Naive Interventionism in Education

Over the last three years and a bit, I’ve had the privilege of meeting plenty of educators and parents of young children. I would estimate that I have been in close contact with more than 150 parents and 50 educators, which is sufficient to be able to spot trends and draw reasonable conclusions.

‘Naive interventionism’ is a term I came across in ‘Anti Fragile’, a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Put simply, it is the preference or tendency of an ‘expert’ to ‘do something’, and in many cases, to be seen to be doing something, when outcomes are not as favourable as one would want them to be.

Naive interventionism can be witnessed in every sphere of life, but it is very prevalent in medicine. When you go to a doctor with a sore throat (or a sore anything), more often than not, he or she will prescribe a course of antibiotics or some other medication. How often have you come out of the doctor’s office with a prescription that says ‘do nothing’?

However, what is not so visible is the ‘harm done by the healer’, or what is referred to as ‘iatrogenics’. Iatrogenics refers to the harm brought upon people by intervention that perhaps was not needed in the first place. Taking the doctor’s example from above, the harm done to your gut from a course of antibiotics is what is not seen or felt immediately — but over time, after many courses of medication, one starts to feel that the digestive system is not working as efficiently as it once used to. And you start to feel that you are subjected to a life of overdosing on kimchee to correct this.

Unfortunately, Medicine is not the only field which suffers from naive interventionism. Given that I spend a lot of time with children, I see that educators and parents have this insatiable urge to ‘do something’ when children are not performing or living up to their expectations.

We had a parent teacher meeting last week at school, and our progress report is divided into a number of developmental areas, and we grade each child with the following — Working Towards (WT), Meets Expectations (ME) or Exceeds Expectations (EE) for more than one hundred skills which are assumed to be appropriate for the child’s age. We follow the UK Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework, which is fairly well regarded throughout the world.

One trend that I have seen consistently ever since we started the school is that parents often misinterpret when their child has a Working Towards (WT) or Meets Expectations (ME) for any particular skill. 95% of people construe a WT or ME as something they ‘need to work on’ with their child. We inevitably get lots of questions on how they can get their child to get an EE (Exceeds Expectations) in the areas where the child has a WT or ME. In some cases, this is justified and can be worked on. But in most cases it is unreasonable and inappropriate to want to make a child level up to your expectations.

When parents ask what they can do with their child at home, our standard response is ‘you don’t need to do anything’. All you have to do is give it time. In a few months, without any extra effort on the part of the educators or parents, we see that children who were working towards specific skills at one point in time, almost automatically seem to start meeting or exceeding expectations a few months later.

From a philosophical perspective, and also drawing on years of research in the child development space, we know that each human being has a unique developmental pattern. Sure, most of us fall into a ‘middle 80%’, and this is the group which benefits the most from arbitrary assumptions which prevail in education systems around the world. As soon as a child deviates from this middle 80%, alarm bells start ringing. More so on the negative side obviously.

While I am no expert on child development, I sense there is a great need in the world (and especially in India) for educators and parents who ‘do nothing’. Or more specifically, who practise the art of doing nothing.

Humans have a natural ability to heal and grow, and by intervening in this process, we are doing more harm than good. What gets in the way of this attitude becoming the norm is the tendency of people to compare and contrast the abilities of their children with those of others. Physical and mental growth often is haphazard (or we don’t understand it enough), and what may at one point seem delayed, might actually correct itself if given the opportunity to do so. But that will happen only if you let it.

Especially in instances where you segregate children on the basis of grade and age, even minor differences become amplified. A 5 year old who is unable to write as well as his peers is often made to repeat a year in many schools in India! Never mind that the child’s thinking ability is at par or even better than most other children his or her age. Think about this for a moment — you are an adult if you are reading this — are your skills and abilities at the same level compared to your peers? Do you give up a promotion at work because you are unable to run a marathon in under 4 hours? Then does it not seem a little unnatural to expect children of the same age to have the same skills?

In summary, we need to let nature run its course as long as reasonably practicable before coming to definitive conclusions with regard to any aspect of learning or development. But in this crazy world where everything is segregated and divided, measured according to averages and where each grade level has its own pre-defined learning outcomes, there is no option to ‘jump around’. As it currently stands, you have to progress in a very linear fashion, the one mandated by the system, to be considered normal. There is no room for people who might need to spend a bit of time in the gray.

We don’t need more schools, more apps and more after school programs.

We need patience, and we need time. That would solve a lot of ‘problems’ for a lot of children. The question is — are you prepared to wait?

Thanks for reading! If you liked this article, or think that others might benefit from reading it, I’d be very grateful if you recommend it. Or even better, share it with your community!

I’m Ryan and I run a school in Bangalore called Jigyasa. I’m also working on ‘unbundling’ education and making high quality educational resources available to everyone. If you’re game, I’d love to connect with you on Twitter!