The Human Teaching Disposition
Sidney Strauss
Tel Aviv University
James S. McDonnell Foundation
Workshop on TEACHING
December 3-5, 2004
General Overview
Philosophers and educators ask
– what is good teaching?
– how can we foster it in others?

I ask: Why do we teach in the first place?

The search for answers transports us to the borders
of our cognitive, cultural and biological endowments

Broad canvas, general lay of the research and
theoretical landscape
General Overview

Innovation
– Applying some ideas from cognitive sciences
and cognitive development to teaching

Possible results
– Some conceptual headway
– Perhaps different view of teaching
– Opening up new theory and research areas in
teaching
Seven Points
1. teaching and the cognitive sciences, writ
large, haven’t yet met
2. teaching may be a natural cognitive
predisposition
3. cognitive prerequisites of teaching
*declarative and procedural knowledge
4. my claims about ontogenesis
*cognitive prerequisites develop, leading
to emergence of teaching
*after its emergence, teaching develops
5. new places to go empirically
6. teacher education
7. weaknesses of the approach
1. Teaching and the
Cognitive Sciences Haven’t
Yet Met

Considerable theory-building and research
in the cognitive sciences and cognitive
development on learning

Little theory-building and research on what
sometimes causes learning: teaching

But first: What is a natural cognitive
predisposition?
What is a Natural Cognitive
Predisposition?

Cognition that is:
–
–
–
–
Universal
Very complex
Learned without instruction
Young children master it effortlessly
Sometimes so easy and natural that we don’t even
think about it
Language is a classic example
Teaching might be, too.
What is a Natural
Cognitive Predisposition?

Is teaching a uniquely natural cognitive
predisposition for humans (species
unique)?

Video of an adult chimp fishing for
termites in the presence of a 3-yearold juvenile .

See if there is teaching here.
What is a Natural Cognitive
Predisposition?




Was there teaching here?
Did the adult chimpanzee intend to
teach?
Did the chimpanzee have an
understanding of the juvenile’s mind
and learning?
Difficult to say
Motivation to define teaching without
either
What Is Teaching, Anyway?
Biological definition

“An individual actor A can be said to teach if it
modifies its behaviors only in the presence of a
naïve observer, B, at some cost or at least without
obtaining an immediate benefit for itself. A’s
behavior thereby encourages or punishes B’s
behavior, or provides B with experience or sets
an example for B. As a result, B acquires
knowledge or learns a skill earlier in life or more
rapidly or efficiently than it might otherwise do, or
that it would not learn at all.”
Caro, T. M. & Hauser, M. D. (1992) Is there teaching in nonhuman animals? The
Quarterly Review of Biology, 67, 151-171.
Is Teaching Unique to
Humans?

We saw that chimpanzees learn to
fashion tools for termite fishing
– Whiten, A. et al. (1999). Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature, 399,
682-685.
The question before us is:
Do chimpanzees, cats, birds teach?
Is Teaching Unique to
Humans?

BOTTOM LINE
– Little or no primate teaching in the wild
– Little teaching in captivity (3 reported
cases)

if they teach in captivity, this means they
have the capacity for teaching
- Teaching may be unique to humans (with
ToM)
What is Teaching, Anyway?
Psychological definition
“When faced with the question of determining
whether an action is a teaching action, as
opposed to some other action such as reciting,
talking or acting in a play, it is the intention of
bringing about learning that is the basis for
distinguishing teaching from other activities. The
intention the activity serves, then, is a part of the
meaning of the concept...” (italics added)
Pearson, A. T. (1989). The teacher: Theory and
practice in teacher education. New York:
Routledge
What is Teaching, Anyway?
The psychological view involves:

Intentionality
– Intention to cause learning in other’s mind

Knowledge (gap)
– Close the gap in knowledge, understanding, etc.
Ziv, M., & Frye, D. (in press) Cognitive Development
Mind The Gap!
Teaching and the Big
Divide

