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Reco gnizingNeglectedStrengthsFrom Alaska to Kenya, research shows that students in underrepresentedminority groups have culturally relevant knowledge and diversecognitive abilities that schools can use to promote learning.Robert J. Sternberg
Several years ago, when I
was visiting the Universityof Alaska in Fairbanks, agreat debate was ragingabout how to improve
achievement for native Alaskanstudents. Elementary and secondaryschool teachers typically foundstudents in Eskimo villages to be slowlearners. Multiple efforts to improvetheir achievement had failed.
Similar stories exist about students inother underrepresented minoritygroups, leading some people toconclude that these students lack theabilities needed for school success. Butdo they?
Practical Knowledge and SkillsStudies in AlaskaA group of colleagues and I decided to
find out (Grigorenko et al., 2004). Ourhypothesis was that children from non-mainstream cultures often bring toschool the kinds of knowledge andskills that are relevant to their lives andupbringing. Their teachers, however,fail to recognize this adaptive knowl-edge. Instead, they assume that thestudents have other, more school-relevant kinds of background knowl-edge-and thus they fail to provide thescaffolding the students need to buildfurther learning.
Note that I say kinds, not levels. Thestudents actually may have quitesophisticated levels of knowledge andskills-just not the kinds that theirteachers understand. We were told, forexample, that many Alaskan Eskimochildren are able to travel in the winterfrom one village to another across miles
of frozen tundra on a dogsled. If you orI attempted the same journey, wewould not reach our destination alive.We would soon become lost in thehundreds of square miles of frozentundra that would all look the same tous, and we would perish.
To find out how this kind of adaptiveknowledge relates to students' testperformance, we assessed the practicalknowledge and skills of 261 students ingrades 9-12 in southwestern Alaska.The students were from seven differentcommunities: Akiachak, Akiak,Dillingham, Manokotak, NewStuyahok, Togiak, and Tuluksak. All ofthese communities are small, rural,primarily Yup'ik Eskimo villages,except Dillingham, which is urban (byAlaskan standards). Items in the assess-ments measured the students' adaptive
30 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/SEPTEMBER 2006
knowledge of such subjects as herbs,fishing, hunting, folklore, and survival.For example:
When Eddie runs to collect theptarmigan that he's just shot, he noticesthat its front pouch (balloon) is full offood. This is a sign that(a) There's a storm on the way. (correct)(b) Winter is almost over.(c) It's hard to find food this season.(d) It hasn't snowed in a long time.
Uncle Markus knows a lot about huntingwolverines. He is most likely to catch awolverine when he sets his trap(a) On a slanted tree. (correct)(b) In the hollow of a dead tree.(c) Far from any water.(d) Near a frozen river.We based the content of the assess-
ment items on extensive interviewswith Yup'ik Native Americans. Thereare three things of note about the items.First, the items use the same form as
Students fromnonmainstreamcommunities hadadaptive knowledgeand skills that didn'tshow up on standardachievementmeasures.
items on any standardized test-they'rewritten, objective, and multiple-choice.Second, the items are probably difficult,at least for you and me. They were notparticularly difficult for the ruralAlaskan students whom we tested.Third, the items are relevant to theconditions in rural Alaskan fishingvillages. One might disparage the itemsas only relevant to life in these villages,but that is the environment in whichthese students lived. If you lived insuch an environment, this knowledgewould be relevant to you, and many ofthe bits of knowledge that now seemvital-and to the people who createstandardized tests-might seem quaintindeed.
The test results showed that thesemi-urban students in Dillinghamsignificantly outperformed the ruralstudents on a standard measure ofacademic knowledge and skills, but therural students significantly outper-formed the semi-urban children on ourpractically oriented measure. In otherwords, simple score comparisons-saying that one group performs betteron tests than the other fail to takeinto account the complexity of the situ-ation. Which students do well dependson what we test.
This study established that studentsfrom nonmainstream communities hadadaptive knowledge and skills that
ASSOCIATION FOR SUPERVISION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT 31
don't show up on standard achieve-ment measures. To find out whetherteachers could build on these adaptiveskills to improve students' instructionaloutcomes, we initiated a mathematicscurriculum project involving 6th gradestudents from seven communities inAlaska (Sternberg, Lipka, Newman,Wildfeuer, & Grigorenko, in press). Atotal of 196 students in eight classeswere taught with a curriculum basedon Alaskan culture using fish racks, animportant element of the students'everyday environment. These rectan-gular racks, used to dry fish, served asthe basis for lessons on area, perimeter,and the relationship between the two.In five other classes, 55 students weretaught the same subject matter usingthe conventional textbook-basedcurriculum.
In addition to memory-based items,
our assessment contained items tomeasure the students' performance inthree areas that are essential forsuccessful intelligence (see Sternberg,1997): analytical, practical, and creative(see fig. 1). Assessment results revealedsuperior instructional outcomes in thefish-racks (experimental) group in allfour areas. In other words, capitalizingon students' cultural strengthsimproved their achievement.
