OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white. A pessimist applied to God for relief. “Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness,” said God. “No,” replied the petitioner, “I wish you to create something that would justify them.” “The world is all created,” said God, “but you have overlooked something — the mortality of the optimist.”
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
- Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
- Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
- The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
Let’s examine each of these through the lens of education.
1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
The first law suggests we have a tendency to preserve that with which are most familiar. But conservatism (small C) is more than simple reactionism. Jerry Muller defines conservatism as “the search for human happiness based on the use of reason.” He explains that conservatism holds that people are predictably self-interested and behave selfishly in the absence of constraints. We think we’re rational beings and fail to see our essential irrationality. To save us from ourselves, we need strong institutions that protect our rights and keep us safe. Conservatism is, in essence, the preservation of these vital institutions.
In education, this suggests two things: firstly that teachers do what they do as a calculated attempt to improve the lot of students, and secondly, as teachers, we carry on doing what we’ve always done because, well, it’s what we’ve always done. Now, since teachers have, time immemorial, lectured students, transmitted knowledge and beaten them if they stepped out of line, why is that these things are not what are most valued in today’s classrooms? How could it be that teaching has become progressively more progressive? For that we must look to the second law.
2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
Can it be true that all organisations have a tendency to become ‘left-wing’? Well, I’m in no position to argue that this axiom holds true for all institutions for all time, but it does seem to apply to Western culture. Bruce Charlton argues,
In the modern situation, the Left sets the baseline assumptions: for example in terms of atheism (i.e. the denial of Christianity), equality (i.e. the essential sameness of people), democracy (i.e. the denial of traditional authority), feminism (i.e. the essential sameness of sexes), an egalitarian concept of the nature of anti-racism (i.e. the essential sameness of races), and the sexual revolution (whatever appeared bad is now recognized as Good; and vice versa).
Since these are assumptions, they frame institutions, and shape their organization over time, unless and except the institutions explicitly defines itself against them.
Now, you may well be thinking, hang on, aren’t atheism, equality, democracy, feminism etc. pretty darn good? Superficially, perhaps but equality often leads to unfairness and democracy (the best worst form of government?) is a means for ensuring the tyranny of the majority. The assumption that these things are automatically good sweeps away all sorts of alternatives. Maybe we can feel relieved to think that organisations will tend to these default settings, but where else might the tendency leave us?
This line of thinking would have us believe that educational institutions – schools, teacher training colleges, faculties of education (maybe even the nascent College of Teaching?) will tend toward progressive ideals: teacher authority, cultural transmission and academic excellence are seen as oppressive, even fascistic. This might explain the gradual ‘Leftward’ shift experienced over the last 50 years. And as institutions shift, so too do individuals. New teachers conserve and pass on the new tradition – they with which they know best.
The only ways to avoid this Leftward sweep are either to isolate yourself utterly or to systematically and thoroughly screen all incoming assumptions and react against them. This is rather the approach I feel forced into as someone writing and thinking about education. The more threads I pull, the more the fabric unravels; only by continuing to examine all the dogma on which educational thinking depends for these kind of assumptions can I have any hope of keeping my nose above the sucking tide of progressivism. It’s not that I’ve explicitly defined myself against all progressive ideas, more that I’ve explicitly defined myself against certainty. My filters are terms like engagement, relevance and fun; not because these things are in any way bad, but because they often contain the DNA of other, more pernicious assumptions about what children should or shouldn’t, can or can’t.
3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
The third law sounds suspiciously akin to conspiracy theory. Maybe we would do better to assume institutions are controlled by a cabal of the enemies of the stated purpose of that bureaucracy? And further, we should probably assume that this cabal is, in most cases, well-intentioned and believe themselves to be racking at the roots of injustice. It’s rare that people are motivated by evil aims but unscrupulous optimism is rife.
I really understand the logic that asks, Why should we preserve the literature of Dead White Men? Why should children be tyrannised by middle-class values and memorised lists of redundant, inert facts? Why should we force them to sit in rows, do what they’re told and study for boring, irrelevant exams? Because, as the most progressive schools of the 1970s discovered, when these optimistic ideals collide with reality – they don’t pan out as hoped. Children do not choose what is best for their future selves; they are, in the main, motivated by the pressure to gratify themselves as soon and as fully as possible. (As are very many adults I should add.) The unreal trumps the actual. This is gambling with children’s futures.
But should we not bet all on a brighter future? Isn’t education a ‘beautiful risk’? Scruton warns that, “Gamblers are not risk-takers at all; they enter the game in the full expectation of winning it.” Many in education have estimated the best case and ignored the worst. Those odds might look good but is, in fact, a refusal “to acknowledge that reason has withdrawn its support”.
