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What's the role of science, research, and philosophy in education?
13 Plays2 years ago
Emily and Rafa discuss a podcast episode from the Education Researcher that explores the idea of Educational neuroscience.
Feel free to reach out to us at pedagogyofthedistressed@gmail.com!
Rafa & Emily
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Transcript
Daylight Savings and Capitalism Critique
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Happy Daylight Savings.
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Happy Daylight Savings.
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It's not so happy.
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I have a lot of friends who absolutely hate this day.
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I don't blame them.
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I hate this day too.
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I like to sleep in.
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So when I lose an hour, it feels pretty rude, I would say.
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Yeah.
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I hope we get rid of it soon.
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Yeah.
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Apparently, it's been a forever thing.
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So hoping that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, capitalism's hold on us can be released.
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It was funny, I was saying... Stop altering the fabric of time.
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I was having a chat with a friend and I was saying how, you know, often this week people are like, oh, I'm so tired because like,
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oh you know daylight savings ha ha and but you know like we're tired because we're always tired because we're working too much yeah also we're yeah falsely you know taking on too much stress every week just to keep to a 40-hour work week schedule to feel productive i would like to get down to a 30 hour if possible
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That sounds right.
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I have for everybody.
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Yeah.
Introduction to 'Meet the Education Researcher'
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Yeah.
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Well, but today I wanted to talk about another podcast that I found and the topics they cover and one episode in particular.
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So I'll describe a little bit what it is.
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It's a podcast called Meet the Education Researcher.
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I'll link it in the notes and I'm just going to read the description.
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Yeah.
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emerging issues and the latest ideas from across the world of education research.
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Hear from a range of academics about the current research work in schools, universities, and beyond.
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Hosted by Neil Selwyn, I think I pronounced the name, from Monash University, Australia.
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So it's an Australian podcast and it covers topics such as the importance of teacher talk, datafication, and education policy.
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Really interesting topics that I feel like we would want to talk about at some point.
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Mm-hmm.
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And they're talking about, and they're, from everyone to understand, largely faculty and professors and writers.
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So I think it would be fun to bring in some of their thinking and talk about it.
Michael Thomas on Educational Neuroscience
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One episode that I wanted to talk about today that really spoke to me was this one about the role of neuroscience and research.
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And I think what struck me about it, here I'm going to read the description of this one.
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I'm scrolling out.
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Educational neuroscience.
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So here's a description.
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Many people expect neuroscience to change your understanding of education.
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Michael Thomas from Birkbeck University.
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is director of the Center for Educational Neuroscience in London.
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In this episode, Michael talks about what educators need to know about how their brain works, avoiding, quote unquote, disciplinary wars between psychology and neuroscience, and the need to balance a, quote unquote, medical model of learning with societal concerns about education.
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And what I really, so I'm not really going to summarize what happened, but I will say what struck me and what it resonated is
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I really appreciated, I think, what's the researcher's name again?
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Michael?
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Michael?
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Michael?
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When I get this right.
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Michael talks about how, yes, research is important.
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Theory is important.
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And also knowing how to work with philosophy and that that's important too.
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Like it's, those are not neutral things.
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And it's another way to show the contrast with science of reading, which is very like, this is what it is.
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This is the best thing to do.
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And here's a neuroscientist who's like, yeah, there are things we know and lots of things we don't know.
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And the philosophy and the reasons behind why we do things are just as important as a society.
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And influence science, right?
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And what we define as science and our methodologies for science, right?
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Yeah.
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It's like a dialogue.
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So that really spoke to me.
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And it reminded me of how in my pedagogy, I like thinking of like, yes, research has this part and evidence has a part, observations in the classroom has a part and our own philosophy and values have a part, like such as what we're doing, reflecting a strong image of children, for example.
00:04:22
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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Or if we're doing language learning, like, are children speaking in another language?
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And why are they not speaking another language?
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Why do we want them to speak another language?
