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1. See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232706999
Strauss, S., & Shilony, T. (1994). Teachers' models of children's minds and
learning. In L. Hirschfeld & S. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping the mind: Domain-
specificity in cognition and cul...
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2. Domain specificity in cognition and culture
Ediled by
LAWRENCE A. HIRSCHFELD
University of Michigan
SUSAN A. GELMAN
University of Michigan
Mapping the mind
WCavrnRrDGE
W{;ryUNIvERSITYPRESS
I t i {,

3. 18 Teachers' models of children's ninds and
learning
Sidney Strauss and Tamar Shilony
Laypersons,teachers,and psychologists
believe that learning takesplace in
people'sminds.They all believethat learningtakesplaceasa consequence
of instruction,if we interpret instructionin its widestsense(Atran & Sperber,
1ee1,).
western laypersonshavefolk psychologynotionsof the mind andits func-
tioning.But their notionsarenot all that naivebecause
western adultshave
considerable
practiceat learningand,evenmore important,thinking about
learning.Entry into school,the culturally designated
place for learningto
take place,generallybeginsat age6. Thusstudentswho havefinishedtheir
high schooleducationhavebeenin formal learningsituationsfor 12 years.
Over a considerable
periodof time,then,they havepracticedwhat they and
othersthink it takesto learn.In the sense
that theyhavenot studiedformally
aboutthe mind and learningin, say,psychology
courses,
theycanbe consid-
eredlaypersons.
But it is a big stretchto call themlaypersons
andholdersof
a naivepsychology
afterthey havebeenin placeswherelearningis the main
goal and wherethey havebeenreflectiveabout what that learningis.
Teachers
areprofessionals
who havebeeneducated
to teachin sucha way
as to causechangein others'minds.That changeis learning.The causeof
that changeis thought to be teaching.The differentiation betweenteaching
andlearningis often unclear,evenin the educational
literature.Someof our
bestfriendsrefer to it asthe teaching/learning
process.
The mind is under-
stoodas somethingthat cannotbe accessed
directly,and it is only through
our students'behaviors
(questions
they ask,answers
they give to our ques-
tions,etc.)that we caninfer if our teachinghascaused
the desiredlearning
The research reported in this chapter is based on an MA thesis submitted by Tamar Shilony to
Tel Aviv University in partial requirement for the MA degree. The study was guided by Sidney
Strauss. The research was supported by the Chief Scientist's Office of the Israeli Mhistry of
Education. Thanks are extended to Nachshon Meiran for statistical assistanceand to David H.
Feldman, Gaea Leinhardt, and Ference Marton for helpful discussions.
455

4. r
456 S. Srneuss eNp T. SHrr-oNv
in their minds. In other words, we teachers do something (employ teaching
strategies)outside of our students'minds, in order to causechanges(learn-
ing) to take place in their minds.
Psychologistsof the stripe who do work in the area of learning have come
up with a number of ways to describewhat learning is; however, there is little
consensusabout which models best describe it. There is no agreed-upon set
of principles, rules, or laws of learning, and there does not seem to be one
in the offing. So, as much as theoreticians and experimentalists have made
progress in understanding learning, their work is still controversial. And,
unlike the work on teachers' conceptions about domains, such as physics
where there is agreement about its laws, we cannot speak of misconceptions
when investigatingteachers'understandingsof children's minds.
One theme of this book is to tackle issuespertaining to domain speciflcity.
We have chosento addressone of its aspects:
We askedourselvesif teachers
havemental modelsof the structureof others'minds,of how the mind works
when learning takes place, and of the roles of teaching in fostering that
learning.
There are two principal reasonswe chose to examine the nature of teach-
ers' mental modelsof the mind. First, we are interestedin teachereducation.
We hold the position that, by analogy to the education of children, before
teaching children concepts, notions, and the like, from some domain of
knowledge, we must first understand the structure of children's intuitive
knowledge of that domain. The reason for this is that those intuitive knowl-
edge structures,which are quite resistantto changethrough instruction, are
the systems that interpret instruction (diSessa, 1982, in press; McCloskey,
1983;McCloskey & Kargon, 1988).
We believe that, in principle, similar considerationshold for teacheredu-
cation. That is, before we teach teachers psychological models of children's
minds, we should first understandwhat their intuitive nlodels of children's
minds are becausetheir models interpret our instruction.