Scrupulous optimists act differently:
They know they live in a world of constraints, that altering those constraints is difficult and that the consequences of doing so are often unpredictable. They know that they ca far more easily adjust themselves than the constraints under which they live, and that they should work on this continuously ; not only for the sake of their own happiness and of those they love and on who depend on them, but also for the sake of the ‘we’ attitude that respects the constants on which our values depend, and which does its best to preserve them. (p.34)
We’re all flawed. We all make poor and irrational decisions, and we’re all hostages to bias and assumptions. To err is human. This is as true of teachers as it is of students; we all make mistakes. This is something to which we pay easy lip service, but do we really have a growth mindset in education?
Judicious pessimism teaches us not to idolise human beings, but to forgive them their faults and to strive in private for their ammendments. It teaches us to limit our ambitions in the public sphere, and to keep open the institutions, customs and procedures whereby mistakes are corrected and faults confessed to, rather than aim for some new arrangement in which mistakes are never made. (p.37)
Instead of seeing only obstacles to be overcome, we would do better to recognise constraints. Somethings we cannot do and should not consider. People are forever people and will not make the choices we might think best however much we wish it so. Things rarely occur the way we plan. From our vantage of this high watermark of progress we assume order will always emerge from a sea of chaos but entropy is inevitable; things fall apart. If the dice fall as we wish then we assume it’s as a result of our actions. If things turn out ill we seek someone to blame. We see patterns where there is only random, but entirely predictable chance.
Scrupulous people see the order of society not as something imposed as a goal and achieved by shared effort, but as something emerging by an ‘invisible hand’ from decisions and agreements that did not intend it. They accept the world and its imperfections, not because it cannot be improved, but because may of the improvements that matter are by-products of our cooperation rather than the goal of it. They recognise that the invisible hand produces bad results as well as good, and that there is a need for leadership and guidance if emergencies are to be successfully managed. But they also acknowledge that wisdom is seldom contained in a single head, and is more likely to be enshrined in customs that have stood the test of time than in schemes of radicals and activists. (p.41)
We forget or ignore this at our peril. By all means imagine the best case, but temper the desire to tamper with a dose of the worst case. Maybe before making any kind of decision, school leaders should be made to ask themselves these questions:
- Have you considered the real root cause of the problem you’re trying to solve?
- Have you considered other possible reasons for the problem?
- Have you sought out sources and evidence which contradict your beliefs?
- Have you allowed for dissenting opinions to be voiced and considered?
- Have you considered the weight of time, resources and credibility you or others have already sunk into this course of action?
- Is there any asymmetry in your thinking?
- How might groupthink and social proof be influencing your decisions?
- Have you encouraged others to criticise and suggest problems with your plans?
- How far is your decision based on your opinion of the individuals concerned?
- To what extent are your decisions anchored by possibly irrelevant information?
- Do you really understand the data you’re using to inform decision-making?
- What perverse incentives might you be creating?
- Often certainty blinds us to alternatives. How confident are you that your decision is correct?
- What would be the consequences of not taking this course of action?
- Have any other schools tried this course of action? How many were still doing it three years later? What were the results?
- Who else could you ask to spot the biases in your thinking?
A couple of things popped into my head while reading this:
1. Dan Willingham’s “An Educator’s Research Bill of Rights” meshes very well with your list at the end: http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/draft-bill-of-research-rights-for-educators
2. Hannah Arendt wrote about educational conservativism in her essay, “The Crisis in Education,” (1954). She says: : “…it seems to me that conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is of the essence of the educational activity, whose task is always to cherish and protect something of the child against the world, the world against the child, the new against the old, the old against the new. Even the comprehensive responsibility for the world that is thereby assumed implies, of course, a conservative attitude. But this holds good only for the realm of education, or rather for the relations between grown-ups and children, and not for the realm of politics, where we act among and with adults and equals.”
So, yes, when change is encouaraged in education for the sake of change (turn that into a Mad Lib–“where ___ is encouraged for the sake of _____”), teachers will resist. It’s our jobs to do so, as we have an important charge in society. We have seen the battlefield strewn with the corpses of discarded educational trends. PIty the poor schools trapped with open bay classrooms separated by dividers that were the latest educational architectural model in the 1970s. My own building is littered with old desktop computers, acting as sad flotsam of the optimisms of the past. I suppose someday they’ll be removed, ony to become part of an ewaste dump in Ghana, where less forunate children can scrounge for rare metals.
