evidence for three conclusions: (1) children develop whether we like it or not; (2) children develop in contexts and relationships, which have the power to shape or foster development; and (3) development and learning cannot be divorced, just as academics and prosocial education cannot be divorced. This trimodal precept is the backbone of prosocial education. As discussed in chapter 1, learning and development are indivisible. Given that learning and development cannot be disconnected from instruction or achievement, these individual processes are facilitated or hindered by educational structures and how its actors work with and mold the interface between social and cognitive development and the demands of the institution we call school. Prosocial education likely is already at work in many communities’ schools. When it successfully transforms schools, prosocial education always rests on a multiyear change in school climate and culture (see the case studies with chapter 9 on school climate for examples). In most cases, prosocial education is most visible as adopted programs. Discrete programs do not represent the necessary or sufficient conditions for prosocial education to be truly transformative, but nonetheless they can serve as important demonstrations of the power of the prosocial approach. For example, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a widely adopted behavior management system being implemented in many school districts. PBIS was initially a system aimed at assisting students with severe developmental needs to develop more appropriate routines and practices through nonaversive strategies (Sailor, Stowe, Turnbull, & Kleinhammer-Tramill, 2008). Since the early inception of PBIS, many schools have adopted it schoolwide, and by the late 1990s, School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports (SWPBS) was created. SWPBS has demonstrated some level of effectiveness (Horner, Crone, & Stiller, 2001); it provides a way to identify student behavior problems and formulate a plan for dealing with them that will minimize the cost in administrative time. This focused approach uses behavior data (and in some cases student attitude data) to implement policies and procedures that can help to reduce behavior problems. Even more importantly, SWPBS brings consistency to how behavior is dealt with at the classroom and the school level. SWPBS provides for better communication to the students regarding how incidents will be handled and what kinds of behavior are not acceptable. SWPBS can do a lot to improve the consistency and management of discipline within a school, and this success is most often accomplished by giving rewards for good behavior. Yet, as most educators learned in foundational theory courses, extrinsic motivation is the weaker sibling to intrinsic motivation.
In essence, SWPBS uses (and in our opinion relies too heavily upon) extrinsic motivation, which is one of the main components of behaviorism, or more specifically operant conditioning (Skinner, 1969). As Skinner taught us, a response that is followed by a reinforcing stimulus is more likely to occur again. And by providing reinforcement (i.e., rewards) for positive acts of social behavior or academic performance (as PBIS, SWPBS, and other programs do), we can begin to see one way that prosocial-based theory is at work in schools. Unfortunately SWPBS is used more often to reward good behavior of students who typically do not behave well, and to a lesser degree many educators do not spend an adequate amount of time rewarding those who behave well the majority of the time. Another example is the First Things First school reform model, which uses the self-determination theory (SDT) of intrinsic motivation cited above as the basis for the development of its core strategies. Using that general approach, administrators are taught SDT principles and are then supported in their efforts to formulate changes that use the principles of autonomy, belonging, and competence to create environments that facilitate greater satisfaction of students’ basic psychological and developmental needs (Deci, 2009).
As part 2 of this handbook will illustrate, when schools are implementing efforts such as social-emotional learning, character education, civic education, and school climate efforts, we see prosocial-based theory at work. We see sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, Rogoff) and social learning theory (now referred to as social cognitive theory; Bandura) embedded within these efforts as the programs and processes seek to connect children and schools to the greater community and surround kids with more positive adult role models to observe and hopefully emulate. We see Kohlberg’s moral development theory at work as schools try to help children develop into caring citizens.
We also see cognitive developmental theory (Piaget) at work when schools implement early childhood and youth development efforts. Educators who embrace such efforts understand constructivism and developmental progressions and realize that many children develop gradually in a unique way, moving from one stage to the next on their own maturation timeline—of course always influenced by environment. Much of what falls under cognitive developmental theory is of a constructivist nature. If educators are truly taking what some call a “student-centered learning” approach seriously, doing it correctly, and focusing on what each individual child needs, they most likely are consciously or unconsciously applying developmental cognitive theories. This differentiated approach to instruction is difficult to do and will become even more difficult as budgets shrink and class sizes grow, but as parents, this is what we want.