A Study in KenyaSome might think that our findingswould apply only to native Alaskanstudents. Not so. In another study(Sternberg et al., 2001), we tested ruralKenyan students on knowledge that isparticularly relevant to their environ-ment. We were interested in theirknowledge of natural herbal medicinesused to combat parasitic illnesses; in
MemoryA square has four sides that are the same length. Circle the answer that showshow you would calculate the distance around the outside of a square.a. y- y+ y- yb. y+ y+ y+ yc. y x yd. y+ y- y
y
AnalyticalYou have two pipe cleaners of the same length. Make a circle with one and anoval with the other. Which shape has the larger area? Why?
PracticalYou can have the square piece ofyour favorite chocolate bar oryou can have the rectangular piece.Circle the piece that will give youthe most amount of chocolate.
6cm
6cm 6cm
6CM
8cm
4cm 4cm
8CM
CreativeYoung children learn new words best when there is a picture or a symbol forthem to remember. You want to help children remember the new word area.Come up with a symbol or simple picture that helps young children rememberwhat area is.
the communities we studied, more than95 percent of the children wereinfected with malaria, hookworm,whipworm, and so forth. The followingis a typical item from our test of adap-tive knowledge and skills:
A small child in your family has homa.She has a sore throat, headache, andfever. She has been sick for three days.Which of the following five Yadh nyaluo(Luo herbal medicines) can treat homa?(a) Chamama. Take the leaf and fito(sniff medicine up the nose to sneeze outillness). (correct)(b) Kaladali. Take the leaves, drink, andfito. (correct)(c) Obuo. Take the leaves and fito.(correct)(d) Ogaka. Take the roots, pound, anddrink.(e) Ahundo. Take the leaves and fito.
The students did quite well on thisobjective, multiple-choice test. You andI would probably score at chance. Wealso gave the students standard tests ofacademic skills and knowledge. Wefound that the better the students didon the practical test, the worse they didon the academic tests. The cultures ofthese villages did not primarily asso-ciate success with school-based perfor-mance, but with performance in valuedcommunity activities, such as treatingpeople with parasitic illnesses. Onceagain, the students' strengths were notreflected in conventional tests.
Diverse Cognitive StrengthsOur studies in Alaska and Kenyasuggested that cultural knowledge,often neglected in traditional instruc-tion, can make a difference in studentachievement. The same principleapplies to other groups of students andto other kinds of nonmainstreamstrengths.
We have tested our ideas with moretypical populations of students ingrades 4-12 in a range of subjectareas-language arts, mathematics,science, and social sciences. In a firstset of studies, we explored the question
32 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/SEPTEMBER 2006
We tested rural Kenyanstudents on knowledgethat is relevant totheir environment.
of whether conventional instruction inschool systematically discriminatesagainst students with creative and prac-tical strengths, and tends to favorstudents with strong memory andanalytical abilities (Sternberg &Clinkenbeard, 1995; Sternberg,Grigorenko, Ferrari, & Clinkenbeard,1999). In one study, we administered atest of analytical, creative, and practicalskills to 326 high school studentswhom their schools had identified asgifted. Most of the students came fromthe United States; a small percentagecame from South Africa (4 percent) orother countries (2 percent). We invitedthem to attend a summer program atYale University in college-levelpsychology and classified them into oneof five ability groupings: high analytical,high creative, high practical, high
balanced (high in all three abilities), orlow balanced (low in all three abilities).
We randomly divided the studentswho came to Yale into four instruc-tional groups so that each ability typewas represented in each instructionalgroup. Students in all four groups usedthe same introductory psychology text-book and listened to the samepsychology lectures, but they attendeddifferent afternoon discussion groupsthat emphasized either memory-based,analytical, creative, or practical instruc-tion. For example, the memory-basedgroup might discuss the main tenets ofa major theory of depression. Studentsin the analytical group might compareand contrast two theories of depression.In the creative group, students mightformulate their own theory of depres-sion. In the practical group, they might
discuss how they could use what theyhad learned about depression to help afriend who was depressed.
We evaluated students in all fourinstructional groups through theirperformance on homework, a midtermexam, a final exam, and an indepen-dent project. We evaluated each type ofwork for memory, analytical, creative,and practical quality. Thus, we evalu-ated all students in exactly the sameways.
The results were clear: Students whoparticipated in discussion groups thatmatched their pattern of abilitiesoutperformed students who weremismatched. In other words, when weteach students in a way that fits howthey think, they do better in school.Students with creative or practical abili-ties, who are almost never taught or
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assessed in a way that matches theirpattern of abilities, may be at a disad-vantage in course after course, yearafter year.
