Mastery Learning - Equal Ability

"While serving on a panel with Benjamin Bloom and listening to his lecture on the concept of mastery learning, I began to feel uneasy. The beliefs that I had formed during 11 years as a school teacher, school principal, and university professor were being seriously challenged".

"Mastery learning is built on the assumption that the majority of children can become equal in their ability to learn standard school tasks...Bloom...believes that...95 percent of the population are equally capable of learning".

"What does research indicate about the hypothesis that students are the same? Much of the developmental research by Piaget, Bruner and others provides evidence that students progress through stages of cognitive, language, social, moral, artistic and physical stages at different rates...Therefore, there is much research that would refute Bloom's assertion that 95 percent of children have nearly the same potentiality for learning".

Source: "Mastery Learning Stifles Individuality", Carl Glickman, Educational Leadership, November 1979, p. 100.

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