Second,and more pertinent to the theme of this book, we reasonedthat
studying teachers'understandingof the mind might be a window into what
happensto what has been claimed to be children's models of the mind. In
other words, young children have notions as to what the mind is' We are
interested to know the fate of those notions in adulthood. In order to exam-
ine this,we must first know what children'smodelsof the mind are.Then we
will be in a position to show how we can claim lineage between children's and
adults' models.
We now briefly present others' {indings about children's early notions about
the mind, so that we will have something against which we can compare
adults' models. For our purposes here, the most relevant findings of chil-
dren's models of the mind are those reported by Wellman (1988, 1990, this
volume).
In a number of research studies, Wellman and his co-workers attempt to
Teachers'models of children's minds 451
describe children's theories of mind: how children understand how reality
external to the mind comesto be known. Their researchfindings suggestthat
3-year-old children hold a direct copy theory of mind, whereasmany children
ages 5 and 6 have a homunculus theory of mind. We slightly elaborate on
these theories.
The direct copy theory of mind is that there is a reality that comes to be
known and that what is known is the result of a direct copy of reality in the
mind. Very young children think that things outside the mind come to be
understoodby our minds becausethose things transmit themselvesunto the
mind, which then copiesthem as faint traces.Those tracesare the substance
of our mental beliefs about the world that is external to our minds. Wellman
points out that althoughthesevery young children seemto hold a theory that
explainshow we come to know reality,they do not seemto have firm notions
about the processes
that enablethe direct copy to be made. This theory has,
asa root metaphor,the idea that the mind is a cclntainerthat holds ideasand
thoughts,which are passivelyacquired.
The homunculustheory is held by many children at agc 6. At its core is the
conceptionof the mind as an activeconstructorand interpreter of the world.
This theory of the mind is seen against the backdrop of children's more
generalview of themselvesasactiveagents.At age6, they apply that concep-
tion to the mind itself.Children begin to speakabout the mind's "behavior,"
the way it "works," how one's rnind gets "tricked," and so forth. Wellman
interprets these expressionsas being emblematic of the homunculus theory
of the mind.
These two theories of the mind are probably additive in the sensethat
children may hold them, or aspectsof them, simultaneously.In other words,
it may be the casethat the homunculustheory of mind does not replacethe
direct copy theory of mind; instead, they may exist side-by-side.
So now, having presentedthesetwo theories,we have somethinggeneral
against which we can compare adults' models of the mind. So far, so good.
But even were we to find that adults' models are similar to either or both of
the children'smodels,then what could that tell us?Why would we claim that
adults' models may be descendants
of the children'smodels?This, of course,
is a question that haunts every developmentaltheory and all empirical re-
searchin developmental psychology, and we will leave answersto that ques-
tion to people far wiser than we.
However, so as not to dodge these questions completely, we make a claim
that bears on the issueof descendancy.we argue that one way to determine if
there is lineagein what we are studying is to seeif the original, ancestralmodel
is resistantto instruction. The claim is that if children have a tacit, nonreflective
model of the mind and if that tacit model is not explicitly addressedin teaching,
then it will remain quite unchangedafter teaching.we choseto study teachers'
models of the mind becausethey have been taught to influence minds through
instruction, and they have taken educational psychology courses that cover

5. 458 S. Srnauss eNo T. SHrI-ottv
topics on learning and development. Were we to find that teachers hold a
common intuitive model of children's minds that is different than the models
they were taught at universities, we might have some evidence that their
models were resistant to university instruction. And if their models resemble
those intuitively held by children, we could make a very tentative claim that
there might be an ancestor-descendant link between them.
Before we present our work, we feel compelled to add a caveat. We have
deliberately stayedaway from using terms suchas"naive theoriesof the mind"
becausewe do not want to enter the minefield of debate surrounding what
constitutes a theory, when one can plausibly argue that children's or adults'
understandings of their world have theorylike characteristics,and so forth.
We choseto usethe somewhatweaker term "mental model" becauseit implies
lessof a commitment to the nature of the organizing structure that interprets
the world and guides behavior. Choosing the weaker terminology does not
mean we have extracted ourselvescompletely from the minefield, of course,
but it gives a different feel to what we are looking for.
