WHAT THE STUDENTS THINK ABOUT THEIR TEACHER’S MEDIATION

Marcos Meier1

I have been carrying out a research into the mediation of learning, its
characteristics, its concept, its relation to the autonomy of the subject that
learns and, above all, its importance in the process of the construction of
knowledge.
This approach has brought some questions which became the object of
my Master Degree research. The most important of them was the following:
‘How do High School students notice the mediation which is exerted by their
teachers? Having this question in mind, I wanted to know if Feurstein’s2 theory
about the mediation of learning coincides with the mediation which is
accomplished by teachers.
In order to answer this question, I have made contact with Santa Maria
High School students in Curitiba, Brazil, by means of questionnaires and
interviews. My aim was to check if the characteristics of Feurestein's mediation
were being really observed by the students, and if there were any changes in
their opinions in relation to the degree of importance that each of them has,
concerning the mediation theory.
Before presenting the results of the research, it is necessary to retake the
concept of mediation and its importance in the teaching-learning process,
mainly considering the students’ cognitive development. To the adequate
development of the cognitive functions it is necessary that the child experiences
an education which is permeated by mediation at home and at school. It is the
mediation of learning that will make possible the complete development of the
child, chiefly regarding the cognitive and emotional aspects. Only the child’s
contact with the environmental stimulus is not enough to achieve this task.
At school, the child learns, fundamentally, by means of a teachers’ action
who ‘teaches’ the contents, abilities, competences or necessary strategies for
his/her progress in academic life and in society. Therefore, the learning
mediated experiences become an essential characteristic at school.
There are extremely efficient teachers in their task of teaching. However,
there are others that even having followed the same curricular matrix, present
serious problems with reference to the quality of their work. This happens,
mainly, in relation to the students’ development of their creative and
autonomous capacity in the construction of knowledge.

Questions were brought up for discussion:

My curiosity in trying to discover the origins of these differences in the
success of each of these teachers has contributed to bring about other
questions such as:

1
Master of Education by Federal University of Paraná. Pedagogical assessor of CEMEP − Centro Marista
de Estudos e Projetos in Curitiba, Brazil. Principal of Martinus College. (www.martinus.com.br)
2
Reuven Feuerstein (84), psychologist, is considered to be at the present moment one of the greatest
educator in activity. His Theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM) has been studied and
applied to important universities all over the world. He is the director of the International Center for the
Enhancement of Learning Potential (www.icelp.org) in Jerusalem, Israel.
 - What are the main characteristics of a teacher and his/her pedagogic
actions which make his/her work more effective?
- What is there in the interaction between the teacher and the student that
facilitates the students’ learning?
- Do the students notice the existence or absence of these characteristics
in their teachers?

To answer these specific questions, it was raised another one of a more

general character: ‘How do high school students observe the characteristics
of mediation which are exerted by their teachers?’
As a hypothesis, I assumed that the students identify the same
characteristics of Feuerstein's theory in their best teachers’ performance.

The concept of mediation

The learning mediation is a specialized way of interaction between a

subject who learns and other one who teaches. The mediator, acting
between the mediated person and the object to be learned, promotes a
modification, a regulation, an adaptation of the stimuli of the concept to be
learned. The objective of this process is to cause the learner to become
really touched and transformed by the ‘modified’ environmental stimulus. So,
the mediator’s function, by means oh his/her action, is to alter these stimuli
and provides the modification in the way they can be perceived by the
students (the mediated persons).
The objective, however, is not to remain in an eternal mediation
movement or to provide mediated learning continually. The proposal is to
provoke a greater development of the child’s capacity in order to receive
benefit from the direct experiences of learning and no mediated stimuli. In
other words, the mediation exists to make the child more and more
independent of it. Although it seems to be a contradiction, a child benefits
better from the present stimuli in the environment, when its cognitive
functions are well developed. It is through mediation that this process
happens. The more the number of learning mediated experiences, the less
the child will need help and mediation. Thus, the child’s autonomy is
constructed gradually.
As mediation is a special way of interaction, it is specified by twelve
characteristics3 according to Reuven Feuerstein's Theory of Structural
Cognitive Modifiability. However, four of them are conceived as ‘universal’,
that is, they are always present in a mediated act. If these four
characteristics make part of an interaction, it is already a mediation. Even
so, to be a better mediation the other characteristics need to be taken into
consideration.