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And what are ways to promote that in a way that's aligned with our values, right?
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And that way of thinking is in contrast to what I often see, which is like, this is our best practice model of how we teach Spanish.
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Mm-hmm.
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And like very black and white, right?
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Yeah.
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And so, but that's really hard to explain to people in an elevator pitch when they're trying to figure out what your school is all about.
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Mm-hmm.
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So I understand why people go to these very direct, simple explanations.
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Yeah.
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But I think there is a certain level of trivialization that happens when we simplify like this.
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I think simplicity is beautiful.
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Yeah.
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I think sometimes it can become trivialization, trivializes much more complex topics rather than simply stating that this is a complex topic.
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So those are some initial things that struck me about what they were talking about on this podcast.
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Is there anything that strikes you from hearing a little bit about
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what the podcast is about.
Science of Reading and Interdisciplinary Views
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Oh my gosh, so much.
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Because I think it really does connect back to the science of reading episode.
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And I know when you emailed me or texted me the idea for this, you connected it to that as well.
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And because I think the thing that critiques of this new turn to rely on the science of reading, like I'm thinking of Maren Aukerman, who's a brilliant scholar at Stanford who wrote a really grounded research kind of rebuttal to
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the media coverage of the science of reading.
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And in that Marin talks about troubling, like what we mean when we talk about what is science backed.
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It's like the people who are claiming science of reading is a thing like that.
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We need to follow what science says about science of reading.
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They're not talking really about like what,
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cross dis what a bunch of different disciplines say about because social sciences are sciences and philosophers are scientists and like we don't think of that but like we're all it's it maybe some people think it's a stretch to call a philosopher a scientist but i think anybody with a methodology that's going through thoughtfully and like coming up with new ways of thinking or seeing the world can you can think of them as a scientist right and
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Ackerman in that piece was trying to get us to think broadly about science because the people who claim science of reading only call certain methodologies science-based and often it's neuroscience, often it's psychology.
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It's something that can be tested in a lab with a hypothesis in a really like kind of strict Western, I would say like science.
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Eurocentric notion of what the scientific process looks like.
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And if we think of the scientific process as a process for generating new knowledge, right, about the world and how it works.
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So I just think so much of like what troubles me when I hear people's
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claim, oh, this is backed by neuroscience.
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I think there's this underlying meaning that people kind of- Like a hierarchy.
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That there's a hierarchy, that neuroscience is the purest science.
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And something like pedagogy or like theory based not out of-
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research on in a lot, you know, set up in a classic scientific research model sense isn't as valuable as like something neuroscience, someone objectively studying just a brain and how it lights up when you teach certain ways and how it doesn't in other ways.
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And I've spoken with people who are neuroscientists and they say, we don't know like a lot about.
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Yeah.
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One of our friends.
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One of our friends.
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Emily Skidlarik.
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Emily Skidlarik.
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It's been a hot second.
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I don't want to like blow up her spot, but you know, she's, you know, from.
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She encourages people to be critical about the science they read and research they read.
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And just because we look at brain imaging technology doesn't mean we know exactly what it means, right?
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It's still an interpretation.
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It's based on values, even if you don't name them.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And so this is a new turn, but really kind of sums up my...
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approach to teacher ed in general.
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Like I've really been bringing this to my students.
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I've been saying, I don't want you to take, I don't want you to feel like your compass prohibits you from taking certain research, right?
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You have to do science of research.
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If it doesn't claim to be scientifically backed, you can't take it.
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And I also don't want you to say because you subscribe to whole language, that doesn't mean you can't incorporate things from the science of reading.
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It's like, I want you to have a judgment to like look at things with a critical eye and have more things in your toolkit than less.
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I don't want you to not learn about something because it doesn't, you think initially it doesn't align with your views, right?
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Yeah.
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Or what someone has told you is correct.
