Mastery Learning

In their preface they define mastery learning as "a teaching philosophy asserting that under appropriate instructional conditions virtually all students can learn well most of what they are taught in school" (iii). Aptitude is therefore "not an index of the level to which a student could learn" but "a measure of learning rate" (2). The key to their proposal is therefore this definition of the belief behind their method, and any evaluation of their method would then rest on the validity of their belief. Obviously, the student identified as learning or mentally handicapped would not fit this category. The student with a lower than average IQ is a student who has a lower than average ability to both process and retain information. This student would not be asked to master the same material the other students mastered.

With memory and processing of information not an issue, the remaining issues are, as mentioned, ability and motivation. Ability, then, is time, space, materials, food, family stability, cooperative peers, and any

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gh use of mathematical symbols; manipulate symbols and use mathematical reasoning; and share information and express meaning through the use of mathematical symbols" (9). Missing from this list of human development is any spiritual development, unless Creativity would qualify, which is consistent with the humanist perspective. On the other hand, what they have included is far more detailed than almost any current public school curriculum. While most schools will agree with the need to Understand Others and to have a healthy Mental and Physical Well-Being, this proposal lays out specific objectives around which a teacher could construct a lesson. These lessons would be necessarily propagandistic, trying to change or direct the student's beliefs that he or she acts on. In this respect, Brookover, et al. are honest about stating the overall goal: "changes in students toward which we want. . . to lead." If the student is to go somewhere with his or her knowledge, the honest teacher will recognize the student must be led there. Leaving the student to "self-discover" his or her own path leaves the student to look to peers for leadership because the teacher would not lead. The teacher then, seeing this humanistic philosophy being ho
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1682
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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