Our research also falls within the purview of teachers' cognition, an area
of study that has burgeoned recently. We now briefly present that area so as
to frame our work.
Conceptual framework
Clark and Peterson (1986) classifiedresearch on teachers' thinking
into three categories:preactive and postactive planning, interactive thinking,
and teachers'theories and beliefs. Space considerations do not allow a full
treatment of these categories,but suffice it to say that our researchis located
within the third area of teachers' thinking: teachers' theories and beliefs.
We argue that teachers' implicit beliefs about children's minds, learning,
and instruction have a bearing on how they practice their profession asteach-
ers.The nature of professionalknowledge hasoccupied the concernsof Schon
(1983, 1987) and his co-workers (Argyris & Schon, 1974) and they, too, worked
out a classificationsystem of kinds of knowledge professionalshave. Among
them are the following: theories of practice, theories in use, and espoused
theories. Espoused theories, which we examined in the present study, are
those theories professionals espouse when asked how they would act in a
certain professional situation. In the caseof teachers,espousedtheories about
learning and instruction could be those theories teachersespousewhen asked
how they would teach in a certain situation. Because teachers instruct for
learning to take place in others, we can infer their mental models of learning
through the ways they speak about instruction. We have more to say about
this later.
One of the most significant aspectsof teachers' professional knowledge is
to make subject matter understandable to the children being taught. This has
been called pedagogical content knowledge by Shulman and his co-workers
Teachers' models of children's minds 459
(Shulman, 1986; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987). Pedagogical content
knowledge includes knowing students' preconceptions about subject matter,
which concepts or skills are particularly difficult for children to learn, what
makes them difficult, ways to make those difficult concepts and skills easier,
and how they are different at different ages.
There has been surprisingly little research done in this area (Ammon &
Hutcheson, 1989;Black, 1989;Elbaz, 1983;Munby, 1983;Peterson,Fennema,
Carpenter, & Loef, 1989;Wilson et al., 1987;Yaakobi & Sharan, 1985). As
interesting as these studies were in their own right, they did not help us in
designing our study. The challenge facing us, then, was to conduct a study
that attempted to describeteachers' espousedpedagogical knowledge and to
infer their models of the mind and its functioning in learning from our dis-
cussionswith them about instruction.
Common models and contrasting groups
Our goal was to find a mental model that was common to teachers
even though the teachers were quite different on a number of important
dimensions.The common mental model allows us to identify parametersthat
may vary among different teachers. Without having this common mental
model, it is difficult to know what to look for when attempting to determine
how contrasting groups of teachers conceptualize children's minds because
there is no framework to indicate what categories exist to be tested. Once
this common mental model hasbeen determined,researchinto how contrasting
groups differ within that framework could yield important information for
teachereducation and for the ancestral-descendantlineagebetween children's
and adults' models of the world of the mind.
Having said that, let us turn to the two contrasting groups of high school
teachers we chose to study: (1) experienced versus novice teachers and (2)
teachers of different subject matter - the sciencesand the humanities. We
sought to study both what unites them (the common mental model) and what
makes them different.
Experienced versus novice teachers
We chose this terminology over the more accepted terminology
(expert, novice) becausethe term "expert" implies much more than the term
"experienced" (Berliner, 1987). Teachers with considerable experience in
teaching may not necessarily be expert. Teachers with relatively little
experience are novices, though.
With this caveat in mind, we briefly discussresearch in the area of the
expert-novice distinction with an eye toward what it might tell us about dif-
ferenceswe may expect between experienced and novice teachers' espoused
pedagogical knowledge. Those who have done expert-novice research have

6. 460 S. Srnnuss erup T. SHII-ottY
attempted to capture the ways individuals develop and differ from each other'
Research in this area has often been on subject matter from the sciences,
chess,and other areas that have some precision (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser,
1981; Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986). Findings from research of this sort have
revealed four areasin which experts and novices differ: The knowledge base
of experts is larger than that of novices; knowledge representationand or-
ganization is deeper among experts than novices; and strategieschosen in
problem solving are different for the two groups.
