HUNTING BLACK SWANS

Educational debates on Twitter are always wild affairs. It’s interesting in this brand new world of evidence in education, a lot of debate still comes from lived experience. This seems fair enough because if you have seen something or dealt with something that has changed your perspective on an issue, you hold that to be true. However, the point of evidence in education is to find out what actually works and not just go on hearsay. If I had used VAK to reinforce my learning and I saw my students’ grades go up, would I be wrong to argue that VAK aids learning? The answer would be yes because there is no scientific evidence to suggest that VAK does aid learning, hence the reason ‘learning styles’ is a neuromyth/edumyth and you can read many articles about it.

Therefore whenever I see a debate related to mobile phones, exclusion booths or a three year KS4, I always wonder what the research says. I appreciate that context is everything and appreciate that teachers across the country have had experiences that shape their view and that they should be respected but what does the research tell us?  We can have the debates and use data that might reveal something about the issues (there is clearly a lot out there about mobile phones in general) but a good study with RCTs would help clarify the situation. There does seem to be some data sets out there, for example, this article on cell phones show how they are bad for learning but the sample size of 43 is a concern. This is also an interesting article that cites a variety of research that also highlights how bad phones are. However you can also come across articles that argue the other perspective, which suggests that we need a really good in-school study that can answer the question in a definitive manner.  Even then I’m sure we would have criticisms of the study and there could be a potential ‘replication crisis’ but at least we have something to use as a base point. Before that happens, feel free to ban them at your school if you are a Headteacher but to tell everybody else what to do seems a little bit odd to me. How can anyone know the answer for every school given the lack of comprehensive research and without the knowledge of the context of that school? There are so many variables within a school environment, it seems almost arrogant to tell others that you know best from a distance.

People get very passionate about educational issues and this is great to see, you want passionate people in education but if you have studied any work by Daniel Kahneman, you will know that this can often lead to irrational behaviour. That’s why it’s good that research can be used to clarify certain positions and sometimes point out our cognitive biases.  It takes a strong person, especially on Twitter, to listen to a debate and consider that there might be other views out there that you might not necessarily agree with but might be right. 

I always find it fascinating on Twitter that those involved in a debate will only ‘like’ the ones that support their argument. This then gets put on their timeline and it seems like the only people involved in the debate agree with their point of view, which in itself stifles debate because you don’t want to put your head above the parapet to argue the other side.  This then creates an ‘echo chamber’ that can only reinforce the position that you are right – this is classic confirmation bias.  What you should really do is hunt out the evidence that you are wrong.  If you believe that mobile phones should be banned in schools, hunt down a school where smart phone use is encouraged and it works. If you believe that a three year KS4 hurts disadvantaged students, then go and find evidence that this is not the case.  This is what hunting black swans is all about – you can learn about the crucial role of falsification here in this excellent video.

This is why I really respect this tweet by @mfordhamhistory where he has gone out to try and prove that his own beliefs about KS4 might be wrong.  As the replies suggest, there is still a wider discussion to be had and this is clearly just a first look at the data but this is what educational debates should be like. This is why when I read about the success of ‘knowledge-rich’ schools, I also think about schools like School 21 that have had great success teaching in a slightly different way, as discussed in this article.  This is the same with the exclusion debate.  Whichever side of the argument you are on, go and find the school that has had success with the opposite approach and find out what you can learn from it. It’s very easy to lose sight of your biases and if you look closely enough there are probably biases at work in this blog but I try hard to check myself and believe others should as well. So…as weird as it may sound, go out there today and be a hunter of black swans!