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DANGEROUS DICHOTOMIES |
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DANGEROUS DICHOTOMIES |
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FREE
NEWSLETTER GREAT
GIFT--especially for yourself!
Contents TEACHER
THINKING EDUCATION
MYTHS
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Friendly Version (PDF) "...We
distort things...because we are trained neither to voice both sides of an issue
nor to listen with both ears...It is rooted in the fact that we look at the world
through analytical lenses. We see everything as this or that, plus or minus, on or
off, black or white; and we fragment reality into an endless series of either-ors.
Human
brains naturally generate opposites. Someone says black
and we think white. Someone says hot and we think cold. Binary
thinking begins as the infant explores her world, playing with her fingers and
toes and batting at brightly colored toys attached above her crib. She begins to
recognize what is “me” and what is “not me.” In short, she begins to
categorize. As
adults, people classify ideas in terms
of whether they are “me” or “not me.” “Me” is anything that fits
within my inner map of reality. “Not me” is anything that is not part of my
belief system (and is, therefore, obviously wrong or illogical). Whatever adaptive
benefits it has, dichotomous or binary thinking causes problems when it is done
unconsciously and without regard for its potential hazards. As
people explain a complex idea to others, they pick out what they believe to be the
most important points. Each time the idea is explained, it is further
"simplified"—more of the specifics are deleted. What happens to a
Degas painting of ballerinas if it is simplified
to stick figures, or to a Bach fugue if it is simplified
to a melody line. Nothing is left of what made the original unique or interesting.
Nothing is left of the relationships that were so critical to the whole. The same
is true of ideas. In
education, new and promising theories undergo three destructive processes. 1.
A theory is simplified by the very
people who support it. They do this to make the idea palatable to those they are
trying to convince. However, this contributes to the theory’s demise by
distorting and weakening the total package. 2.
Supporters of the theory do not
recognize the belief/value system upon which the theory rests. Failing to
comprehend that one must hold similar beliefs and values to effectively apply the
theory, they rush to get teachers to implement the "simplified" program. 3.
Teachers who are motivated by a wide
variety of beliefs and values use the new procedures, often failing to get the
results that the originators promised. The natural reaction is to condemn the
original theory—a theory that teachers have never encountered in its entirety
and therefore, never fully understood Today,
many people picture John Dewey’s progressive schools as places where students
“do their own thing” with little control or planning. They think permissive rather than progressive.
Nothing could have been further from Dewey’s philosophy of education. Dewey’s
ideas were radically different from the prevailing views of the time, but people
didn’t recognize they were attempting to understand the new from the point of
view of the old. They simply could not accurately reconstruct Dewey’s ideal
classroom while still holding the values and beliefs of traditional education. As
a result, they condemned Dewey’s theory as flawed. Two-Dimensional Thinking “Mankind
likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its
beliefs in terms of Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate
possibilities. When forced to recognize that the extremes cannot be acted upon, it
is still inclined to hold that they are all right in theory but that when it comes
to practical matters circumstances compel us to compromise. ”
Once
people have simplified a theory, it frequently becomes one end of an imaginary
line. At the other end lies its “opposite” theory. When I say something
positive about the theory at one pole, I am accused of being against whatever is at the opposite pole. If I argue for a more humanistic
approach to teaching, I am declared anti-intellectual. If I am in favor of more
in-depth learning, I must be anti-standards. If I promote practical courses, I am
deemed anti-academic. Consider
the metaphors inherent in such polar thinking. Education is a battle zone of dichotomies—armed camps
prepared to launch a barrage of evidence
for their views. Each camp has expert opinion and research data used as ammunition
to shot down opponents
in this battle of ideas. Researchers and
experts are the generals. “For every
Ph.D., there’s an equal and opposite Ph.D.”(2) Such
language is all part of a military metaphor. Is it
any wonder that there is so much animosity, so much name-calling among different
theorists? This is, after all, war! The
metaphor forces educators to envision ideas as opposing
armies on a two-dimensional battlefield.
We have Descartes’ rational mind on one side and subjectivism on the other.
Externally generated standards are battling
curricula based on student interest. Each camp
is lobbing data and research studies at
the other from their respective positions.
When the data doesn’t overwhelm the enemy,
when theoretical attempts to prove the superiority
of one camp over another fail to force the
enemy to surrender, the battle often disintegrates into insulting the intelligence of combatants
in the opposing camp. When all else fails, call them idiots! These
combatants, entrenched in their own
belief systems, can see only their immediate position and, at a great distance,
the position of their opponent. “You
couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Truth, of course, is my position. Teachers
stand by and let the experts fight it
out. Is there is a right way to teach, a
right philosophy of education? If so,
then why, in the history of education, has one side not been able to convince the
other? Whose intellects are flawed? The fundamental belief that one or
the other idea must be correct blinds even the experts to the recognition that
almost every idea provides useful insight into some aspect of the problems. None
contains all of the answers. This
war metaphor leaves observers with the impression they must take sides. It intimidates some teachers into believing they must choose A or
B rather than AB or aB or Ab—even if some
combination of the theories is the most logical choice for a given situation. In
the words of an educational proverb, “Successful teachers are effective in
spite of the psychological theories they suffer under.” These teachers
don’t allow rigid rules to dictate their behaviors. Teachers
who have no great attachment to either position—who
don’t insist on taking a stand—can
rise above the battlefield to view the various theories from a new and much more
comprehensive perspective. Those teachers perceive theories as resources—ideas from which to choose depending on the current
situation. Disciplinary situations require a different resource than nurturing
situations. Teaching “the basics” requires a different resource than fostering
creativity. Teachers who perceive the entire plane of ideas can “zoom in” to
the resource that most closely fits their needs at any moment. Let’s
begin by tossing out the war metaphor. Many other metaphors could provide a more
productive background for discussion. For example, what if we think of educational
theories as flowers in a huge garden? People don’t think to ask which is
better—a rose or a daisy, an orchid or a violet. Each flower has something
unique to offer. The effectiveness of the landscape is a result of the judicious
combination of color, shape, and size. The bee gets to fly from flower to flower,
collecting the sweetest nectar and returning to the hive to produce the finest
honey. Just imagine the quality of the honey teachers might produce if they were
free to draw from the rich repertoire of possibilities in the garden of
educational theories. Don't care for the "flowery" metaphor? How about thinking of theories as an assortment of tools to be used for the appropriate job. To paraphrase Abraham Maslow, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." A single theory is like the hammer. It's very useful for some things, but not for others. Perceiving educational theories as tools offers us choices. Educational
theories are different points of view rather than either/or positions to be
defended. Each point of view contains valuable insights. The idea that one must
adopt one end of a spectrum and stay there, “defending” it against all
evidence to the contrary, is as limiting as eating only one type of food or always
wearing the same article of clothing. Dichotomous
thinking is an adaptive behavior that is part of human nature. The wonder of the
human mind is that we can change it. We don’t have to behave habitually. We can
actively choose to think in a different way. Human minds are enormously adaptable.
Establishing different patterns of thought will take some effort, but once
established, those new patterns will become as natural as the old way of thinking. "Our mind
is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the
pairs of opposites of which References 1 Dewey, J. (1939). Experience and Education: Traditional vs. Progressive Education. New York: Macmillan. (Return to article) 2 Ohanion, S. (1999). One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 23. (Return to article)
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