Experiments to determine if the above holds for expert and novice teach-
ers obtained results similar to those in the four aforementioned areas
(Benjamin, 1989;Berliner, 1986,1987;Carter, 1990;Carter, Cushing,Sabers,
Stein.& Berliner, 1988;Feiman-Nemser& Buchmann, 1985;Lampert & Clark,
1990; Leinhardt, 1989;Leinhardt & Fienberg, 1988; Livingston & Borko'
1989;Pintrich, 1990;Wilson et al., 1987).Unfortunately for the purposesof
the present study, these investigators studied topics (e.g., the flow of a class
as understood by expert and novice teachers),which, although of interest, do
not help us predict what we would find in our study of teachers' espoused
pedagogical knowledge, that is, their models about the nature of children's
minds and how learning takes place.
Becausethere is no theory that could guide us, and becausethere were no
empirical precedentsfor researchof the kind we set for ourselves,
we had no
basis for predicting how teachers' mental models might look nor could we
predict what differences might be found between experienced and novice
teachers within this model. We included this contrasting group to see if we
could detect differences between them were we to find a common mental
model.
Teaching,different subject matter
We choseto include in our study teacherswho taught different subject
matter (the sciencesand the humanities) to see if that variable would make
a difference in the mental models they have about children's minds. We
chose these disciplines becausewe thought there may be relations between
teachers' understanding of the epistemologies of their discipline and their
epistemologies of children's minds.
Yaakobi and Sharan (1935) showed that teachers of different disciplines
have different understandingsof the nature of knowledge in the subjectmatter
they teach. Teachers of the sciencesthink that the knowledge and concepts
in their field are "out there," accepted,true, and verifiable. In contrast' teach-
ers of the humanities think that knowledge in their discipline emerges from
subjective personal invention, reflecting the creativity of individuals.
*" utgu" that teachers of the sciencesmight believe that the role of in-
struction is to get the disciplinary knowledge that is "out there" into the
Teachers' models of children's minds 461
minds of children, and learning might be the "taking in" and rememberins of
what was taken in. This view is similar to the direct copy theory of mind held
by younger children. In contrast, teachers of the humanities might view the
role of instruction as one in which conditions are created for personal inter-
pretation and invention. Learning in this view, then, might be the making of
these personal inventions. This view is similar to the homunculus theory of
mind held by older children.
once again, becausethere were no theories that could guide hypotheses
about the role of subject matter taught, nor have there been empirical pre-
cedents to serve as guidelines for predicting how these proposed differences
may be played out in teachers' mental models of pedagogy and learning, we
have no hypothesesto make, and can pose only general research questions.
The main researchquestion that guided our researchstudy was: Do teach-
ers have a common mental model of children's minds and of learning?we
also asked if there was a difference among teacherswith varying teaching ex-
perience and teachers of different subject matter in the strength with which
they held their positions about the model. This was done to determine if
there is some similarity between children's models of the mind (which we did
not test) and adults' models of the mind, these adults having been taught
about the mind and its workings. our findings could inform issuesof the fate
of children's models of the mind.
The subjectswere2o high schoolteacherswho were ctivicledinto two groups
of equal numbers of scienceand humanities teachers.As a result, there were
five teachers in the four groups created by the two independent variables:
experience and subject matter taught.
Experienced teachers were those who had at least seven years teaching
experience, and the novices were those who had no more than two years
teaching experience. The sciencesincluded physics, chemistry, biology, and
mathematics,and the humanitiesincluded history, literature, and the Bible,
which is taught as literature in Israeli public schools.
Each teacher was interviewed in one sessionon an individual basis in a
semistructured clinical interview technique. The interviewer asked the same
initial question to each teacher and, based on the teacher's answers, the
interviewer followed up with further questions.The interview lasted approxi-
mately one hour.
The question asked was as follows:
Whenyouarriveat school,
yourprincipalapproaches
youwith a problem.Two teach-
erscalledin sickandwill be out for at leasta month.You havebeenaskedto take
overtheir classes
for that periodof time.The teachers
teachthe samesubjectmatter
asyou,andyou canteachanythingyou'd like,evenif it doesn'tappearin the curric-
ulum.The schoolyou work at is a comprehensive
schoolthatgoesfrom firstto twelfth
grade,andthe teachers
who aresickteachsecond
andsixthgracles.
Choosewhatever
contentyou'd like to teach,and let's talk about how you'd teachthat contentto
chil.irenwho are aged7, 12, and,17.