Reflecting back to the day when I (Corrigan) was a young student, this is what I wanted on many occasions when I felt like the teacher didn’t even know what I needed or didn’t care. We want educators to find the time and concern to consider our child to be important as a person, with specific needs and abilities. And a school that supports prosocial education will most likely be able to better support teachers in accomplishing these more demanding yet more mutually beneficial approaches to instruction. But until the focus of test scores is complemented by mandates, or even better, prosocial education policy that finally allows a teacher to once again focus on each individual student and not a one-size-fits-all curriculum and strict pacing guide, only a few will have the ability or opportunity to use this hidden curriculum to its fullest potential. With an output of test scores requiring an input of curriculum, requiring a majority of instruction to be delivered directly and adorned with more math and reading work sheets, in our opinion, this will only continue to keep educators from adopting a more constructivist approach. Yet those who understand, embrace, and practice the prosocial side of the education coin know that good individualized instruction (e.g., discovery learning) allows kids to work more independently (as individuals or in small groups), so teachers are freed up to monitor. As a talented science educator reminded me one day, they are more effective when they are the guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage.
To some degree this level of nurturing brings to mind the great nature versus nurture debate. This debate is basically a battle between nativism theory (the belief that behaviors are genetically built in, or planted for later development, and emerge gradually in a predictable order) and the many other more sociocultural and ecological theories that consider social, cultural, and environmental factors that impact on development. For decades if not centuries, scientists and academics have debated ad nauseam which side of the debate is right. But more recently, calmer minds have prevailed and clarified that it is realistically combinations of both. All we have to work with or build upon is the innate abilities we are born with, but these innate abilities can either be hampered and hindered or nurtured and nourished greatly by educators during the traditional school day. As psychodynamic theory (Freud, Erikson) leads us to believe, a child’s early experiences can have significant effects on a child’s later development. These different early experiences are what define the qualitatively different stages youth experience as they mature. How we treat our children in early grades will have a great impact on how they behave in later grades and stages. And the fact that adolescents have enough challenges trying to behave like young adults while their brain’s hormone-influenced, noodle-like frontal cortex is still taking form (leaving them often incapable of thinking or behaving rationally) suggests that focusing on the whole child from the earliest grade levels is the correct developmental approach. As adults we have an ethical obligation to provide for environments that foster full development and the potential for a fulfilling and meaningful life, not just an economically productive one.
We want to use prosocial education as an umbrella term that conceptualizes and guides society’s (more specifically, education’s) goal to foster positive youth development. A biological metaphor of a helix is an apt visualization to describe the interrelationship of the strands that comprise prosocial education. Consider prosocial education as a helix with strands that include prosocial behavior constructs, the principles of social-emotional, moral, and civic education, as well as academic learning. The prosocial behavior constructs of empathy and fairness each have become sources of explanation in building theory supportive of prosocial behavior. In our visual model, these serve as core activating strands for the development of other behaviors and skills. There is currently a considerable amount of neuroscience as well as cognitive and developmental psychology research under way to learn more about the biological and developmental underpinnings of prosocial attitudes and behavior. And we believe it is important to understand that prosocial education is not just about encouraging educators to implement education efforts that contribute to building prosocial behavior conducive to learning, socialization, and development, but also to get educators to look more deeply at how neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and the foundational theories of education are coming together in this century to shine a very bright light to help us better understand how humans think, learn, and act.
For example, what have we learned from neuroscience about empathy that makes it such a critical concept for understanding the importance of prosocial behavior and prosocial education? First, empathy has been demonstrated to occur in the first years of life, implying that it may have a genetic basis (Zahn-Waxler, Robinson, & Emde, 1992). Second, both neuroscience research on the mirror neuron system in the brain and developmental theorists commonly ascribe empathy as the mechanism behind understanding self–other differentiation (Jeannerod & Anquetil, 2008) and the exhibition of caring behaviors in response to signs of distress or need in others (Hoffman 2001). Third, empathy involves both perception and cognition of the emotional states of others, and genetics has been shown to account for the systematic change and relative continuity of empathy over time (Knafo, Zahn-Waxler, Hulle, Robinson, & Rhee, 2008).
So what are mirror neurons? Mirror neurons are brain cells that are active both when an individual is performing an action, feeling an emotion, or experiencing a sensation and when that individual witnesses the same actions, emotions, and sensations in others. Because humans are social animals, it is of critical importance to understand what other people feel and do. Neuroscience is making rapid progress in determining how our brains manage this process.