Do very young children teach?
Teaching Develops In Early
Childhood
Strauss, S., Ziv, M., & Stein, A. (2002). Teaching as a natural cognition
and its relations to preschoolers’ developing theory of mind.
Cognitive Development, 17, 1473-1487.
Maynard, A. E. (2002). Cultural teaching: The development of teaching
skills in Maya sibling interactions. Child Development, 73, 969-982.
Ashley, J., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Cooperative problem-solving and
teaching in preschoolers. Social Development, 7, 143-163.
Wood, D., Wood, H., Ainsworth, S., & O'Malley, C. (1995). On becoming
a tutor: Toward an ontogenetic model. Cognition and Instruction, 13,
565-581.
Ellis, S., & Rogoff, B. (1982). The strategies and efficacy of child versus
adult teachers. Child Development, 53, 730-735.
3½-year-old children show initial indications
that they can teach
5½-year-olds can be excellent teachers
Teaching Develops In Early
Childhood

Strauss, S., Ziv, M., & Stein, A. (2002). Teaching as
a natural cognition and its relations to preschoolers’
developing theory of mind. Cognitive Development,
17, 1473-1487.

Study to determine cognitive
prerequisites of teaching
50 pairs of children: 25 age 3½ 25
age 5½

Teaching Develops In Early
Childhood

Children given 3 kinds of tasks
– who do you teach task

All solved it correctly
– classic false belief tasks

3 ½ & 5 ½ -year-olds solve incorrectly and correctly
– teaching false belief tasks



Same results as classic false belief tasks
Taught to play a competitive game (one
winner)
Call a friend over to play the game
Teaching Emerges and
Develops In Early
Childhood
Findings for 3½ -year-olds

Teach (play?) game without verbally stating rules
– Perhaps demonstrate the rules by playing

Intervene when learner errs
– Teacher compares her representation of the game with the
learner’s behaviors
– Mismatch leads to actions (teaching)

Do not intervene when learner is correct
Teaching Emerges and
Develops In Early
Childhood
Findings for 3½ -year-olds
Are they teaching?
 “Demonstrate”
 Maybe they are playing the game and not teaching
 Maybe their “corrections” are merely making the
right move for the other
 Intervene to change behaviors and resulting moves,
not changing mental states
– so that it will conform to the rules
– no intention to correct
 Do not solve classic and teaching FB tasks
Teaching Emerges and
Develops In Early
Childhood

2 reasons why 3½-year-olds may be
teaching
– Teachers always make the first move
– Cheat when playing but not when
teaching

Recognize different goals
– Teaching: pass on knowledge
– Playing competitive game: win
Teaching Emerges and
Develops In Early
Childhood
Findings for 5½ -year-olds



Explain and demonstrate the rules
Interventions seem to be aimed at mental
states
Sometimes ask questions using mental
state terms
– Do you understand? What do you think you
should do now?
Teaching Emerges and
Develops In Early
Childhood
BOTTOM LINE:
Children in early childhood can teach
Development of Teaching
Once It Emerges
Ashley & Tomasello; Astington & Pelletier; Maynard; Strauss, Ziv,
& Stein; Wood et al.

Sequence
–
–
–
–
2-year-olds: probably don’t teach (but Strauss & Ornan)
3½-year-olds: teaching emerges - demonstrations
5½-year-olds: explanations, references to mental states
7½-year-olds: more contingent and responsive (related to
learner’s knowledge state)
– Adolescents? Perhaps Socratic teaching, metacognitive
– Adults?


There may be levels
These levels may be developmental
– Needs elaboration: age difference not
necessarily developmental differences
The Great Divide
Chimpanzees do not teach (Elisabetta will
help us with this) and 3½-year-olds probably
do and 5 ½ year-olds definitely do
Teaching may be a place where the great
divide exists between humans and other
primates
Species-typical and probably species unique
2. Teaching May Be A
Natural Cognitive
Predisposition
Includes domains such as:
anthropology- cultural evolution
biological evolution (phylogeny)
primatology
child development (ontogeny):
infancy - adulthood
non-normative cognitive
development and functioning
Teaching as a Natural
Cognitive Predisposition
Combined claims about teaching:
species typical: universal
may be species unique with ToM
remarkably complex cognitively
poverty of the stimulus: invisibility and sampling
teaching appears among toddlers
does not require instruction to be learned
maybe learned effortlessly
Species Typical: Universality
of Teaching Among Humans

Species typical or universal?
– Do all societies have teaching?
David Lancy
 Alan Fiske




If not, why do some societies not have
teaching?
Could teaching be a cultural
adaptation?
Does this ruin the cognitive
predisposition claim?
Universality of Teaching
Among Humans