Oh my, I’ve become reactionary pessimist!
Thanks for this – I love the comment, “My own building is littered with old desktop computers, acting as sad flotsam of the optimisms of the past.” Wonderful.
Yes, I’ve thought a lot about Willingham’s list and have adapted it (with his permission) in my new book. Thanks too for the Arendt quote – I’ll look that up.
I absolutely support the call for educational leaders to be stringent in their analysis and consultation before making decisions. It may not be pretty, but confronting opposing ideas head on, even if resulting in conflict, can serve as a process that challenges the proponent to test their ideas. Too many are expected to go with the tide, because “everyone says it is the right way to go”. True consultation is being willing to hear that you might have made a mistake.
A section that is not clear for me is the following:
“It’s rare that people are motivated by evil aims but unscrupulous optimism is rife. Why should we preserve the literature of Dead White Men? Why shouldn’t we want children to be free of the tyranny of middle-class values? Why should we force them to sit in rows, do what they’re told and sit boring, irrelevant exams? Because, as the most progressive schools of the 1970s discovered, it doesn’t really work. Children do not choose what is best for their future selves; they are, in the main, motivated by the pressure to gratify themselves as soon and as fully as possible. (As are very many adults I should add.) The unreal trumps the actual. This is gambling with children’s futures.”
Could you explain further the connection between the questions you ask and the ‘it’ not working? The two positive questions and then one negative question confuse me.
Lastly, the title has a typo (sorry, but I just can’t help myself).
Cheers,
Paul
Thanks – I’ve rewritten that paragraph – hopefully my meaning is now clearer.
Really interesting stuff David. On the second of Conquest’s rules – I’m unconvinced… Have you read Haidt’s The Righteous Mind His Moral Foundations Theory suggests that society as a whole isn’t particularly dominated by left-wing thought… certainly Charlton’s argument that the left sets the baseline appears to me an over-statement! On the other hand, perhaps this is more true in education than in society as a whole.
I wonder if there’s more conservatism in education than you suggest? Lots of teachers do quite traditional things irrespective of what they’ve been taught (sometimes in spite of their training, sometimes alongside it) – but often without the architecture of rationale that they have learned for group work/relevance/etc…
I have read Haidt – as you know from reading my book 😉 You’re right that Charlton over states things – I thought my reading was fairly critical, no?
Are you asking if conservatism is more prevalent that I suggest? Something to reflect on…
With regard to Haidt, it strikes me that one big motivator of progressive education has always been a quasi-religious passion for “purifying” education by making it more “natural” (this was very big in the 70s, and can still be seen very strongly in many early years campaigners, in particular, to whom the concept of childhood unpolluted by even the slightest taint of formal learning seems to have taken on almost a sacred character). .
Also, seeing oneself as part of a righteous vanguard, defying the forces of oppression is, emotionally speaking, incredibly rewarding and enjoyable. It’s equivalent to the satisfaction the religious get from seeing themselves as God’s chosen people. That’s as true in education as it is in politics or anything else. A carefully pragmatic approach to improving things can’t even begin to offer the same intense emotional satisfaction, however much likelier it is to actually be useful to those you are trying to help.
Nicely put
Good post…
Progressive optimism is the new “opium of the people’. It will exist as long as there are reflective beings who perceived themselves to be on the loosing side (which is always). If it wasn’t there, then you would just have more religion, crystal meth and suicide. The more ‘right wing’ options only feel good for those further up the food chain.
The reason why it is particularly common in teaching is that is more normal for someone to want to become a teacher so as to improve things for people, rather than so as to pass on the best of what we already know. It is PARTICULARLY more common for people with this attitude to progress up the promotion ladder.
…IMHO
If tutors use such foul language as the ‘f’ word in social media, etc. what hope is there for the rest of society to attempt to maintaiin professional standards? Sorry, David, I follow your blogs with interest, but I find this title offensive.
Once standards of language break down, then what are we left with? Come on, you surely know better than this. Or would you be happy for your pupils to now swear at you freely, because ‘Sir’ doe it?
Hi Anna
I’m afraid judicious swearing is one of my favourite lingustic devices. I’m sorry you’re offended but that is your choice. Do you feel I’m swearing at you? It should be clear from the context that I’m not implying any of the sexual connotations of the word.
I do take exception to some of your assumptions:
a) adults should be held to the same account as children – they shouldn’t and quite clearly aren’t.
b) that I am swearing ‘freely’ – I’m hardly effing and jeffing all the way through.