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8. 464 S. Srn.cusseNo T. SHrr-oNv
Table 18.1. Components with more than 50%"
them for categories with high intercorrelations
intercorrelations betweencategories
of the teachers mentioning
within categories and low
Categories Components
Characteristics of subject matter
Teacher as internrediary
Characteristics of alrcady-learned
knowledgc
Ways the learner demonstrates
new knowlcdge
Level of abstraction
Complexity
Kind of discipline
Teaching knowledge, tools
Guiding, directing
Creating learning opportunities
Developing children's thinking
Organizing material for teaching
Connecting new material to the old
Pacing the presentation of content
Fitting the material to the learner
Teaching the right amount of/variety of material
Teaching material at the right level
of abstraction
Cre:rtinginlercst in thc suhject
Crcating a lcarning atmospherc
Amount of knowlcdge
Knowledge organization
Kind of knowledge
Application of knowledge and tools
Translation of feelings, thoughts into words,
writing, or paintings
75
65
65
80
85
60
55
55
75
50
75
55
80
65
65
65
55
55
80
75
categories.Due to spaceconsiderations,we present a selectionof them in
Tables 18.1and 18.2and in the Appendix. The Appendix includesan exam-
ple of a description, explanation, judgment, or justification that was classified
as an instanceof a component.For a full treatment of criteria for classifying
teachers'statementsinto componentsand for a complete presentationof our
data, see Strauss and Shilony (1992).
Now that we have presentedthe model under test,we must provide opera-
tional definitionsof what we put to test. The main researchquestion posed
was: Do teachershave a common mental model of children's minds and of
learning?Operationally, componentsof a conrmon mental rnodel were claimed
to have psychological reality if they met two criteria: (1) correlations within
the components of each category were higher than the correlations of the
samecomponentswith componentsof other categories,and (2) at least507o
of the teachersmentioned a certain component.
As for the first criterion, the results indicate that four categories met it:
(1) characteristicsof the subject matter, (2) characteristicsof the learner, (3)
characteristics
of the knowledge already learned, and (4) ways the learner
demonstrates the knowledge already learned. The results of the second
T /
Teachers' models of children's minds
Table 18.2. Components with more than 50"/" of the teachersmentioning
them where there are no separatecategories
Categories Components
Characteristics of the learner Abilities
Intelligence
Personality, maturity
Curiosity. interest
Mental development
General experience
Experience as a learner
Experience with content being studied,
with use of skills
Cumulative life's experiences
Dependence/independence in studies
Levcl of ahstractionin learning
Teacher's image of the learner
Teaching through stories
Play
Getting them to do sonre(hing
Explanations
Asking questions
Discussions
Giving examples
Concrctization
Evaluating knowledge during instruction
Using means to get information/evaluate
the child
Teacher's role as a pedagogue, educator
Family. home
Physical, scnsorial experience
Reading, using the material
Activity
Connections
Comparisons
Pr<lccsses
of
analyzing the material
organizing the malerial
classifying the material
translalingthe material
reaching conclusions
thinking
learning, knowledge change
lnformation input and processing
Speed of information input and processing
Efficiency of information input and processing
Vocabulary
Concepts
Knowledge and tools about subjects
from a discipline
lnstruction
465
('hild's environment
Means used by thc learner to learn
material that entered the mind
Mental processesthat take place
in the lcarner's mind
Knowledge that already exists in
the child's mind
50
65
55
65
85
65
50
55
60
90
90
75
50
90
55
70
60
50
80
50
50
55
80
75
80
55
50
80
55
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80
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55
55
50
55
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9. 466 S. Srnauss
Table18.2.(Cont.)
eNp T. Surlorvy
operational criterion (at least 50% of the teachersmentioned a certain com-
ponent) wcre that a quite large number of components met this criterion.
Data showing the components that met this criterion for the four categories
that met the first criterion are found in Table 18.1.
There were also quite a large number of componentsthat met the second
criterion (i.e.,at least50% of the teachersmentioned them), but not the first.
This means that their categories were not significantly separated from one
another in the teachers'minds. These componentsare found in Table 18.2.
For easeof reading,the componentsare organizedin terms of categories,
but
we reiterate that thesecomponents are not organized into categoriesthat are
separateand distinct in teachers'minds.