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And I think teachers are in a special bind about this because, you know,
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Teachers don't have time to read widely about research and read with a critical eye, and they're not given the support to feel like they can generate information.
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their own perspectives on what best practices are from their context.
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Like we really drilled into teachers that they need to teach best practices.
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They need to like teach the way that they're told is the most up-to-date scientifically backed research-based practice.
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And yeah,
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I think that's a lot of pressure.
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I think it makes a lot of teachers really anxious and it pushes them to not trust their gut and not to read the room and get to know their students.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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I don't know.
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It brings me back to this idea.
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I mean, the idea of what are unchallenged values and assumptions in society.
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So why is neuroscience seen as more valid, let's say?
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And again, like you were saying, in terms of other approaches, like in terms of other ways of thinking, there's so much value.
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I think it's a slippery slope here that I want to be careful of because
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There's just bad thinking out there.
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Right.
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And I would trust something that's more hard evidence-based, right?
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I think what we're saying is more like, how do you have that broad critical lens that can take all of that information and including the hard science, if you will, with the other sciences, the social sciences as well, right?
Questioning Neuroscience's Educational Dominance
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And I guess I was thinking about what about neuroscience is more palatable to these people in power and funders, right?
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And I think there's some implicit assumptions about this type of science in terms of purity, right?
00:11:19
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Yeah.
00:11:20
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Which I think is connected to this part of the anatomy of white supremacy, which is imperfectionism that I want to be conscious of or people to be conscious of.
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Right.
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Right.
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And as a result, hold it over other ways of thinking.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah.
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So I always wonder, like, what is so palatable about that?
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And it's so interesting how much critical thinking is just discouraged about any of these other approaches.
00:11:50
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It's like, well, okay, maybe this research... Well, let me go back a bit.
00:11:57
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Research tends to suggest a direction.
00:12:01
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It rarely says, actually says, this is the way.
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Right, that rarely says.
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100% of the time you should use this.
00:12:09
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Yeah.
00:12:09
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We'll say like, that's not how science works, right?
00:12:12
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No, exactly.
00:12:13
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So it's like your best guess on hypothesis.
00:12:14
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And though when curricular made and they're supposed to be research based or research proven, however they market it, like it's because they looked at it and it aligns, but it's still an extrapolation.
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Yeah.
00:12:26
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Like it's, Oh, if this X seems to be what is suggested by the research, then,
00:12:33
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I'm going to extrapolate that why as a practice makes sense.
00:12:38
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But why as a practice has not necessarily been completely tied to, like hasn't been tested in all different populations and all different types of scenarios, right?
00:12:51
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Like our contexts are so different and people are so diverse in how they think that we have to pay attention to
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how people are responding.
00:12:59
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We can't forget about the foundations of relationships, right?
00:13:02
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And all of this.
00:13:05
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So I guess I'm still processing it from my head around how do we...
00:13:14
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that idea of complexity, how do we help each other?
00:13:16
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Yeah.
00:13:18
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Well, and just even reminding, like having that reminder that trained scientists, like people who are actually like in the field doing scientific research, right?
00:13:27
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We think hard sciences, right?
00:13:28
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Things like neuroscience, things like biology, right?
00:13:33
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they're very cautious, right.
00:13:34
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To make, like you said, any broad claim that like my research says you should definitively do XYZ.
00:13:41
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I mean, we both grew up in academia, followed by academics.
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We both grew up in academia, surrounded by academics.
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I would always hear that.
00:13:49
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And it's, it's, it speaks to, it's like, I, cause I, I've been cautious myself to be like, I don't want to feel like,
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you know, in my critique of science of reading and my critique of these approaches, I don't want to be read as anti-science.
00:14:04
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I want to be critical of thinking that research can tell us best practices for, um,
00:14:11
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For any situation.
00:14:12
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For any situation.
00:14:13
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Because I think that, and I'm glad you reminded us of how white supremacy maps onto this logic, because it also, in the way that it relates to perfectionism, it reminds me of a lot of white supremacy and its connection to capitalism and efficiency.