I do, of course, ‘know better’ – I was inviting my audience to consider why I might have chosen so deliberately to use such a potentially emotive and provocative word. Do I want students to “swear at me freely”? No, of course not. But neither do I believe in such simplistic mechanisms of cause and effect. My own daughters often decry my ‘adult’ language and would never dream of doing so themselves – because they, like everyone else, has an innate understanding of the nuances of register. They know it would be inappropriate.
Now obviously, I know my usage is inappropriate in this context – that’s why I agonised over the word choice. But perhaps you’re right. I’ll change it. Is that Ok?
I saw the title first and knew someone would make a beeline for it. I quite like the swear word (it is still in the URL link) because it makes me feel like it’s ok to be human. I can’t stand all this pompous criticism based on one being ‘offended’. In a way, this policing of thoughts is like some kind of new religion. Are we actually becoming less tolerant because of it?
A few of the children in my class blurted out ‘That’s racist’ when another group decided to call themselves ‘The Black Lamborghinis’. Just thought I’d add that.
Thank you for this – really from the bottom of my heart – thank you!!
Many of the reasons why I chose to move away from teaching in the current climate are the result of the things you point out – the anti-intellectual, anti-academic culture of primary schools is stifling and I no longer see the difference between what some people do and child-minding.
There is no space for a range of opinions to be heard and if there is disagreement with any of the central tenants of the ‘progressive’ agenda (which has slowly but surely become regressive in primaries) it is ignored, batted away, dismissed and the person undermined.
For example, it was discussed in an INSET whether the new curriculum would mean that children would not get a ‘childhood’ at school – yet the basis of that assumption that they should was not challenged by anyone. I don’t think it has ever been our job to give children a childhood – it’s been to give them an education.
The following are areas in primary school to which I believe your statements apply the most and which currently cause the most damage:
a) Teachers should provide children with a childhood.
b) All early years learning should focus on play and that play should have as little direction as possible. My latest favourite is that children are born to learn not to be taught… oxymoron if there ever was one and ignores thousands of years of human history in the process. Why is it suddenly now that children are unable to be taught or shouldn’t be taught? Just as well they have been either formally or informally otherwise we might not still be around!!
c) Children are not responsible for their behaviour – particularly when violent or aggressive.
d)The teacher should accept responsibility for the poor behaviour of all pupils. Been on the receiving end of this wisdom too many times for my liking!! If anything the advice for teachers dealing with children who are in abusive families and acting out is so akin to playing the abuse victim that it churns my stomach. I grew up around that – how does reinforcing this pattern help change it????
e) Children’s mental health issues can be solved with time and attention by a class teacher.
f) Only children who are behaving in an extreme manner have problems (this gets me every time – I know so many people with difficult backgrounds including me who did the opposite and behavioural psychologists have acknowledged for decades now that two people can go through the same thing and react differently. Why some are more resilient than others is the focus of much current research to explain these differences. I have actually attended staff meetings in the last two years where John Bowlby’s theories of attachment were still be taught as meaningful….)
g) Intellect and academic ability are unimportant.
h) What children think!!! It has little to do with what children actually think (my Year 2 class told me that they just wanted to be adults so they do things without permission!!! However, if you asked a typical Year 2 teacher they would never acknowledge this, instead choosing to believe that children want to stay children forever – this peter pan thing is an adult invention not one from a child.
i) One can be the magic teacher who can be all things to all children.
j) Last and best of all, ideals are more important than reality – so the reality that progressive education has done absolutely nothing to achieve social mobility is irrelevant… the fact that progressives can not show demonstrable improvements in behaviour using their strategies is not because the strategies are wrong but because the teacher hasn’t implemented them (this works for all teachers no matter where they are on the nurturing to firm spectrum!!)
I can’t wait to read your book and I really hope that changes do take place to reverse some of the nonsense for the sake of future generations. I hate the fact if I were going through the education system now I would have had less of a chance of making it through successfully than I did in the past.
Some great examples, thanks. My favourite is “Children are not responsible for their behaviour – particularly when violent or aggressive.”
“Teachers should provide children with a childhood.”
Many teachers appear to forget that primary children spend 75% plus of their waking hours across the course of a year outside of school, and that for nearly half the days in the year they never set foot in a classroom. The contribution of these hours to “providing a childhood” is ignored, possibly due to in part to availability bias.
“b) All early years learning should focus on play and that play should have as little direction as possible.”
Educators also forget that in traditional societies, children play in mixed age groups, which allows the younger to learn from the older ones. Corralling a bunch of 4 year-olds together for “free play” will not have the same effect.
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