How Will We Enable Effect Education

Graham’s piece is a very nice summation of the primary issues, but how do we transcend these problems in a significant way. Let’s start by examining the potential obstacles to disrupting these dominant but unproductive educational practices. Yes, as Graham notes in the what can an individual do discussion, privilege can over come some limitations, but we really need better daily practices.

What are the Obstacles to Graham’s Better Paradigm

1. An incrementalist perspective; one that says change is hard, lets tweak things. It’s true that not everything about educational practrice should change, but what Graham is talking about is a paradigm change from a behaviorist content metaphor to one of constructivist context. That is a foundational change in thought. Tweaking practice will not work.
2. Inadequate research paradigms - Research practice is still dominated by an outdated individualistic structure; the lone scientist or samll group experiementing away, publishing their findings, which are absorbed by the field; except it doesn’t happen that way. Look at the Crisis in Replication, the false-positives in psychology or Paul Meehl’s critique of methods. Even better, look at the Junk Science Charles Murrey is peddling. Not only does that reflect worst psychological practices, but there is really no way for the field to show how extreme Murray’s views are, how this is not just another perspective. Likewise the behavioristic content centered paradigm is difficult to condemn even though it’s support is small and not easily defendable. What research is missing is the management and the develooment of scientific discourses. Progress occurs less through experiemental findings than through discourse negotiation and development. Researchers need better ways to collaborate in challenging outdated paradigms (See note below on incommensurability)
3. Modern Finance: There are problems with capital investment. Venture Capital generally wants tech that scales which is often not effective education. Audrey Waters is a good critic on ideology in Ed Tech investment. I think tech is needed for this purpose, but where could financing be found?
4. The Problems of the Innovators Dilemma: Who is in the best position to make a difference; Pearson. They however are based on the behaviorist content model and would have to disrupt many of their existing profit streams. Improving education will be expensive, involved new tech, but will be grounded differently. Could someone like Pearson spinoff an innovation subsidiary?

I believe that we need to develop this discourse until a better form of education will seem inevitable.

This, like all I do is a work in progress, not the ending. Please feel free to comment. Interacting in dialogue and discourse is what drives my learning!

Note on paradigms. I know Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis. Kuhn was an analytic philosopher who’s perspective not only has changed, but it is highly questionably when applied to educational theories.

For Feyerabend, only universal,fundamental, non-instantial theories that are interpreted realistically can be incommensurable . . . for Feyerabend, incommensurability of scientific theories occurs comparatively rarely.