Expected, Inspected, & Respected.
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
What a terrific book! Todd Rose brilliantly takes us through the history of how the idea of an average person came to be such a dominant and harmful force in education and business, and proposes solutions for how to remake our institutions with the individual in mind. I only remember one time when Rose speaks positively about averages but it seems to be a backhanded compliment at best: "... it is reasonable to sometimes pretend size is one-dimensional if the trade-off is worth it, like when it comes to mass-produced clothing: in return for a lack of great fit for any one person, we get inexpensively manufactured shirts and pants for everyone. But if the stakes are high - if you're altering an expensive wedding gown or designing a safety feature like an automobile airbag, or engineering the cockpit of a jet - then ignoring the multidimensionality of size is never a good compromise." (84) Mostly, Rose gives example after example of how harmful it is when systems are designed for the "average" person. This is because there is no such thing as an average person. In the 1950s, when the US Airforce designed their cockpits for the average pilot, less than 2 percent of pilots measured were average on four or more of 9 dimensions and nobody was average on all of them. Human traits like size, intelligence, character, and talent are jagged and complex, so designs for the average person are often ill-fitting solutions. For example, which one of these gentlemen would you say is bigger? Intelligence is equally problematic. While the following overall IQ scores are identical, at a more granular level, they are wildly divergent. Rose also discusses how traits are a myth. People are not honest or dishonest, aggressive or passive, but behave differently in different contexts. Instead of traits, it is more helpful to think of people as having "if-then signatures". For example, it is not particularly useful to say, "Jack is extroverted", it's more useful to say, "If Jack is in the office, then he is very extroverted. If Jack is in a large group of strangers, then he is mildly extroverted. If Jack is stressed, then he is very introverted" (106). In terms of education, there are a few great takeaways from this book. One is that learning speed has nothing to do with learning ability. A study by Bloom from the University of Chicago showed that in a randomly selected group of students given fixed-pace group instruction, only 20% of the students achieved mastery over the subject material, while 90% of a randomly selected group of self-paced students achieved mastery. This is troubling because most of our instruction is still based on fixed-pace group instruction. Fine grained individualized instruction is not the norm because it would be complex and cost prohibitive to implement. Rose says these problems can be overcome by using technology more effectively through the kind of self-paced learning available on sites such as the Khan Academy. I would add that a flipped classroom where the instruction happens at home and the work takes place in the classroom might be another solution. It has been stressed to us in our university classes that differentiation is the name of the game and Rose concurs: If every student learns at a different pace, and if individual students learn at different paces at different times and for different material, then the idea that we should expect every student to learn at a fixed pace is irredeemably flawed. Think about it: Were you really not good at math or science? Or was the classroom just not aligned to your learning pace? The jaggedness inherent in our abilities, skills, and talents creates a problem when teachers are required to sum up these profiles in a single, one-dimensional grade. Rose quotes Thomas R Guskey from Five Obstacles to Grading Reform: If someone proposed combining measures of height, weight, diet, and exercise into a single number or mark to represent a person's physical condition, we would consider it laughable... Yet every day, teachers combine aspects of students' achievement, attitude, responsibility, effort, and behaviour into a single grade that's recorded on a report card and no one questions it. (174) The focus in The End of Average is on higher education and so the solutions he proposes - granting credentials, not diplomas; replacing grades with competency; and letting students determine their educational pathways - are not quite applicable to the early years teaching that I'm interested in learning how to do but I think it's right on the money. I believe that my own higher education would have been much more enjoyable and effective if it had been designed with those three pillars in mind.
I highly recommend reading this book! I think you'll be glad you did.
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David Wiebe
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