Action pseudo-research

 
My district's recent incursions into action research have been interesting. I have the extreme fortune of sharing my prep room with a retired bench research scientist, published in multiple peer-reviewed science journals. We are tackling a specific method of inquiry, but quickly realized getting any reasonable data will require far bigger numbers than we will likely generate in our classes.

Our administration responded reasonably, explaining that the process of looking at data generated in our classrooms will encourage teachers to look critically at specific classroom practices. No one is pretending that will will develop statistically significant findings (p <0.05).

In education, a field where Marzano's and Gardner's "research" cause real (and possibly destructive) changes in the classroom, the lack of concern for the validity of the studies used to measure effective outcomes scares the crap out of me. Charismatic personalities trample over available evidence.

On Twitter I stumbled onto a group of ed folks setting up an action research project. At least one university professor was involved, someone I've met, so I figured I'd jump in on the open invitation.

I wondered aloud about how we might generate statistical significance from our work; to be fair I wasn't clear if that was even the goal. I was told that my medical background imposed a biased logical positivistic view, one too narrow for endeavors such as this one, and that I need consider other ways of viewing the world, including "intentional observation," which is, ironically, exactly how science works.

Experiment is in fact intelligent and intentional observation.

Robert Boyle, Epoch Men, 1868

(I also happened to major in philosophy, leaving Michigan with a B.S. in philosophy back in 1982--logical positivism was declared dead back in the 1970's. *sigh*)

***

Medicine and education have scary parallels. Medicine only recently advanced beyond the snake oil stage, with doctors kicking and screaming every step of the way.

Docs like to treat things. Patients like to be treated. Docs like to get paid. Patients are not quite as happy to pay. Our motto is primum non nocere--"Above all, do no harm"--which is a whole lot different than "Make them better!"

Snake oil is (mostly) harmless for self-limited illnesses, it makes patients feel like they're getting something, and docs make money. You don't need antibiotics for the vast majority of cases of sinusitis. Most docs will prescribe it anyway.

Medicine started looking at itself back in the 1970s, around the same time logical positivism was declared dead by professional philosophers. I was in medical school when evidence-based medicine starting taking a hold, and it was both liberating and frightening--most of what we did we did because, well, that's the way it's always been done. Sound familiar?

Education also finds snake oil useful--and it is for those selling it. Lots of folks make lots of money selling snake oil.

But in education, snake oil is harmful. A child's education is not a self-limited illness.We need to pay more attention to what we know through our research than we know "in our hearts." We need to pay particular attention to the folks who hide behind pseudo-research, tossing out fluorescent graphs, cooked numbers, and charismatic smiles.

I'd be glad to participate in some research. Medicine abandoned leeches not so long ago. It's time we pushed some leeches out of education.

Yes, I know leeches are making a come back....

Photo of leeches from LiveScience

Christopherian Encounters of the Third Kind

Cristian could not accept what his eyes told him; his brain rejected the obvious. (“Obvious” is a wonderful word—look at its roots.) Howard Gardner is a charismatic education guru, and favored by many educators. He was a Harvard professor, wrote well, but most important, coined the term “multiple intelligences”, developed a thesis around it, and hit the circuit making teachers feel good. He is a cult hero to a few of my mentors, and he looks like a mensch on video, so bashing him for mediocre thinking feels petty. I must be an emotional learner.

In The Unschooled Mind Gardner talks about Christopherian encounters, moments when a child’s education bumps up against what he believes (“knows”) to be true.

I encourage the creation of “Christopherian encounters,” where students must directly confront evidence that contradicts their intuitive theories…. (p. 227)

Any science teacher paying attention (a few don’t) sees this regularly.

Gardner introduced the term “Christopherian encounter” (or confrontation) before revealing its etymology, and I was hoping he wasn’t referring to Christopher Columbus, and hoping even harder he was not referring to the myth that Columbus “proved” the world was not flat. (Columbus could not prove the world was round—he had to turn around to get back to Europe.) Gardner credits Columbus as “the first human to demonstrate unequivocally that the intuitive impression that the earth is flat had to yield to the alternative conception of the earth as spherical.” I think that’s a high-falutin’ Harvard-speak for saying Columbus prove the world is round.

I think Howard Gardner could benefit from a Christopherian encounter of his own. Take him to the Jersey shore, let him watch a tanker on the horizon—watch as it slowly “sinks”. A lot of Europeans had access to beaches, even “way back when”—the “spherical” view of the world was not a radical concept. At any rate, Columbus turned around. Most one can safely infer is that the world was not flat, which is a whole lot less than calling the world round.

A fun classroom activity is asking the class if the world is round—and just about all my kids are culturally astute enough to say yes. But then ask them to “prove” it, while I attempt to prove that the world is flat. Caveat: make sure your kids catch what you’re doing before dismissing the class—getting called down to administration to explain why a parent complained you’re teaching Flat Earth Society science can be dicey, especially before tenure.