Saturday, August 27, 2005
Trust the experts
Linda Seebach of the Rocky Mountain News garden-pathed me with her advice to Denver's new superintendent. She starts by advising him not to trust so-called experts. Sounds like good advice. Education's full of self-proclaimed experts who promote their pet theories with little concern for evidence.
But check out her solution -- Trust a different set of experts.
This is not a fix for education's problems; it's just a volley in the turf war between education professors and mathematicians. The reason education is awash in fads and unfounded theories is precisely because education tries to solve its problems by abandoning the experts who weren't able to help for another set of experts who promise to do better. The solution is not to turn to a new group of experts. The solution is to try things out, measure the results, keep what works and get rid of the rest. Sound familiar? It's the scientific method.
But check out her solution -- Trust a different set of experts.
This is not a fix for education's problems; it's just a volley in the turf war between education professors and mathematicians. The reason education is awash in fads and unfounded theories is precisely because education tries to solve its problems by abandoning the experts who weren't able to help for another set of experts who promise to do better. The solution is not to turn to a new group of experts. The solution is to try things out, measure the results, keep what works and get rid of the rest. Sound familiar? It's the scientific method.
// posted by Steve Ritter @ 9:23 PM 