Reasons why universality is important
– Species typical. No exceptions

Part of every culture
– Everyone is exposed to teaching
Universality of Teaching
Among Humans

Vast cultural differences

However, teaching may be quite uniform across cultures

Teaching differs in
– Amount (Tuareg in North Africa; St. Louis)
– Content (poisoning spear tip among San !Kung in
South Africa; feeding pigs in Sichuan district
in China; feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square)
Universality of Teaching
Among Humans: Mother Teaching
Daughter to Sew, Chongzhou China
2004
Sometimes through explanation as in
university teaching in Czechoslovakia
(photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life)
and in Bechuanaland
(photo by Nat Farbman, Life)
Universality of Teaching in
Human Cultures

Sometimes through demonstration as
seen among hunter-gatherers in
Bechuanaland
(photo by Nat Farbman, Life)
Universality of Teaching in
Human Cultures

And sometimes we teach by
correcting towards an ideal
(photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Truempy Ballet School, Berlin, 1930)
Cultural Diversity and
Universality
Bottom lines
 Enormous cultural variation
 Teaching and the cognitive abilities
necessary for teaching may be universal
 The content and amount of teaching is
different between cultures
 The cognitive abilities that allow teaching
are identical
 The ways of teaching are very similar
– Explanation, demonstration, correcting, etc.
Teaching’s Remarkable
Cognitive Complexity
Teaching is extremely complex
Teachers make inferences and attributions
about others’:
minds (beliefs, partial knowledge, etc.)
emotions (anxious, comfortable)
motivation (high, low)
Teaching’s Remarkable
Cognitive Complexity
Based on these attributions and
inferences, teachers teach
Purpose of teaching
to cause learning in others
psychological causality
Teaching involves inferences about
others’ minds (knowledge gaps,
emotional state, motivational state)
how learning occurs in others’ minds
Teaching’s Remarkable
Cognitive Complexity

How we teach indicates what our
understandings of the mind are and how
learning occurs

Unreflective
– Donor for a Center for Research on Learning at Tel Aviv
University

BOTTOM LINE: Teaching is
remarkably complex! (More about
this later)
Teaching not Taught
Very young children are exposed to
teaching
BUT
Probably not taught how to teach
Learning how to teach seems to be effortless
3. Cognitive Prerequisites
of Teaching

Unlike language, we are at the
beginning of understanding

Declarative Knowledge
– Epistemological assumptions

Procedural Knowledge
– Processes
– Discourse model
4. My Developmental
Claims

Declarative and procedural cognitive
prerequisites for teaching develop during
infancy

Teaching emerges when prerequisites reach
a certain (undetermined) level at around age
3½

Teaching from that age develops until
adolescence (? … and beyond?)
The Emergence of
Teaching

Teaching emerges when cognitive
prerequisites of teaching (declarative
and procedural knowledge) reach
certain (not yet determined)
developmental levels

Around age 3 ½
Tentative Conclusions

If teaching is
–
–
–
–
–
Universal (species typical with ToM)
Remarkably complex
Mostly invisible and hardly sampled
Not taught, yet learned effortlessly
Occurs in early childhood
BOTTOM LINE: Teaching may be a natural
cognitive predisposition
5. Where to Go Empirically to
Test Development of Cognitive
Prerequisites and Teaching?
Phylogenetic emergence: Primates and lower
(Christophe Boesch, Uri Leron, Danny
Povinelli, Elisa Visalberghi)
Research on toddlers: ontogenetic emergence
(MA theses: Adi Stein; Ayelet Solomon;
Noah Mor; BA honors thesis: Anna Gavrilov)
Pragmatics in linguistics
differences between cheating (deception)
and teaching (Ziv& Frye)
Where to Go Empirically For
Cognitive Prerequisites for
Teaching?
Children translating
Teaching among extremely gifted teachers: adult developmental end
point
Developmental or physiological problems
- high functioning autistic syndrome/Asperger (Ronny Friedman with
Margalit Ziv)
- brain damage (prefrontal lobe) and teaching (Noga Balaban with
Naama Friedman)
- specific language impairment: semantic-pragmatic deficit
(MA thesis: Anna Gavrilov with Naama Friedmann and
Margalit Ziv)
- teaching disabilities (!)
Where to Go Empirically For
Cognitive Prerequisites for
Teaching?
Formal systems of analysis
– AI, artificial life (Tzur Sayag, Matt
Schlessinger)
Theory of mind theory and research (Margalit
Ziv)
6. Teacher Education
Implications
“That’s all right in practice. But does it work in
theory?”*
Attributed to a former Irish prime minister in response
to policy proposals.
Times Literary Supplement, Terry Eagleton,
September 3, 1999, p. 18
*Thanks to Talma Yzraely for this quote
Teacher Education
Implications
What I do NOT, NOT, NOT want to
say
If :
toddlers request and are sensitive to
teaching preschoolers know how to
teach
Then,
there is no room for teacher education
Teacher Education
Implications
What I do want to say:
We may want to think about teacher
education in ways unlike our present
thinking
Some of this thinking informed by
developmental considerations
what is different about children’s and
adults’ teaching
Teacher Education
Implications