We have now determined that the teachers interviewed in this study have
a common mental model of children's minds and of learning. It is not as
elaborate and full as the model we put to test; nevertheless,it has some of
its characteristics.In addition, although some categories were not separate
and distinct in the teachers' mental models, their components were men-
tioned by at least 50% of the teachers.This suggeststhat these components
have psychological reality for the teachers,but they do not coalescearound
categories that are distinct in teachers' minds.
The main purpose of this study was to determine the nature of a mental
model teachershold about children's minds and learning. One reason we did
this was to seeif it bears a resemblanceto intuitive, commonsensemodels of
the mind held by children. The model we found resemblessome information
processingmodels of memory and learning (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968).What
is remarkable about this is that these teacherswere never taught about infor-
mation processing approaches in their educational psychology courses;they
were generally taught about Piaget and sometimes about Vygotsky. So what
we discovered is a mental model that teachershave constructed from some-
thing other than coursestaken in their teacher preparation. Or, to put it more
Teachers' models of children's minds 467
strongly, the mental model we discovered in teachersmay have resisted for-
mal instruction. Let us describe this model further.
The mental model of the child's mind and learning belies an engineering
vision on the part of teachers.In their view, the object of pedagogy is to get
external subject matter into the place in the mind where knowledge is stored.
That is one engineering problem. To solve it, one first servesup knowledge
that is initially external to children's minds in such a way that it can enter it.
A secondengineering problem is to get that new knowledge to a place where
it will be stored. After the knowledge enters it, the teacher does things ex-
ternal to children's minds (teaches),believing that if children were to do what
the teacher requests,then the new knowledge would be passedin the child's
mind from the place where it entered to the place where it will be stored. We
elaborate on this a bit.
When teachersspoke about how they would teach children certain content,
they typically began speaking about learning in terms of the subject matter
they wanted to teach. They believed that knowledge in various disciplines
differs in kind, abstraction,and complexity. One of their chief concernsabout
these differences was about how to package content knowledge for their
pupils so that it can be learned.
In order for that to occur, the content has to enter children's minds, and
teachersconceive of the mind as having openings of a certain size that allow
information to enter. Their notion of "opening size" recalls the notion of
working memory capacity. Teachers believe that good pedagogy involves
serving up knowledge in chunks that can "get through" the openings. For
example, teachers said that if ideas in the subject matter were too complex,
they won't even be able to get "in."
Even if the material is the right complexity, it may never enter the mind
if children's affective states are not motivated to receive the content.
Conceived of metaphorically, the entrancesto children's minds have "flaps"
that are open when children are attentive. If children are uninterested or
unmotivated, the flaps go down, and material cannot enter the mind.
Teachers believe that once content "gets through," it must somehow con-
nect up with already-existing knowledge by means of analogies,associations,
familiar examples,and so on. This correspondsto an "elaborative processing"
model. Accordingly, teachers believe they should facilitate connection mak-
ing between new and old knowledge. If there is no already-existing knowl-
edge to get connected to, the new knowledge can be driven into memory
through repetition, rehearsal, and practice.
How does new knowledge affect the structure of prior knowledge? Teach-
ers have beliefs concerning what happensto old knowledge when new knowl-
edgefinally gets to the place in the mind where it is remembered. Among the
changesteachers mention are those in the amount and organization of pre-
vious knowledge; broadening and generalizing previous knowledge; higher
levcls of abstraction than what was in previous knowledge; and more.
Categories Components "/"
Products of learning Increase in amount of knowledge
Knowledge organization
Broadening, generalization of knowledge
Storage of knowledge
Learning
Development
Experience
Level of abstraction
Responses,behavior
70
55
60
55
85
70
60
60
50

10. 468 S. Srneuss eNo T. SHrloNv
Our second researchquestion was about how different amounts of experi-
encein teaching and how different subjectmatter taught could affect teachers'
mental models.In particular,we looked at the strengthof the positionsteachers
held within their mental models. The findings indicated that these two vari-
ables,as tested, did not have many significant effects. However, now that we
know what the teachers' common mental model looks like, we have a basis
for testing in the future how these individual differences and others get
expressedwithin it.