A follow-up study (Stemberg, Torff,& Grigorenko, 1998) examined thesocial studies and science learning of3rd graders and 8th graders. The 2253rd graders attended school in a low-income neighborhood in Raleigh, NorthCarolina. The 142 8th graders werelargely middle to upper-middle class,and lived in Baltimore, Maryland, andFresno, California. In this study, weassigned students to one of threeinstructional conditions. In the firstcondition, they were taught the regularcourse, which emphasized memory(recalling, recognizing, identifying, andretrieving facts and concepts). In asecond condition, students were taughtin a way that emphasized analyticalthinking (analyzing, critiquing, evalu-ating, judging, and comparing andcontrasting). In the third condition,they were taught diversely, meaning in away that emphasized analyticalthinking as well as creative thinking(creating, imagining, and inventing)and practical thinking (applying, imple-menting, and putting into practice).
We assessed all students' perfor-mance for memory learning (throughmultiple-choice assessments) as well asfor analytical, creative, and practicallearning (through performance assess-ments). As expected, students in thediverse teaching condition (analytical,creative, and practical) outperformedthe other students on the performanceassessments. One could argue that thisresult merely reflected the way theywere taught. Nevertheless, the resultsuggested that teaching for these kindsof thinking was successful.
More important, however, wasanother result: Students in the diverseteaching condition outperformed theother students even on the multiple-choice memory tests. In other words,even if our goal is just to maximizestudents' retention of information,
teaching for diverse styles of learningstill produces superior results. Thisapproach apparently enables studentsto capitalize on their strengths and tocorrect or to compensate for theirweaknesses, encoding material in avariety of interesting ways.
We extended these results to readinginstruction at the middle school andhigh school levels. In a study of 871middle school students and 432 high
When we teachand assess in waysthat respectdifferent strengths,students learn andperform better.
school students, we taught readingeither through the regular curriculum orthrough a curriculum that emphasizedanalytical, creative, and practical skills.At the middle school level, readinginstruction was explicit; at the highschool level, it was infused into mathe-matics, physical sciences, socialsciences, English, history, foreignlanguages, and the arts. In all settings,students who were taught analytically,creatively, and practically substantiallyoutperformed students who were taughtin standard ways (Grigorenko, Jarvin, &Steinberg, 2002).
In some of our most recent research(Stemler, Grigorenko, Jarvin, & Stemberg,2006), we modified Advanced Place-ment psychology and statistics tests tomeasure not only traditional memoryand analytical learning, but also creativeand practical learning. We found thatwhen we included these additionaltypes of items, score differences betweenethnic groups decreased. In otherwords, different groups have somewhat.
34 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/SEPTEMBER 2006
different styles of learning, on average,and when we teach and assess in waysthat respect these different strengths,students learn and perform better.
Many Studies, a CommonPrincipleThe studies described here, conductedin diverse locations and with diversegroups of students, suggest that manystudents have strengths that are unrec-ognized and neglected in traditionalschooling. By becoming aware of thosestrengths and incorporating them intoinstruction, educators can boost studentachievement. Whether we are talkingabout students whose cultural back-ground differs from the mainstream orabout students whose cognitivestrengths diverge from the modelcommonly emphasized in schools, thesame principle applies: Teaching tostrengths works. M
ReferencesGrigorenko, E. L., Jarvin, L., & Sternberg,
R. J. (2002). School-based tests of thetriarchic theory of intelligence: Threesettings, three samples, three syllabi.Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27,167-208.
Grigorenko, E. L., Meier, E., Lipka, J.,Mohatt, G., Yanez, E., & Sternberg, R. J.(2004). Academic and practical intelli-gence: A case study of the Yup'ik inAlaska. Learning and Individual Differ-ences, 14, 183-207.
Stemler, S. E., Grigorenko, E. L., Jarvin, L.,& Sternberg, R. J. (2006). Using thetheory of successful intelligence as a basisfor augmenting AP exams in psychologyand statistics. Contemporary EducationalPsychology, 31, 344-376.
Steinberg, R. J. (1997). Successfulintelligence. New York: Plume.
Sternberg, R. J., & Clinkenbeard, P. R.(1995). The triarchic model applied toidentifying, teaching, and assessing giftedchildren. Roeper Review, 17(4), 255-260.
Steinberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L., Ferrari,M., & Clinkenbeard, P. (1999).
A triarchic analysis of an aptitude-treatment interaction. European Journal ofPsychological Assessment, 15(1), 1-11.
Steinberg, R. J., Lipka, J., Newman, T.,Wildfeuer, S., & Grigorenko, E. L. (inpress). Triarchically-based instructionand assessment of sixth-grade mathe-matics in a Yup'ik cultural setting inAlaska. International Journal of Giftednessand Creativity.
Steinberg, R. J., Nokes, K., Geissler, P. W.,Prince, R., Okatcha, F., Bundy, D. A., etal. (2001). The relationship betweenacademic and practical intelligence: Acase study in Kenya. Intelligence, 29,401-418.
Steinberg, R. J., Torff, B., & Grigorenko, E.L. (1998). Teaching triarchicallyimproves school achievement. Journal ofEducational Psychology, 90, 374-384.
Robert J. Sternberg is Dean of theSchool of Arts and Sciences, Professorof Psychology, and Adjunct Professorof Education at Tufts University inMedford, Massachusetts; [email protected].
ASSOCIATION FOR SUPERVISION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT 35
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