00:14:30
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And so efficient thinking doesn't allow for questioning.
00:14:33
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It doesn't allow for messiness.
00:14:35
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If we really valued what...
00:14:38
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would work right and what scientists do in their research which is slow and methodical and it has discussion you publish it and people debate you with yeah it's like if you think of your classroom in that way the way we would teach kids and teach in general would be inquiry based which is what science is it would be it would be slower it would be methodical we would have time
Data Manipulation Pressures on Teachers
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to do things like
00:15:05
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like consistent, like weekly, daily review with our student, with our other teachers processing what happened in our classrooms, right?
00:15:12
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Like we would look at each child as an individual learner, which is probably what most parents want their teachers to do anyway.
00:15:19
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And like, we would actually have time to do things we intuitively want as parents.
00:15:23
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We know works from the vast population.
00:15:27
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amount of experience we have as educators, right?
00:15:30
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But white supremacy doesn't allow for things that aren't efficient and that don't get, like, and efficiency is like an illusion, right?
00:15:40
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It's not like 100% of kids learn when you use a best practice.
00:15:44
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It's like,
00:15:45
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you'll have some kids that won't learn a concept, but it's just like small enough to ignore or you can brush over it in a way that the best practice allows you to invisibilize like when kids aren't getting it right or pushes you to move on.
00:16:00
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And often it's like,
00:16:03
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Teachers feel pressured to fit the mold.
00:16:05
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If they've been given a curriculum they're told they have to have 100% success rate with, they're going to make it look like there's 100% success rate even when there isn't.
00:16:13
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So it encourages false data and reporting too, which is part of it.
00:16:17
Speaker
Oh, that's happened in my career for sure.
00:16:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:16:19
Speaker
It happened in me.
00:16:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
I didn't realize it happened to you too.
00:16:23
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Yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
I remember very clearly we were sitting in an auditorium at this network charter I used to work at.
00:16:30
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And the CEO of the whole network was up there with all of the data from the first grade team.
00:16:36
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And it was really good.
00:16:39
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And it was so funny to me because my colleague next door, next to me, who was on the first grade team was like, there was a second grade.
00:16:46
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It was one of the grades.
00:16:48
Speaker
And she's like, I just realized I forgot to change all of my answers.
00:16:53
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Because...
00:16:54
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What she did, and it made, speaking of efficiency, though, like what she, and this wasn't malintended, but what she and lots of teachers did is that they would put all of the answers as right in like the online data tracker they had to fill out.
00:17:07
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Right.
00:17:08
Speaker
And then when they went through them, they would uncheck when it wasn't.
00:17:11
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Yeah.
00:17:11
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But they hadn't quite gotten to it for that week.
00:17:14
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But the CEO had gone ahead and saw these like perfect scores.
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Wow.
00:17:18
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And didn't question it.
00:17:19
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And then when it was like brought up to him, he didn't even like acknowledge it.
00:17:24
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Because we're like, it's like there's so much data that they expect us to produce.
00:17:29
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You're like, whatever.
00:17:31
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Next week anyway.
00:17:33
Speaker
It was so interesting.
00:17:34
Speaker
It was an example of people who had good intentions who were doing their best.
00:17:38
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who due to the systemic pressures it's how data gets budged too it's like hard numbers they're supposed to be objective yeah like well that will go that's what goes into a lot of these hard numbers and you know quote-unquote objective data sources analyzes teachers right it's like i just but i'll never forget how she whispers to me as this like as the ceo's talking it's like oh my god like
00:18:01
Speaker
i just realized i've been witness to active uh okay relation which do you want to talk about that for a second yeah god just in the context of what systems encourage yeah i don't want to generally you can speak very generally like what a person did what for what reason
00:18:23
Speaker
I saw in general what happened when I taught middle school.