What is the status of this model? First. it is an idealization in two senses:
(1) it is our model of the teachers' model of children's minds and (2) no
teacher holds this model in its entirety. As for the latter, we found that at the
more general level of description of the model, the level of categories, all
teachersare included in it. However, at the more specificlevel of the model's
description, the level of components, many but not all teachers are included
in it. For example, all teachers spoke about the category that refers to char-
acteristicsof the subject matter, but not all the teachers mentioned the fol-
lowing component of that category: the structure of the knowledge of a
discipline.
This model is also implicit. Teachers are not aware they hold it. In other
studieswe conducted,when we asked them what they think learning is, we
were told what they were taught in their educational psychology courses.But
in the present study, we asked teachers to tell us about what and how they
would teach subject matter of their choice and, in telling us that, they re-
vealed their implicit models of what children's minds look like and how
learningtakesplacebecausethe purposeof their teachingwasto foster learning
in children.
If this model was never taught to theseteachersbut neverthelessthey seem
to hold it, then where could it have come from? There may be severalsources.
One may be as mundane and powerful as classroom size, and the ways one
teachesmany children. Teachers have repertoires of teaching strategiesthat
accommodate this reality. Had they been teachers who taught only tutorials
in an apprenticeship relationship with their pupils, then they may have con-
structed a different model of children's minds and learning.
Yet another source of the teachers' model may be a larger and more en-
compassingmodel of communication, where teaching others may be seen as
a place where communication takes place. Reddy (1,979)offers an intriguing
and helpful understanding of two models of communication. The first is what
he calls the conduit metaphor of communication, which he believes is the
dominant metaphor in our society. It suggeststhat messagesand ideas are
objectlike, and are transmitted across space from one person and are re-
ceived by another. Reflect for a moment on the meaning of these metaphors:
"I finally managedto get my ideas acrossto my studentstoday." "Play around
with your thoughts so that they'll come out different." "He didn't quite catch
I
Teachers' models of children's minds 469
on to it." These metaphors convey a sense of ideas as being tangible and
external to individuals, and communicating them means passingthem alons
channels to receptive others who take them in and understand them as thei
were intended. Bertrand Russell called this the bucket theory of the mind.
And Wellman called this the direct copy theory of mind.
It might be the casethat, in our study, we were not only tapping teachers,
models of the mind and its functioning, but we may also have touched on
teachers' models of communication, where teaching others is a place where
communication gets played out. And becausethe central metaphor of com-
munication is one that encouragesa conception of knowledge, ideas,thoughts,
and so forth as being passedon to others who receive them as is, our teach-
ers' model of the mind and instruction may have been influenced by it.
In contrast to this dominant metaphor, Reddy suggeststhat a metaphor of
the tool-maker may be more appropriate for describing communication. This
metaphor suggeststhat individuals are always in the processof sensemaking,
and that our messages,thoughts, and so on are being constructed by others,
and invented anew as we attempt to grapple with their meanings.This view
is akin to the one teachers were taught when they learned Piaget's theory.
What happened between what they were taught and what they believe im-
plicitly about the mind and learning is a question that those of us involved
in teacher education ought to try to answer.
Still another source of the teachers' model of the mind could be that it is
grounded in the models of the mind we may all have as youngsters.We have
now arrived at the point where we can examine if an ancestor-descendantlink
existsbetween children's and adults' models. We have been claiming that two
conditions must be met even to begin to argue that a link exists between
them. First, we must demonstrate similarities between the models. Second,
we should find that the teachers' model is resistant to instruction. We have
already shown that the teachers' common mental models of the mind are
different than anything they were taught, so the resistancecondition seems
to have been met. Now we must show that children's and adults'models have
some resemblance.
This is particularly difficult to demonstrate for several reasons' First, we
did not test children's models of the mind. Second,becausewe did not know
what to expect in the way of how teachers understand chidren's minds, we
could not conduct a study that could parallel Wellman's work. And even
were these two reasons taken care of, there is the extremely problematic
issue of how one can find similarities between models that have been con-
structed by youngsters and elaborated by adults.
Adults' models of the mind are clearly different than those of children.
Adult models are more articulated than children's. Adults have metaconceptual
abilities that allow them to think with their minds about their minds. Very
young children do not have this ability. Adults' models can be made explicit,
r

11. 470 S. Slnnuss eNt T. SHrr-oNy
whereas young children's probably cannot. Adults have the ability to extend
their models through formal instruction (even though our study shows that
they don't seem to do that). Young children may not be so affected.