By influencing the observer’s actions, the mirror neuron system creates a bond between the behaviors of social partners. This bond is reciprocal: During most social interactions there is not a single agent and a single observer: both partners are both observer and agent, both the source and the target of the social contagion the mirror neuron system conveys. (Keysers & Fadiga, 2008, p. 193)
Atmaca and colleagues (2008) have shown that the mirror neuron system is a powerful and spontaneous property of the human mind. There is a potentially powerful relationship between our brain functioning and social functioning, learning, and achievement. For example, in looking at how we collaborate to achieve a goal or complete a group project in school, participating partners need to keep both the goals of the project and the rules of interpersonal interaction in mind.
While empathy can be seen as rooted in a negative affective state (understanding the suffering or concerns of others), it underlies the ability to have concern regarding the welfare of other people and to promote as well as take actions supporting the welfare of others; thus empathy can be understood as providing a motivational impetus for prosocial behavior (Knafo et al., 2008). It is in this sense that empathy is an important factor in helping individuals work closely and effectively together. According to Knafo and colleagues, there is also evidence of some degree of genetic influence on individual differences in empathy, accounting for about a quarter of variance between twins’ empathy levels. Recent research suggests that during early childhood development, the empathy–prosocial behavior relationship is accounted for largely by environmental factors such as parental warmth and responsiveness (Hastings, Zahn-Waxler, & McShane, 2006). The experience of many of the educators represented in this book leads us to hypothesize that later in childhood, teachers can play a similar role in facilitating experiences of empathy for their fellow students and others who are continents away. We agree with Eisenberg and Mussen (1989) that all human beings have the potential for prosocial behavior, but the behavior itself must be learned; we believe that prosocial education can contribute significantly to the development of empathy in children in classroom settings and through school-related activities (see chapter 10 on service learning and chapter 18 on prosocial education and diversity).
The other key construct in our prosocial helix is fairness. Fairness is critical to establishing ideas regarding equity of status and equal treatment of individuals in a social group. Indeed, it could be argued that the scaffold of human rights is unimaginable without the idea of fairness and justice as central to the survival of the social group (see the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr). The biological basis for fairness has emerged from both primate research and cognitive science. It is only the behavioral response to inequity that can be studied in primates because motivation cannot be measured or assumed to be the same construct as in humans.
A sense of fairness in primates may be rooted in the nature of dominance in their group’s hierarchy. It is a given that dominant primates will receive a bigger piece of the pie than subordinate primates. The dominant members of the group receive more resources like food and breeding mates compared to the subordinate members. Membership in the group is bountiful for all members (both dominant and subordinate), and the cost of leaving the group is rather high, so membership itself is a desirable resource.
It is to the primates’ advantage to maintain good, cooperative working relationships with others on which they rely to exchange niceties (de Waal, 2006). Particularly for primates with little history and a very new dyadic relationship, reciprocity serves an important function. Doing a favor or meeting the request of another can pay off in the future when they have a favor to request. For the primate group, reciprocity and cooperation ensures that everyone is cared for (de Waal, 2006).
Recently, neuroscience has had success in locating the precise areas of the brain that relate to empathy and fairness. While the brain finds self-serving behavior emotionally unpleasant, it also finds genuine fairness emotionally uplifting. In other words, the brain works differently when prosocial behavior is exhibited or perceived. The response to situations perceived as fair or unfair is so rapid that the reaction overrules the more deliberate rational mind (Tabibnia, Satpute, & Lieberman, 2008). As three researchers at UCLA put it, faced with a conflict, the brain’s default position is to demand a fair deal, thus relying upon one’s ability to process empathy and fairness (Association for Psychological Science, 2008).
When one considers the abundance of theory and the new knowledge being developed through groundbreaking neuroscience research, it is easy to see that there is much more to learning than introducing a new curriculum for math or reading and a day of professional development to explain the basics of the curriculum to teachers (often right before their summer break). Prosocial education is rooted in theory and research that provides a much deeper understanding of how people learn, socialize, and develop. The social setting is important, and teaching social expectations and autonomous thinking contributes to developing the most constructive and productive social setting. Understanding the course of human development is important for understanding what is expected for such social behavior and when and how students can be appropriately challenged to facilitate their optimum growth.
As the old saying goes, first things first. If we have classes filled with students spanning a wide spectrum of developmental stages and dealing with different behavioral issues, it makes perfect sense to first (or at least simultaneously) focus on the development of students and address behavioral issues proactively instead of focusing only on the curriculum. Prosocial education seeks to help educators revisit, update, and enhance the content of the educational foundation classes they took to become teachers. Furthermore, we ask educators to put stronger trust in theory and research that focuses on the developmental and socialization aspects of education, and rest assured that when these aspects of education receive equal attention in the education process, learning will improve and test scores will rise as a consequence.