Surveillance and Data in Education
00:18:27
Speaker
We had this really – one of the features of our system, of our curriculum, was a really comprehensive reading leveling system that teachers were supposed to do.
00:18:37
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At the beginning of the year, you check their reading level and they have a program assigned level.
00:18:43
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And then they had to show growth.
00:18:45
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By the end of the year, they had to show a year's growth.
00:18:48
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If they were on grade level at the beginning of the year, they had to show like more than a year's growth.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:54
Speaker
I'm familiar with this benchmark.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:56
Speaker
And so, um,
00:19:00
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Because we had, I'll say it, I don't care.
00:19:02
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I don't work there anymore.
00:19:03
Speaker
We had a nightmare principal at our school.
00:19:05
Speaker
She was totally oppressive.
00:19:08
Speaker
I'll just leave it at that.
00:19:09
Speaker
I'm sure more stories will come up about her over time.
00:19:12
Speaker
It was one of the most disheartening experiences I've ever had working for this woman.
00:19:16
Speaker
It was awful.
00:19:18
Speaker
And one of her major things was about surveilling teachers.
00:19:21
Speaker
She was really into writing teachers up if they were, quote unquote, insubordinate, which could mean anything from asking a question in a meeting to...
00:19:30
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Mm-hmm.
00:19:31
Speaker
not using the curriculum that had been mandated to use.
00:19:36
Speaker
So she was very into surveilling us and she surveilled us through this database.
00:19:41
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And so if she ran the numbers, which was really easy for her instead of going around and seeing all the classrooms because she couldn't because to her defense, she had so much to do.
00:19:50
Speaker
She had unrealistic amounts of work that she had to do.
00:19:52
Speaker
So she could go and give us this mentoring that we would ideally get from an administrator.
00:19:57
Speaker
And instead she relied a lot on easy systems of surveillance, which was,
00:20:02
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in what our case as ELA teachers was this reading level database.
00:20:07
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And she would just like call people up if their numbers didn't look good and they weren't on track.
00:20:12
Speaker
And the way part of the shininess of this curriculum was that it provided like not just like a way to track growth, but it gave you reports on like this kid is off, right?
00:20:22
Speaker
We look at their graph.
00:20:23
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I'm using a hand, you know, to indicate a line graph.
00:20:26
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It's like their trajectory is such in October, they haven't grown enough in October.
00:20:31
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to show they'll make their growth by the end of the year.
00:20:33
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And so it was really easy for our principal just to pull up that.
00:20:39
Speaker
And there was so much pressure.
00:20:40
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People were so afraid of her.
00:20:42
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They didn't change their numbers, but they would go and be easier on a kid because we could level.
00:20:49
Speaker
Oh, I'm familiar with that pressure as well.
00:20:52
Speaker
It wasn't like we would go through and change our numbers.
00:20:55
Speaker
It was just like...
00:20:57
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to be more likely to level a kid up because they'll look better, they'll feel better, and I'll feel better, and I won't get chewed out by my principal.
00:21:07
Speaker
Even though she said, and people said, you weren't supposed to use this database this way because that's not how data is supposed to be used.
00:21:12
Speaker
It's supposed to just be a true reflection of what's happening in class.
00:21:14
Speaker
It's like...
00:21:17
Speaker
You'll just get smacked.
00:21:18
Speaker
What?
00:21:19
Speaker
You'll just get smacked if it's not where we want it to be.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:21:21
Speaker
But it should be a true reflection.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:25
Speaker
No, we'll just fire you if you don't meet me.
00:21:28
Speaker
It's not a big deal.
00:21:29
Speaker
It's not punitive.
00:21:30
Speaker
We just, we won't have a job next year, you know?
00:21:33
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's like...
00:21:37
Speaker
So that's the trouble to me, like the extension of that way of thinking about research and best practices and data.
00:21:45
Speaker
And it just like to say how problematic the data is that we think that's just black and white.