3
Currently, in Feuerstein's Theory, there are twelve characteristics (also called criteria) which
were already registered and studied. Nevertheless as this study is not “closed”, there is a
possibility to propose a new aspect or new criterion which, according to the author, needs to be
recognized as something important to the action of mediating.
 Originally, Feuerstein presented the three first criteria as being universal.
Nevertheless, in the International Congress which was promoted by ICELP,
in Holland, 2001, the tenth criterion was considered universal as well.

Criteria of Mediation

The twelve characteristics or criteria of mediation which are presented in

Feurstein's Theory are:

Number of the Criterion

Criterion

1 Intentionality and reciprocity

2 Transcendence
3 Mediation of meaning
4 Mediation of feelings of competence
5 Mediation of self-regulation and control of
behavior
6 Mediation of sharing of behavior
7 Mediation of individuation and psychological
differentiation
8 Mediation of goal seeking / goal setting /
goal achieving / goal monitoring
9 Mediation of challenge, novelty and
complexity
10 Mediation of an awareness of the human
being as a changing entity.
11 Mediation of the search for optimistic
alternatives
12 Mediation of a feeling of belonging

Source: International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential

(Changing Children’s Behavior: Focusing on the ‘E’ in Mediated Learning
Experience, Louis H. Falik, PhD)

Some conclusions of the research

As a result, the research demonstrated that the students identify in their

best teacher’s performance the same criteria which are proposed by Feuerstein.
However, they point out a different frequency from what was proposed by the
author’s theory. In other words, the hypothesis was just confirmed partially.
While Feuerstein proposes the first three and the tenth criterion as universal
and necessary to any mediated act, the students cited only two of these ones
(the first and the third criteria) as the most frequent to occur. The first criterion is
the mediation of intentionality and reciprocity: ‘I want to teach’ and I will do
all to the best of my ability to prompt you ‘to want to learn'. The tenth criterion is
the mediation of the awareness of the modifiability, that is, the teacher helps
the student to become aware of his/her own capacity of modifying himself, of his
intelligence, of his capacity of learning and continuing to learn.
 The two characteristics which the students believe to be less frequent in
the way of teaching are those concerning the contents. One of them is
mediation of transcendence: it means to teach the contents in a way that the
students can apply what they learned in other situations of their lives and in
other contexts. The other characteristic is mediation of meaning, that is, the
teacher helps the students to notice the relation of a theme with other subjects,
other contexts and other historical moments related to the concept which was
taught earlier.
Although both caracteristics are considered very important in
Feuerstein’s Theory, in the students’ point of view, the teachers do not prioritize
them. When analyzed such results, it is possible to affirm that the students
notice in their teachers the actions which are related to the teacher-student
interaction more than the actions connected to the contents and their
importance to real life. The two other criteria of mediation that the students
consider the most frequent in their best teachers’ performance has to do with
the teacher-student interaction. One of them is the mediation of feelings of
competence, that is, the teacher helps the student to perceive himself/herself
as someone capable of learning and developing his/her abilities; someone who
has worth for himself and for society. The other criterion is the mediation of
individuality and psychological differentiation: the teacher helps the
students to feel themselves unique, special and different from other people
when he/she considers their difficulties and abilities in the learning process. In
this case, it can be observed the difference between the teachers’ practice and
the theory of Mediation. Both of the criteria (which were mentioned in the theory
as universal) regarding the importance of the content are less frequent than the
other two regarding the teacher-student interaction.

How to be a good teacher

The preceding considerations refer to what has been happening at

school; they do not refer to the ideal situation that is considered by the students.
However, when the students give their opinions about what they imagine to be
an excellent teacher, in a way, their answers are similar to what was discussed
earlier. The four characteristics which were most cited are:

a) To be friendly and have a good relationship with the students;

b) To explain the contents well;
c) To demonstrate competence (to know very well the content);
d) To know about the students’ individual characteristics and be able to deal
with the differences.

