On The Origin of Speciousness

Somedays I have to wonder whether I am living in a bizarro world; today is one of those days.  After watching Sir Ken Robinson's How to Escape Education's Death Valley and Seth Godin's Stop Stealing Dreams, my mind feels numb from the number of falsehoods passed off as truths and the number of banalities passed off as profundities.  I can only surmise after viewing these lectures that Ken and Seth's only experience with education is watching Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as this is the only way I can understand their straw man mischaracterization of the educational endeavor.  Disentangling and refuting all the nonsense is beyond the time and space available for this post, but I will highlight some examples.

Ken has 3 principles that he deems crucial for the human mind to flourish.  Let's look at these.

1. Human beings are naturally different and diverse.

During this section, Ken makes the half-banal, half-false statement, "If you have got two children, or more, I bet you they are completely different from each other." This gets applause for some reason. Wilson Bentley, or the "Snowflake Man," said of snowflakes, " [Even though no two snowflakes are identical,] it is not difficult to find two or more crystals that are nearly, if not the same, in outline."  And so it is with children.

All human beings share the 99.9 percent of our DNA, and our neuroanatomy is similarly identical. Most traits used to characterize human beings fall on a normal or Gaussian distribution curve.  There is a broad range in the middle where most students are very similar with regard to intelligence, aptitude, enthusiasm, and achievement, and this is the general area where daily instructional strategies should be focused.  Is Ken suggesting that we customize an educational program for every minor difference between students?  Does every student need custom sewn clothing because they are "completely different from one another?"  Of course not, there are broad groups that are very similar and can handle similarly sized clothing, just as their are broad groups in a classroom that can learn from similar instructional strategies.

2. If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child, they will learn forever without further assistance.

This statement is a good example of the problem with educational "experts" like Ken and Seth; namely, where is the evidence for this statement.  Where is the research or data? Is it a priori true? Is it a tautology, i.e., if they aren't life long learners you by definition didn't "light the spark of curiousity?" What value does this statement have besides getting applause?

The real question is, will children naturally learn at the pace we want them to and the content we want them to learn? Will they eventually stagnate? This is very similar to the question: what is the best instructional strategy, constructivist or direct instruction?  Direct instruction does better by all measurements, as John Hattie showed in his landmark meta-analysis study.  Harvard Professor Jeanne Chall also comes to the same conclusion in "The Academic Achievement Challenge."  If student's guide themselves in their learning, I doubt they will enthusiastically learn arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus based on their natural curiosity of these subjects.  Some things we learn are not immediately gratifying, but are extremely important and useful nonetheless.

And with regard to STEM curriculum and the standardized testing, I agree this is not the end-all-be-all of education, but they are extremely important if students are going to be able to compete in the workplace in the future. It is our responsibility to give them the opportunity to excel in these subjects more so than the arts and humanities, as projections don't show a marked increase in the demand for literary critics in 2035.

Excelling at standardized tests shouldn't be the only goal of education, but being able to do well on these tests is certainly necessary, in most cases, for showing proficiency in the subject matter.  Not sufficient, but necessary.  The fact is, these tests are not that difficult if you know the subject matter for the grade level being tested.  Failing these tests is a big indicator one is not learning the material.  What other, objective way should we measure their intellectual achievement?  The teacher's vague impression of their ability and knowledge?

3. Children are naturally creative.

As with his other statements, it's hard really to judge whether one agrees or disagrees with it because it is so general and devoid of content.  Yes, I guess they are creative?  Are they very creative or a little bit creative?  Are some not creative? Are they creative in ways that we want them to be, as in mathematics, or are they creative in the way they kill ants?

This post is already getting too long, so I'll try to be quick with regard to Stop Stealing Dreams.

"And then [Horace Mann] needed more teachers, and so he built a new school for teachers.  Do you know what it's called? The normal school.  He called it the normal school, where they train people to teach in the common school,  because he wanted you to be normal."

Where is he getting this from, exactly?  Normal schools were not created by Horace Mann in the 19th century, but were a 17th century French invention; they were called ecole normale. The point was to create a standard or norm of excellence for teachers, since before this time there was very little regulation as to who could and could not be called a teacher.  It has nothing to do with turning our children into conformist robots, despite Seth's paranoid worries.

And how exactly did I know that?  I memorized it from a book, David Labaree's The Trouble with Ed Schools.  On that point, books (especially textbooks) are a valuable source of information; understanding and retaining the contents within them is a very useful skill, unless you think you can look up and learn everything you need to know on the fly.

As for his 8 educational reforms:

1. Get rid of live-lectures.  Why would you want this?  Is the same lecture sufficient for all students and classrooms? Shouldn't the lectures be personalized to the audience? Wouldn't it be better if they can ask questions during the lecture to clarify?  Wouldn't integrating work and feedback into the lecture be a good idea?

2. Never memorize anything.  Again, I think being able to retain information is an important skill, but maybe we are just designed to look things up over and over again without ever copying that information into larger schema and frameworks within our minds.

3. Getting rid of learning orders. Why? This seems essential as learning builds on learning so some subjects are needed as prerequisites for others.

4.  Precise focused education.  Good in theory, but difficult to do effectively and financially.  Plus, what about everybody listening to the same lectures and online curriculum he proposed earlier?

The other four are not any better.

Towards the end, he mentioned giving students an Arduino (a Raspberry Pi type device), and says something to the effect of, "Why can't we give these to kids and say, do something interesting, figure it out.  If you need help, ask questions."  How will this kid figure it out? By asking questions. By being taught by the teacher.  By reading the text. By collaborating with other students.  What if all the students have similar problems and questions?  Put them in a room together.  This is called a classroom, and it is how we teach students.

Next, unleashes a fusillade of misrepresentations with regard to how teachers act. "Do not figure it out.  Do not ask questions I do not know the answer to.  Do not look it up.  Do not vary from the curriculum.  And better, better, better, comply." Again, I have to believe that Seth has not been in a classroom in the last 40-50 years, as I have never had teachers who had these attitudes towards education.

He then mentions it is a myth that good parenting and academic success are predictors of career success and happiness.  As always, no evidence is cited.