00:21:49
Speaker
Oh, this is the reading level.
00:21:50
Speaker
It's like, well, because we're affected by a lot of other pressures and we're a human using a tool, we're
00:22:01
Speaker
it's not going to be a clear and objective answer.
00:22:04
Speaker
And I would say like a lot of those other tests, even done by university-based researchers that are collecting data, it's like I've been in that position.
00:22:12
Speaker
I go into work feeling a certain way.
00:22:15
Speaker
If I read things with a certain lens, I might skew my results and my tone to be more positive.
00:22:21
Speaker
And if I'm having a day where I'm
00:22:23
Speaker
you know, stressed or frustrated, I might skew it the other way.
00:22:26
Speaker
It's not easy to go in and put on, take off all of your feelings, all of your thoughts, all of your unconscious bias and produce data.
Embracing Subjectivity in Education
00:22:36
Speaker
What you're saying reminds me of something that we're actively working on at Mi Casita, which is
00:22:41
Speaker
really leaning into this idea of intersubjectivity and allowing ourselves to bring our own subjective biases and feelings and be open about it with each other and how it's informing, how it's coloring, how we're seeing what's happening in the classroom.
00:22:56
Speaker
And then the inter part is inter-adults, different ideas, and also including children's different ideas of what's going on.
00:23:04
Speaker
And because we sometimes show children what we're thinking and they, including three-year-olds,
00:23:09
Speaker
and two-year-olds, and we see how they respond, if at all, right?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:15
Speaker
So it just, this, I guess, another, I don't know if this would be counted in, like, the anatomy of white supremacy, but, like, well, yeah, it is.
00:23:23
Speaker
This idea of objectivity.
00:23:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:23:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:26
Speaker
Right?
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:28
Speaker
Is, I think, is an illusion.
00:23:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:23:31
Speaker
Somebody said, and I forget who, that you could think of objectivity as massively agreed upon subjectivity.
00:23:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:23:38
Speaker
and which resonates to me i write the and it invites a lot of ambiguity but it's also what makes the work so beautiful to me and so engaging yeah but we don't like that as a system right so yeah what you're saying about like yeah it depends how you're feeling but imagine if you could like preface everything with like this is how i was feeling today
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:03
Speaker
Sorry, it's just like I would be remiss if I didn't mention my graduate school advisor, Dr. Gerald Campano, who introduced me to...
00:24:14
Speaker
Work that not just him alone is doing, but that was my pathway to learning about things about questioning subjectivity and women of color and feminists of color's perspective on objectivity and troubling it and saying there can be no pure place from which to research and provide a God's eye view of it for all.
00:24:36
Speaker
affected by our identities, by our socially located identities.
00:24:41
Speaker
And the things we know, how we see the world is shaped by ourselves, right?
00:24:49
Speaker
We can't remove ourselves ever from the framework.
00:24:53
Speaker
And so that to me is like foundational in how I approach research.
00:24:58
Speaker
I also was trained in practitioner inquiry, which is a methodology that
00:25:04
Speaker
But you got me into.
00:25:06
Speaker
I did.
00:25:06
Speaker
I was you.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
It was so they're like, you know, it's a form of action research, which is basically doing research on to make an impact, basically, and not being afraid of making an impact.
00:25:23
Speaker
Whereas
00:25:25
Speaker
Other approaches say we don't want to leave an impact, right?
00:25:27
Speaker
Even like if you think of old school anthropology, it's like we wanted to go just observe as, you know, invisibly as possible and not leave a mark on this society, not leave a mark on the situation, right?
00:25:39
Speaker
Which obviously that has been troubled, but I think there's still some people who push you to remove yourself as much as possible from your research because... Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
I mean, you're still taught that in a teacher ed program as many times too in terms of how you assess.
00:25:53
Speaker
So yeah, it's very common.
00:25:55
Speaker
And it's not – I think it comes from a good place.
