Dr. Comer on 2011 Charles W. Hunt Lecture Panel at AACTE Annual Conference
Dr. James P. Comer was one of the five presenters on the 2011 Charles W. Hunt Lecture panel, “How Children Learn and Develop: What Ed Schools Should Teach,” at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) annual conference on February 25th in San Diego. Dr. Jon Snyder, the chief academic officer and dean of Bank Street College of Education, moderated the panel that he said was outgrowth of the work of the national expert panel of the NCATE Initiative on Increasing the Application of Developmental Science Knowledge in Educator Preparation that Dr. Comer co-chaired with Dr. Robert C. Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.
Dr. Comer provided the conceptual underpinnings of the role and value of the application of the developmental sciences in learning in classrooms and schools. He said that:
“Children who are underdeveloped or differently developed should go to schools where the teachers and administrators are able to help them compensate for their underdevelopment. That means that the teachers must know something about and be able to apply development, and that’s the problem that many are not. As a result many see the behaviors of children as “good” or “bad, “smart” or “dumb” and respond by control and punishment. And everybody goes on a downhill course, and you have a dysfunctional school as a result. Development and learning are limited in that setting.”
The School Development Program model he and his colleagues at the Yale Child Study Center developed over 40 years ago is designed to create “a culture in the school that would allow the people in the school to support the development of children in a way that they could be successful. To create a culture where everybody has a child and adolescent development perspective. Not “good” or “bad” children, but underdeveloped children that we can help develop. It is the focus on the integration of development and learning so that children themselves are engaged in looking at their own development along all the critical developmental pathways that in turn helps the, work with the staff to support their own development.”
Ira Lit, Ph.D., director of the Elementary Teacher Education Program at Stanford University, gave an overview of one of the NCATE commissioned papers, “Principles and Exemplars for Integrating Developmental Sciences Knowledge Into Education Preparation,” which he co-authored with Dr. Snyder. To download this paper that features the School Development Program as an exemplar, click here.
Three panelists then described their work to support the application of the developmental and learning sciences with pre-service and in-service educators: Desiree Pointer Mace, Ph.D., the associate dean of the School of Education at Alverno College in Milwaukee; Jeanne M. Burns, Ph.D., Associate Commissioner for Teacher and Leadership Initiatives for the Louisiana Board of Regents; and John Holland, a child development specialist in the Richmond, Virginia public schools.
Dr. Snyder said that a focus on development is "incredibly obvious" because" kids are a part of what happens in classrooms." He turned to Dr. Comer and said, "Yet I'm looking to my left, and there's a gentleman here that has spent a number of decades pushing this agenda, showing that it makes a difference in the lives of children and their families and communities no matter what the metric that's in place at the time. What's getting in the way of this obvious thing should be number 1 on everyone's agenda."
To watch the 2011 Charles W. Hunt Lecture, click here.
