Using technical and confluent patterns first : a recipe for underachievement?

Abstract

Many students are convinced, early on in their scholastic life, that success at school is beyond them. Students who encounter difficulties in the core areas of the curriculum can get discouraged in the world of school and, eventually, are 'pushed out' of the system without mastering the basic skills. While the reasons for students' lack of success at school are varied, theories oflearning are increasingly highlighting the possibility that education systems are not responding to the multiplicity of individual differences in learning and to the different circumstances and contexts in which learning takes place. Such theories underline the fact that schools are partially responsible for the plight of students at risk when they misread, misunderstand or are completely indifferent to the polyphony of student voices. This chapter foregrounds the voices of four, Grade 9 (ll-12-yearold) students who, according to the scores of the Learning Connection Inventory (LCI), an instrument that captures students' interactive learning patterns, lead with the technical and/or confluent learning patterns. At the time of the research, these students were attending an independent, non-profit, Parents' Foundation (PFE) school in Malta. These students, who originally formed part of a larger cohort (n=74), were first administered the LCI and then selected 18) for a closer, qualitative analysis. These students were specifically selected because they did not seem to conform to the 'ideal' image of a learner as portrayed by most teachers.