00:25:57
Speaker
It makes sense.
00:25:58
Speaker
It's almost like trying to do away with your ego if you think about it in the most generous perspective.
00:26:05
Speaker
But the way it gets wielded is then any research where you admit to having a perspective or you admit that you shape the way your interpretations, right?
00:26:18
Speaker
You haven't – you're not the only person who can have a –
00:26:22
Speaker
I guess like by acknowledging your perspective to me, you're acknowledging your limitations, you know?
00:26:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker
And like the real, I guess it's more closer to what I would consider like what's actually going on.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:35
Speaker
which maybe is a little paradoxical because I guess that might imply a little bit of objectivity.
00:26:38
Speaker
But like, so maybe we should have a philosopher person come on because I do think in a funny way, because I do believe in the idea of truth.
00:26:47
Speaker
I know, I know.
00:26:48
Speaker
Separate from objectivity.
00:26:51
Speaker
I was going to say, I feel like,
00:26:54
Speaker
being explicit about our subjectivity gets a little closer to the truth or a little more into mutual understanding of what's going on.
00:27:01
Speaker
Like, I guess I imagine the researchers or the organizations that do these assessments to justify
00:27:09
Speaker
things about why systematic finance construction is always the best or largely the best for most kids.
00:27:15
Speaker
Like what would their papers look like if they had, if they did explore what about them, their organizational identity, personal beliefs brought them to explore this question in the first place.
00:27:27
Speaker
And that's what we're trying to get too many times.
00:27:29
Speaker
They came in with that idea.
00:27:30
Speaker
They came in thinking.
Science of Reading vs. Whole Language Approaches
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:33
Speaker
Or they had had experiences with that in the classroom and that's fine.
00:27:36
Speaker
Which is cool.
00:27:37
Speaker
And that's,
00:27:38
Speaker
That would just make it all discussion way richer in general.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:43
Speaker
And it really is.
00:27:44
Speaker
It's, it's a conflict of paradigms of research too, with, um, signs of reading versus like people have taken a whole language, you know?
00:27:55
Speaker
Even if you listen, I would love for you to listen to that podcast and we can do a revisit after you listen to it.
00:28:00
Speaker
Because I felt like the way she was presenting some of the research that whole language had been based on... Oh, you're saying the... What is it called?
00:28:07
Speaker
Story?
00:28:09
Speaker
Sorry.
00:28:10
Speaker
Sold a Story is the name of it.
00:28:12
Speaker
Sold a Story.
00:28:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:13
Speaker
The name of our inaugural critique episode.
00:28:17
Speaker
My rant.
00:28:18
Speaker
But I...
00:28:22
Speaker
I felt like the way she presented research that backed whole language was almost like it's not as rigorous.
00:28:27
Speaker
And it was a lot of story-based, like a lot of like qualitative research.
00:28:30
Speaker
And then she was kind of talking about the research space that supported whole language, which again, I felt like she didn't represent as richly as she could have.
00:28:39
Speaker
She was positioning that against like...
00:28:41
Speaker
The hard science of science of reading where they studied hundreds of children reading and they determined from these hundreds of children that this was the best way, you know, and they didn't talk about they really came for individual researchers in ways the researcher wasn't discussed.
00:28:57
Speaker
I wouldn't say there was one person that she discussed that she said was like a science of reading professor.
00:29:05
Speaker
researcher.
00:29:05
Speaker
It was almost just like as if like science, scientific researchers have come to such a consensus.
00:29:10
Speaker
This is a body of knowledge.
00:29:11
Speaker
It's not one individual's perspective.
00:29:14
Speaker
And I would argue that the field of literacy is not so big that there aren't superstars that people like kind of cite all the time.
00:29:22
Speaker
There are science of reading researchers she could have talked about that probably gets cycled through a lot of papers.
00:29:28
Speaker
You know, it's not necessarily such a consensus in that way.