Analogy to children’s science and math
concepts and how to teach to those
concepts
Teachers have “mis”conceptions about
teaching, the mind, etc.
– They are resistant to change
– My experience
 Teaching teachers to teach in constructivist
ways has not been completely successful
 Often return to direct transmission (DT) model
 Perhaps children’s natural cognitive ability is
a precursor of adults’ DT model
Teacher Education
Implications
Roles of various content in teacher education
curricula:
*subject matter
won’t change how teachers teach
will change what is taught
*teaching techniques for subject matter
*theories of learning and development
minimal Piaget – use as a metaphor
*mind-reading
subject matter-related
7. Weaknesses of the
Approach

Separating teaching from other forms of
social communication
– Conversation, argument, cheating, etc.

Probably implicates intentionality
– Mother-infant interactions

Definitions of intentionality (for teaching)
– Searle, Dennett
– May be levels of intentionality

Lack of precise definition of teaching
– Makes use of computational models, Alife
difficult
– Narrow versus broad
7. Weaknesses of the
Approach

Developmental issues
– Age differences do not mean
developmental differences
– What are the psychological entities that
develop?
– What are the mechanisms governing
development?
Summary
1. teaching and the cognitive sciences writ large
haven’t yet met
2. teaching may be a natural cognitive
predisposition
3. cognitive prerequisites of teaching
*declarative and procedural knowledge
4. my claims about ontogenesis
*cognitive prerequisites develop, leading
to emergence of teaching
*after its emergence, teaching develops
5. new places to go empirically
6. teacher education
7. weaknesses of the approach
‫גמרנו‬
I hope you:

noticed that teaching is an
extraordinarily rich domain

found interest in these ideas
Cognitive Prerequisites of
Teaching: Declarative
Knowledge
Partial list of epistemological assumptions





Others have a mind
– Same as mine
The mind contains knowledge, beliefs
– Same as and different than mine
What is in the mind gets expressed veridically (truth) or nonveridically (fibs/lies)
You teach someone you believe has insufficient knowledge
(false belief about teaching)
Psychological causality
– Action-at-a-distance
Cognitive Prerequisites of
Teaching: Procedural
Knowledge
Feedback loops when teaching On-line theory of mind

Teacher teaches
– Attempts to read others’
Knowledge, beliefs, skills
 Emotional state
 Motivational state

Cognitive Prerequisites of
Teaching
Feedback loops when teaching
(continued)

When a teacher believes the pupils do/do
not understand the material
– Representation of the correct understanding
– Representation of the pupils’ correct/incorrect
understanding
– Detect a match/mismatch


If mismatch, leads to new teaching strategy
Based on the teacher’s understanding of
Cognitive Prerequisites of
Teaching: Procedural
Knowledge

Executive function (umbrella term)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–

Planning
Working memory
Impulse control
Inhibition
Mental flexibility
Initiating action
Monitoring action
Monitoring one’s and others’ mental states
Mostly involves disengaging from immediate
environment to guide actions
Cognitive Prerequisites of
Teaching: Procedural
Knowledge

Mutual monitoring related to roles

Who is the teacher?
– More knowledge (more power)
Who is the learner?
– Less knowledge (less power)
Teacher
– Monitors and manages, directs, and controls learners’
mental, emotional, motivational states
– Decides when and how to teach
– Monitors the results of teaching
Learner
– Monitors teacher’s teaching
– Attempts to understand teachers’ representation of the



Cognitive and Interpersonal
Prerequisites of Teaching:
Discourse Model
David Bearison et al.; Bill Damon