The students point out in their answers that it is very important that the
teacher acts as a friend, keeping a good relationship with them. This
characteristic is considered to be essential in the real actions of the students’
best teachers as it is essential in their opinion about what they think to be
fundamental in a good teacher. Nevertheless, it is relevant to emphasize that
the students have a very particular opinion about what is ‘to be a friend’. They
believe that a friendly teacher is someone who is open-minded, who is
respected by the students, who does not humiliate anybody, does not privilege
the best students and does not prejudice anyone. In addition to these aspects,
he/she is also fair and controls the discipline and the students’ behavior very
well.
According to the students, besides being friendly, the teacher needs to
have a full control of the contents. However, their analysis seems to be too
simple and this simplification may hide some other important aspects. Anyway,
it helps the teacher to be aware of how significant it is to invest in the
relationship with his/her students, to have a good understanding of them, and to
become more ‘human’ and ‘closer’ to them in order to acquire their confidence.
This confidence and solid relationship are the basis for the students to trust the
teacher's orientations regarding the studies, the assimilation and construction of
knowledge. One of the students affirmed that ‘It is necessary a relation of
understanding and empathy, so we can trust the teacher and what he/she says.’
So, according to this expererience, the confidence in the teacher is a
fundamental factor in the construction of learning; it is always present.

The teacher-student's link

In almost all interviews, it was evident the importance of the teacher-

student's link in the learning process. This characteristic does not appear
explicitly in the twelve criteria of mediation which are proposed by Feuerstein.
Nevertheless it can be inferred from some of them as the mediation of
individuality, mediation of feeling of competence, mediation of challenge and
others. Considering the degree of importance which is attributed by the students
to an excellent teacher’s behavior, we come to the conclusion that Feuerstein’s
theory should have more clarity about this. Thus, I suggested the inclusion of
one more criterion of mediation in my Master Degree dissertation as a way to
guarantee that the link between the teacher and the student is considered in
any mediated action. This suggestion does not mean adding something in
Feuerstein’s theory that was not mentioned, nevertheless to include this
criterion means to make it clearer, more evident, sistematized, although
repetitive. It would not be a new fact, because when Feuerstein mentioned the
five axioms of the modifiability, he inferred two of them from the first one.
To explain it better, we could say that the first axiom of modifiability
states that ‘all persons are changeable’. However, the second and third axioms
which state that ‘this specific person is changeable’ and ‘I am personally as well’
would not need to be repeated once they are already included in the concept
‘when it is used the word ‘all’. Concerning this fact, Feuerstein affirmed, in his
conference in the Mediation International Congress in Jerusalem, Israel, July
2000, that, despite of the repetition, the other axioms exist to avoid doubts
about the importance of the awareness of the modifiability.

Proposal

Thus, following the same principle of Feuerstein’s theory, l suggested the

inclusion of one more criterion, the 13th one, in the Cognitive Structural
Modifiability Theory. It is the ‘Mediation of the construction of the teacher-
student's link”. It is necessary to consider the possible generalization to
compose the list of criteria without emphasizing the figures specifically
mentioned in the research: the teacher and the student. So, the writing of the
13th criterion could be: Mediation of the construction of the mediator-
mediated (person) link.
It became evident with these reflections the great value of the human,
personal and relational aspects in education. It is not necessary to reinforce the
importance of the teacher-student’s link and the derivations which can be
inferred from this construction, however the teacher’s good characteristics are
linked to this fact.
To be successful, a teacher cannot have only a high level of knowledge
about the subject he teaches or an efficient method of explaining and
developing the construction of each student’s learning. He needs to be human,
real, personal. It is necessary that he/she dialogues with the students. Paulo
Freire Said:

“There is no dialogue if there is not humility. The enunciation of the world, with
which men re-create it permanently, cannot be an arrogant act. The dialogue, as an
encounter of men, which enables them to know how to act in a very common way, is
broken if one of its poles loses humility. How can I dialogue if I alienate ignorance, that
is, if I always see ignorance in other people and never in myself? (…)
Self-sufficiency is incompatible with dialogue. Men, who do not have humility or
who lose it, cannot approach people. They cannot be their enunciation's companions of
the world. If someone is not able to feel and know himself as the other men, it means
that this person has to walk much more to arrive to the place of the encounter with
them. In this place there are no absolute ignorant or absolute wise people: there are
men that search to know more in communion. (1983, p. 95)

This Paulo Freire’s quotation, inspired in the fight for freedom and
for respect, reinforces what the students presented in their perception: their best
teachers act to approximate the teacher and the students. They construct
relations based on respect and consideration of individual differences. They
encourage the students to develop a search for a greater self-development
based on the awareness that the students are changeable. First of all, a teacher
needs to be a specialist in people!

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