The Daily Riff - BE SMARTER. ABOUT EDUCATION.

The Ministers' Misconceptions
Howard Gardner
The GoodWork Project
Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Copyright © 2010


Of all the findings from cognitive psychology that are relevant for education, one that
stands out is the repeated demonstration, across a number of disciplines, of the prevalence
of misconceptions and the difficulty of getting rid of them and replacing them with more powerful and more veridical conceptions.

The most famous examples occur in physics.  Students at outstanding universities, who
have studied the laws of motion and have done well on standardized measures of
achievement in physics, are asked to explain a new phenomenon - one that they have
not studied but one governed by the laws of motion. Not only do these star students typically fail on these performances of understanding, but more dramatically, their responses are often indistinguishable from those obtained from students who have never studied physics. Comparable examples can be found in biology, astronomy, psychology, economics - indeed across the disciplinary spectrum.

These difficulties can be blamed in part on inadequate instruction, but they also reflect a disturbing reality. When young, without the need for formal instruction, nearly all human
beings develop "folk theories" of how the world works:  the physical world (if an object is broken into tiny, no-longer-visible parts, it ceases to exist);  the biological world (all
organisms were created at a single, pre-historical moment) and the social world (people
who look different from me are to be feared and shunned).

More effective theories can only be constructed in the mind of the learner through
effective teaching and significant involvement with the materials (object, data) for
which the disciplinary understandings are appropriate.

Nowadays almost everyone goes to school. And even in the remaining unschooled
societies, there is informal tuition. Nonetheless, misconceptions continue to hold sway.
Here are the some of the powerful misconceptions about learning and teaching
that characterize the folk theories of human beings:

1.  Education involves the transmission of ideas and skills from older and more
     powerful persons to those who are younger and under the control of their elders.

2.  The young mind is a blank slate on which correct ideas and needed skills need
      to be implanted.

3.  Learning should occur bit by bit; to the extent possible, errors should be identified,     
     discouraged, corrected.

4.  The best way to teach - indeed, the only effective way - is to reward correct answers
     and punish wrong ones.

5.  On any dimension worth considering, you can array people from the best to the worst
     (a so-called "league table").

6.  If someone does not do what you want them to do, just ask them to do it, louder
     and louder, over and over again.

Now, since misconceptions like this are part of the human condition, it is not
surprising that most children and most parents embrace them. But that does not
mean they are correct, any more than that the world is flat or that all creatures were
created at the same moment. Indeed, considerable social- scientific research over
the last century calls each of these so-called truisms into severe question.

It might seem reasonable to expect that those who are in charge of educational policy
should have moved beyond these misconceptions. And indeed, if engaged in quiet
discussion, at least some policymakers reveal their awareness of the relevant research.

And yet, in observing ministers of education all over the world, I find them remarkably
tied to these powerful, though erroneous ideas. Indeed, I sometimes think that for most Ministers of Education, their only goal is to improve the performance of their nation
in the international comparisons, independent of the worth or utility of that
comparison. In fact, I've recently encountered an ironical twist on this: The absolute
standing of Scotland is less important than its relative position vis-a-vis England.
Better to be 20th if Britain is 21st, than to be 10th if Britain is 9th.

Going beyond this "league table" mentality, I am constantly surprised at the persistence,
 in ministerial talk and writing, of allegiance to:

• the "transmission theory" of education;
• the focus on rewards (even monetary ones) and punishment;
• the notion that the best questions have a single correct answer and a resulting suspicion of multiple plausible answers, productive errors, creative leaps, etc; and
• the preferred solution to poor performance on tests - the administration of more and more tests. It is like the misguided belief that if the patient is sick, the royal road to health involves repeating measurement of temperature.

I don't mean to demean all Ministers of Education. As already suggested, some of them
know better, and a few try to do better. It may be that there is something about the air in
the ministries of the world, and in their all-too-frequent meetings with one another, which reinforces the worst of these misconceptions and repeats them endlessly to the public
at large.

Of course, we do know a great deal about what actually brings about strong
achievements in education around the world: 

• plausible goals, understood and subscribed to by the range of constituents;
• awareness of the changing nature of knowledge and the need to prepare learners for an uncertain future;
• respect for teachers who, because of their knowledge of content and pedagogy and sensitivity to individual differences, merit respect;
• regular parental involvement;
• instilling in young people a love for learning that endures throughout life, even when no one is looking.

If I were trying to select a school system for my children or grandchildren, I'd beware of Ministers bearing misconceptions, I'd look instead for ones who understand these equally simply, and yet surprisingly elusive powerful ideas.