Schemas

26 Jan. 2016

What the heck is schema and what role does it play in how we perceive student intelligence?

     As Prof. Chris Haskell defines the term in his book Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Or The First Year of Teaching, a schema is a "...collection of experience and knowledge about how to react, iterpet, or operate in an environment."  Basically, according to Haskell, all students are capable of learning what is needed and getting good grades; we are all intelligent in our own ways.  It's the teacher's job to determine what approach will work best for each student- it's a known fact that we do not all learn the same way at the same rate, and we all grow up with different life experiences.  This is where schemas come in.  As we grow up, we learn different routines, patterns, and guidelines that tell us as individuals how we are supposed to react to various situations.  Given that, teachers need to be ready to identify students who are struggling and look deeper into the source of the problem- beyond simply accepting the "obvious" answer that that student isn't as smart or capable.  It is very possible that the schemas that student has developed in life up to this point are simply not working for him/her now, and needs help creating new schemas.