The Promise of Prosocial Education
As Jonathan Cohen proposed in the Harvard Educational Review (2006), there should be an umbrella term that encompasses and defines the varied educational research and programmatic efforts that focus on youth development and social aspects of education. The efforts that Cohen refers to encompass educational initiatives such as social-emotional learning, school climate, character education, moral education, civic engagement, service learning, early childhood development, and others covered in part 2 of this handbook. These varied and sometimes disparate fields have shown evidence suggestive of the following effects: (1) a stronger sense of school community and a more positive school climate; (2) enhanced teacher professionalism and effectiveness as mentors; (3) increased academic and prosocial achievement; (4) decreased academic, personal, and interpersonal risks and challenges; and (5) improved encouragement of civically engaged youth. A great amount of thoughtful arguments, theory, and empirical evidence exists in each of these fields supporting the idea that education and schooling can be radically improved when certain more positive social conditions exist. We call this umbrella prosocial education.
Unfortunately, within education we often hear that some educators believe they do not have time to implement prosocial education efforts because it will take time away from their curriculum efforts. When evidence exists clearly showing that prosocial education actually complements curricula and contributes to increased achievement (see chapter 3 in part 1, all chapters in part 2, and chapter 23 in part 4), such an excuse seems devoid of logic. It is also common to see competition between such social and/or behavioral modification efforts in order to get schools to focus on a particular intervention related to specific social and behavioral aspects of education. But in reality they are often doing many of these interventions at the same time without necessarily realizing it. For example, when educators implement a character education intervention, they also often incorporate aspects of civic engagement, social-emotional learning, and moral development as well as school climate improvement. Undertaking an initiative to improve school climate often also involves programs such as service learning, character education, and aspects of positive youth development. To us, the efforts and intended outcomes of these prosocial fields, though slightly different, hold many commonalities, and as stated earlier, they are indivisible from broader developmental and learning goals. Regardless of one’s current position on the role of prosocial education, as Damon (2005) points out in relation to character education, “It is an odd mark of our time that the first question people ask about character education is whether public schools should be doing it at all. The question is odd because it invites us to imagine that schooling . . . somehow could be arranged to play no role in the formation of a child’s character” (p. 21).
We believe that good education is constantly shaping the social, developmental, and behavioral aspects of students, as well as their learning environments, whether we are intending to do so (i.e., by adopting a program or process) or not. As educators we are seen as role models, and our every action is scrutinized by our students. If our actions are respectable and admirable, we often contribute positively to the development, learning, and socialization process. If our actions are petty and unprofessional, we see just the opposite. The question is whether or not educators are doing this through meaningful intended efforts or unconsciously. The question is whether they are doing it well or not so well. To us, many of these efforts, whether implemented consciously or unconsciously, unavoidably overlap and impact each other; if they are being implemented simultaneously, and if research shows that when done well they improve learning, socialization, and development, then logic would lead us to surmise that they need to become a more central conscious focus of all education efforts.
The research provided in this book illustrates how prosocial education prepares students to lead satisfying, worthwhile academic and social lives that contribute to the civic life and economic productivity of their communities. Kids need to learn both academics and prosocial attitudes, predispositions, and behaviors, and integrating them all into one vision of educational practice is the key concept of prosocial education. Prosocial education focuses on research that supports the kinds of developmental processes that complement and support educational practices aimed at student achievement. When done comprehensively, prosocial education supports the development of school cultures driven by core ethical values that care about the whole child, their parents or guardians, as well as the educators and staff who work at the schools. Academic learning may (or may not) promote prosocial behavior (e.g., cooperative learning structures). As many elementary teachers will attest, a ninety-minute block of sustained silent reading can lead to student misbehavior and the loss of motivation to read and learn. Prosocial behavior on the other hand can enhance academic learning, for example, when kids are reading books related to a community project they are excited about it (e.g., a study of their community’s water quality; Berger, 2003). Often a thematic approach can help educators show students how reading (e.g., learning) is meaningful and applicable to their lives. And as Ron Berger has found, such thematic projects can encompass math, science, reading, writing, and communication.
