I’ve been asked to contribute an idea to the British Science Association’s campaign, Science: not just for scientists. Their aim is to compile “100 ideas to make science a more fundamental part of culture and society”. My idea, if you’re interested, is falsifiability. If you want to vote for my idea, or any other, you can do so here.
The importance of being wrong
What I love about science is that it’s not an attempt to prove ideas to be right; instead it’s all about testing theories to destruction in the hope of finding them to be wrong. This is a lesson we could all benefit from learning.
Over the past few years, education has been increasingly struggling with the idea that it ought to be more of an evidenced-based profession. Not only should the evidence of what works inform policy making, but also teachers should apply similar thinking to their classroom practice. Teaching cannot hope to be taken seriously as a profession whilst folk wisdom and intuition is given priority over empirical data.
Currently, teachers do what they’ve always done, what they’re told to do and what ‘feels right’. If there’s empirical data that contradicts teachers’ beliefs, they feel free to ignore it and say that whatever they prefer, “works for me”. The problem with this is that there’s no way you can be wrong, and if there’s no way in which you can be wrong, then you have created an unfalsifiable argument.
Imagine you wake to find yourself in a psychiatric ward, deemed by all and sundry to be mad. Any attempt to argue that you are not, in point of fact, mad, is evidence that you are ‘in denial’. Any evidence you cite in support of your sanity is dismissed as an elaborate attempt to buttress your denial. There is no way out of this predicament; no way to demonstrate your sanity that will be accepted by those who have decided they are right because there is no way that they can conceive of being wrong.
Falsifiability is an antidote for the argument that personal experience trumps empirical data. If our intuitions cannot be disproved, then we will never find out if we’re mistaken and we’ll never learn from our mistakes. We can argue that what we like ‘works’ because we like it. And if it’s unsuccessful on verifiable metrics then the metrics are worthless. This is the apotheosis of a closed circle: you can explain away any amount of disconfirming evidence as not fitting your paradigm. You’ve given yourself permission to ignore reality and anyone who suggests you might not be wearing any clothes can safely be dismissed as having the wrong mindset.
The late, great Richard Feynman said, “It doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.” Here’s an acid test for opinions in education and the wider world: if you cannot accept that there are conditions in which you might be wrong, then your ideas are probably guff.
The difficulty in education is that protocols, interventions, ways of teaching are rarely ‘wrong,’ and usually all work to some degree depending on a context. This allows a teacher who may be using a method that has been shown in large scale studies to be less effective, to collect data from their class showing that what they are doing is working. In fact, if they have other factors going for them, perhaps like a great ability to motivate students, or ability to build relationships with their students, then in their class their empirically proven less-effective method may be more successful than the teacher in the class next door using the best evidenced methods poorly. This makes the battle for using scientifically based methods harder to win but I believe it is the only rational starting point when using the taxpayer’s money to educate the taxpayer’s children. Getting past the belief that ‘you can find evidence to support anything’ often seems to be the first challenge.
If we agree with the crisp rationale for what education is for, ie: “education is to make kids smarter”, then getting past the guff is what we all try to do. The trouble is, there are so many other things that get laid at our door. Not long ago at a PLD I was attending, I made the point that on balance mobile devices are a bad Idea in the classroom, to which someone said we need to educate our students in their correct use. Of course their is no evidence at all (yet) that mobile devices help kids learn better, and while we’re spending time educating them in correct cell phone use, we’re not teaching them Maths or English. There are methods that have a broadening base of empirical evidence to support their use and we should be championing them. I think that, because of blogs such as this and Greg Ashman’s, the tide is turning, and presenters at PLD will have to fend off a lot more well informed questions than hitherto.
Just looked a the website. Your idea is significantly different in style to most of the others. I found myself arguing or agreeing with the others (which I enjoyed) but it stuck me that most where not exactly clear concepts that are easily explained and shared. I felt most tried to justify science’s relevance rather then explaining its core tenants and was aimed at the well educated.
Is the purpose to reach out to other academics (which I think it does) or to the general population (in which case I am not sure it will)?
As someone with a fondness for empiricism and the scientific method, the hurdle I always come across in trying new approaches to teaching is the impossibility of an effective control group. It is impossible to isolate the effects of one variable in a classroom setting; impossible to deploy any method with complete consistency across practitioners (as education86466 points out); and unethical to deliberately withhold effective methodology from any group of children just to compare results. Falsifiability is an excellent skill to learn and teach, but a classroom isn’t a laboratory – informed practitioner judgement always will and always should play a chief role in classroom practice.
Some thoughts.
How do we know it is effective without the study?
Who thinks practitioner judgement judgement doesn’t have a role?
Best practice is to compare interventions, with or without a control so students don’t need to lose out.
Perfect consistency is not needed and we shouldn’t run trials unless we have already considered how to collect and interpret the data. This means only some questions can be answered, st least at the moment.
If it’s “unethical to deliberately withhold effective methodology from any group of children just to compare results” doesn’t that suggest that it’s equally unethical to push our potentially biased, misguided view of that’s effective methodology? What if what we believe is wrong? We’d be deliberately withholding something more effective in favour of something less effective. The *only* way we can be sure what is most effective is through a properly controlled horserace trial.
On the off chance that we concur with the fresh method of reasoning for what training is for, ie: “instruction is to make kids more quick witted”, at that point moving beyond the guff is the thing that we as a whole attempt to do. The inconvenience is, there are such a variety of different things that get laid at our entryway. In the no so distant past at a PLD I was going to, I made the point that on adjust cell phones are an awful Idea in the classroom, to which somebody said we have to instruct our understudies in their right utilize. Obviously their is no confirmation by any means (yet) that cell phones enable children to learn better, and keeping in mind that we’re investing energy instructing them in right mobile phone utilize, we’re not showing them Maths or English or trying to make them an Essay Champ
. There are techniques that have a widening base of exact proof to bolster their utilization and we ought to be championing them. I surmise that, in view of online journals, for example, this and Greg Ashman’s, the tide is turning, and moderators at PLD should fight off significantly more very much educated inquiries than heretofore.
This looks like my comment from earlier, run through an online verbosity generator, if there is one. What’s with the link to Essay Champ??
I’ve been asked to contribute an idea to the British Science Association’s campaign, Science: not just for scientists. Their aim is to compile “100 ideas to make science a more fundamental part of culture and society”. My idea
I didn’t have any expectations concerning that title, but the more I was astonished. The author did a great job. I spent a few minutes reading and checking the facts. Everything is very clear and understandable. I like posts that fill in your knowledge gaps. This one is of the sort.