Despite these differences, we are claiming that there might be some
similarity between the models. Clearly, whatever similarity that might be
found will be at a very general level. We have seen that Wellman suggests
that children develop two different models of the mind: a direct copy and a
homunculus model. Notice that both models are based on the notion that
there is a world external to the mind. Once that is posited, one is obligated
to ask how that external world comes to be known by the mind. In other
words, if the world is external and becomesrepresentedin the mind, the
question becomes: How does what is external become internal?
One area of similarity is that both the children's and adults' models are
based on the separation between the mind and the external world. This dis-
tinction is vital, as we argued previously, bccausewhat follows from it is the
need to addresshow the external world comes to be known in our minds.
Another similarity is that both older children and adultsentertainthe view
that the world comes to be known by a mind that is an active interpreter of
the world. Wellman showsus how youngerchildren who hold the direct copy
model of the mind have an understandingthat the mind is a recipient con-
tainer that holds images from the world. We believe the teachers' model is
not of that order. Older children hold the view that the mind is an active
interpreter of the world, that it does not simply reflect what is out there.
The teachers'model that we uncoveredbearsa family resemblanceto this
secondview. Teachersseethe mind as having openingsthat allow the world
to penetrate it, but what gets through has much to do with what is already
known. A child who knows more (has more information in memory store)
takes in more than the child who knows less.Once the information from the
world gets into the mind, it gets moved along to the place where it getsstored
(remembered). That moving along is done by the mind, in broad-stroke terms,
either by connectionsbeing made between the new and the already-known,
or by drill and practice that drives the new information into memory. In both
cases,the mind actively moves knowledge to the place where what is already
learned is stored. This moving along is not done passively,but requires the
activity of the mind.
In the most general of comparisons,we have attempted to show that there
is some resemblancein the overall view children and adults have about the
mind. As tentative as this claim is, we would like to take it one step further
and ask about how the hypothesized lineage came into being. Why should
there be any resemblancebetween children's and adults' models of the mind?
Here we borrow from R. Gelman, who claimed that skeletallike principles
in very young children's mathematical principles constrain adults' concep-
tualizations of mathematics principles (Gelman & Gallistel, 1978;Gelman &
Teachers'models of children's minds 477
Greeno, 1989). Analogous to Gelman, our claim is that young children have
principled knowledge about others' minds and that that knowledge sets the
constraints for the principted knowledge that is its heir, that is, adults' models
of the mind. We have no way of testing this idea at present and, truth be said,
before doing work of that nature, we had better conduct more research in
order to establishboth the similarities and differencesbetween children's and
adults' models of the mind.
To sum up, the researchdescribedin this chapter is a beginning attempt to
determine the developmental fate of young children's models of the mind.
We made a very cautious claim that there seemsto be a family resemblance
between children's and adults' models. This has to be tested further to deter-
mine if our initial claim holds up under closer scrutiny. We also argued that
this model seems to be resistant to instruction because the teachers were
taught models other than the one they hold. In our view, this finding is
intriguing becauseteachers seem to hold a common information processing
model, university instruction to the contrary. We argued that one source of
this common model may be the models they formed as youngsters. These
early models set parameters and constraintson the models that get elaborated
in their development,even when they become adults and are taught about
how psychologistsunderstand what minds are and how they work when
learning occurs.
Appendix Examples of teachers' sentencesand their classification
into categories and components
Teacher'sstatementi"The story is long for them."
Category 1: Characteristicsof subjectmatter
Component: Size of the material
Teacher'sstatement:"First of all, I'd define things precisely."
Category 2: Teacher as intermediary
Component: Organizing the material
Teacher'sstatement:"For this age group, I wouldn't use frontal lessons."
Category 3: Instruction
Component: Frontal lessons
Teacher'sstatement'.
"There have to be experiencesthrough the sensesso that
they'll understandthe phenomenon."
Category 6: Means
Component: Physical exPeriences
Teacher'sstatement:"He can build analogies between the characters in the
text and charactershe knows."
Category 9: Processes
Component: Analogies

12. 472 S. Srn euss aNo T. SHr r - oNy
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