In part 2 of this book, the chapters provide many examples, practices, and data that illustrate how prosocial education efforts are simultaneously complementing the three goals of learning, socialization, and development as well as academics. You will learn how service learning, social-emotional learning, civic engagement, character education, early childhood interventions, and many other prosocial educational efforts are providing educators with the tools they need to complement their curricula and instructional efforts. The chapters in part 2 are meant to provide an example of the many efforts at work under the prosocial education umbrella. They are written by leaders in the fields of these movements in collaboration with their colleagues across the nation and will provide you with a greater understanding of what their specific educational efforts are aiming to accomplish, with examples of how they are implemented in schools, and with the results they have already achieved in changing schools and students’ lives. We are not suggesting that these are the only efforts recommended for prosocial education. In fact, it is quite possible for educators to create their own hybrid model of prosocial education that involves many of the efforts covered in part 2. Instead we highlight these efforts to provide you with a greater understanding of how prosocial education is an unavoidable and indivisible outcome of education efforts. It is unavoidable because we all do it to some degree; the question is whether we do it well or not so well.
Why Do We Need Prosocial Education?
Most educators we work with believe that if the adults in a school routinely show respect for each other professionally, care about one another personally, and enjoy solving pedagogical, ethical, and logistical problems collaboratively, then the school would be a positive, productive work environment in which to meet children’s academic and developmental needs. Likewise, if you have a classroom of honest students who care about others, understand responsibility, and practice respect, then the classroom would become a much more productive and vibrant place to learn and work. It also seems logical that if the school climate and work environment were a more conducive place for learning and a supportive atmosphere for prosocial behavior, then many more students and educators would enjoy walking through school doors in the morning. And, just maybe, if such aspects of schooling could be improved, then academic achievement scores would increase in the process.
Therefore, the answer to our rhetorical question, “Why Prosocial Education?” is that the time is right; theory development, research, and the increasingly urgent need to truly create a better education system in the United States have converged. No Child Left Behind, for better and for worse, pushed education into greater prominence on the national agenda. And now with jobs harder to get and to keep, not to mention the ongoing need to be competitive internationally in science and business, education will be looked to for solutions, thus keeping it a top concern of the nation. It is also the right time because each of the fields surveyed in this book has substantial bodies of practice and research from which to draw conclusions about effectiveness. There have been laboratory, small-scale, and focused large-scale practice and/or research programs carried out in each field under the umbrella of prosocial education. Many of these are mature fields, many with more than twenty- or thirty-year histories of active theory building and research and a century of practice. Their practices are extensive, and in the last ten years, the effectiveness of more and more such interventions has been assessed in evaluation research. In addition, and important to consider as a gauge of maturity, an abundance of critical literature has been published in response to both theoretical and practical limitations of such prosocial efforts. It is our view that while each field has reached a certain level of maturity, each is still refining the major psychological, social psychological, educational, organizational, and larger contextual concepts that define it. There is still openness. This is the time for educational experts, policy makers, and practitioners to join in the task of defining guidelines for twenty-first-century education and participating in translational research that connects research to practice and practice to community and policy. A goal of this handbook is to “parse nature at its joints”—to clearly see the relationships of educational goals to schooling structures and educational practices and how these impact student development and learning, the school as a community, and school change. It is necessary to recognize prosocial education as real education—preparing students for the tests of life, rather than for a life of tests. Although it has not been true for a long time in the United States, communities and work used to carry much of the burden for socializing children and young people, giving them opportunities and offering them guidance and skills in teamwork, citizenship, moral decision making, and seeing the world from the point of view of diverse others. In the last few decades, it has become more and more evident that schools also need to do this work—to prepare young people for life. Schools’ attempts to meet this challenge cannot be successful if there is no real place in education to teach life skills, when education is conceived narrowly as only a place of academic learning. Focusing on life skills means helping students think about what they want to achieve in life, helping them think about graduating from high school, what they want after graduation, and how they want to live as adults. For educators to convincingly argue that learning and schooling are essential to progressing toward their goals, teaching and the curricula, and schooling itself, must truly become each student’s personal stepping stones on their path. Students know the difference between truth and rationalization. As the work represented in this book makes clear, prosocial education of many different types creates the conditions needed for learning both academic and life skills. It provides opportunities for students to develop their own life goals in the context of genuinely challenging activities in a supportive atmosphere that exposes them to a wide range of occupations and promotes self-exploration and understanding others by learning and working with them.
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