Regulatory properties of discourse between expert
and novice change in the course of teaching
– When teaching begins, teacher directs, manages, controls
discourse.
– Maintained by both teacher and learner during instruction
– As learner knows more, the discourse becomes more one
of collaboration

Knowing how to do that is essential for teaching
Theory of Mind

An understanding that others have
beliefs, desires, emotions, intentions,
motivations
– May be different than one’s own
– Others may have false beliefs

Classic task
Teaching Instinct: Cultural
Evolution

Cultures replicate themselves
– Tomasello et al. (1993)

Technologies that allow this replication
–
–
–
–

myths
artifacts
institutions
ceremonies
Teaching is also a technology devised to
pass on cultural knowledge
Teaching Instinct: Cultural
Evolution
Controversy about what gets passed on
memes (Blackmore, 1999; Dawkins, 1999)
“an element of a culture that may be
considered to be passed on by nongenetic means,
especially imitation”
(Dawkins, 1999, p.viii)
Controversy about mechanisms
•
imitation (Blackmore, 1999; Dawkins, 1999;
Tomasello et al. 1993)
• contagion (Sperber, 2000)
Teaching Instinct: Cultural
Evolution

BOTTOM LINE:

Teaching plays a role in cultural
– Transmission and preservation
– Maybe not cultural innovation
Development of Teaching Once
Teaching Emerges: Research in
China with Jin Li
Know
how to
play?
Say rules
to experimenter
before
teaching?
Teach by
demonstr
a-ting?
Teach
rules
verbally?
3½
+
-
+
-
5½
+
+
+
-
7½
+
+
+
+
Nativist Claims Revisited

Although teaching meets some nativist
criteria
– Unlikely there is a teaching module
– Teaching is one kind of communication
Nativist Claims Revisited

Nativists do not make developmental
claims like Piaget

Minimal roles for
– culture
– social interaction
Development of Teaching (Not
Prerequisites for Teaching):
Sensitivity to Teaching
Among Toddlers
Sensitivity to teaching may appear among 2-year-olds
Naming of objects
What is involved in a child asking for an object’s
name?
1. “Knows” that objects have names
2. Knows that he does not know the name
3. Believes others have knowledge of the
name (2+3 – knowledge gap)
4. A request will yield the name from
someone
Development of Teaching:
Sensitivity to Teaching
Among Toddlers
BOTTOM LINE: 2-year-olds may have a
sensitivity towards teaching
Strauss, S., & Ziv, M. (2001). A request for naming
may be a request for teaching. Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, 24, 1118-1119.
What Is Teaching, Anyway?
Biological definition

“An individual actor A can be said to teach if it
modifies its behaviors only in the presence of a
naïve observer, B, at some cost or at least without
obtaining an immediate benefit for itself. A’s
behavior thereby encourages or punishes B’s
behavior, or provides B with experience or sets
an example for B. As a result, B acquires
knowledge or learns a skill earlier in life or more
rapidly or efficiently than it might otherwise do, or
that it would not learn at all.”
Caro, T. M. & Hauser, M. D. (1992) Is there teaching in nonhuman animals? The
Quarterly Review of Biology, 67, 151-171.
What is Teaching, Anyway?

Biological definition motivated by
– Evolutionary theory
– Empirical work, ethology and lab

This definition of teaching does not require an
– understanding of others’ minds
– intentionality

Partial consensus: Very little teaching with this
broad definition
– Visalberghi (1996), Premack (2004), Povinelli (1993) but
see Boesch (1993), Savage-Rumbaugh
Development of the
Cognitive Prerequisites of
Teaching
Declarative Knowledge
Gopnik, Meltzoff, Tomasello, Woodward





Others are intentional agents (~ 1½ years)
Others have a mind: intentionality (~ 1½ years)
– Same as mine
The mind contains knowledge, skills, beliefs
– Same as and different than mine (~ 4 years)
What is in the mind gets expressed veridically
(truth) or non-veridically (lies/fibs) (untested)
Psychological causality
– Action-at-a-distance (untested)
Development of the
Cognitive Prerequisites of
Teaching
Procedural Knowledge


Executive function (umbrella term)
– Planning
– Working memory
– Impulse control
– Inhibition
– Mental flexibility
– Initiating action
– Monitoring action
– Monitoring one’s and others’ states
Mostly involves disengaging from immediate environment to
guide actions