00:29:33
Speaker
But I also think that like you could look at the way they probably get their research and story it more.
00:29:39
Speaker
And it is more of a story than, than just looking at brains and isolation.
00:29:44
Speaker
like there were conditions in which like that cold read was administered to measure the, you know, there's never seen the text before.
00:29:52
Speaker
Right.
00:29:53
Speaker
Right.
00:29:53
Speaker
Sorry.
00:29:53
Speaker
So usually like, I would think probably a lot of science of reading stuff, like gets their data from science or sorry, reading assessments.
00:30:02
Speaker
And a lot of reading assessments are just having, giving a kid something to read.
00:30:05
Speaker
They haven't read before and seeing how well they do.
00:30:10
Speaker
But anyway, I would say whatever, even if they got an automated test that wasn't given by a person, the conditions in which the child took these tests, I would be curious to see what was affecting the child on the day they took that test.
00:30:23
Speaker
What was the room like that they took it in versus other kids?
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:29
Speaker
by erasing the fact that there's context for even scientifically based research, you know, that would look more, you know, objective, quote unquote, there's still a story to that.
00:30:42
Speaker
There's still context.
00:30:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:44
Speaker
We don't talk about it.
00:30:45
Speaker
Right.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:47
Speaker
So.
00:30:49
Speaker
Well, yeah, I, I feel like I'm coming back.
00:30:55
Speaker
to wanting to continue exploring this idea in future episodes about, you know, the intersection of the research and the philosophy and what's happening in classrooms.
Cross-Paradigm Collaboration in Research
00:31:06
Speaker
And I would just love, I meant to ask this earlier, so sorry to bring it back, but I was curious, this neuroscience, I love also hearing someone from one paradigm want to invite in another, you know?
00:31:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:31:18
Speaker
And so I was wondering what did he, what was his research like?
00:31:23
Speaker
I'm just curious, like what did it, was like there an example of a study he was doing or a paper he wrote?
00:31:30
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I'd have to re-listen.
00:31:32
Speaker
Oh, yeah, never mind.
00:31:33
Speaker
For the details.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:35
Speaker
But I'll put it in the description for people who want to listen.
00:31:38
Speaker
I thought it was just a very... It was more the quality of the conversation that struck me than anything.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:43
Speaker
I was like, wow.
00:31:45
Speaker
Well, and... Yeah, it's...
00:31:49
Speaker
You have to think there's some logic, there's some white supremacist logic in there to keep people separated and from actually developing rich perspectives on teaching.
00:31:59
Speaker
They want us to keep fighting in the footnotes and not arrive at consensus so we can't have a united voice to advocate for kids.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:10
Speaker
That would require more resources, you know, and more investment in teachers and learners, you know.
00:32:17
Speaker
I'm pretty sure the strongest science of learning in general is when kids have access to adequate shelter and healthcare and love and food.
00:32:30
Speaker
They just do better.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:32
Speaker
That's very unambiguous, I think.
00:32:35
Speaker
And time.
00:32:36
Speaker
And time.
00:32:38
Speaker
Not the pressure of, you know, yeah.
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah, because I feel like the hyper-focus in education and trying to counter all of society's ills is a convenient way for people in power to be like, we don't have to invest more in infrastructure as much.
00:32:53
Speaker
Right.
00:32:54
Speaker
the schools can do it and the schools are not doing it.
00:32:56
Speaker
That's the teachers.
00:32:57
Speaker
We're not doing a good enough job.
00:32:58
Speaker
So I think that's, that's why I'm so passionate about continuing to bring up like what is really known to be very helpful for improving outcomes for children.
Systemic Issues and Educator Unity
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:11
Speaker
In the traditional sense, perhaps.
00:33:14
Speaker
So, yeah, we always come back to this place.
00:33:18
Speaker
It's like, I think the most, um,
00:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, now that I'm saying it out loud, just like we – it is such a – either we can look at it as a shame that we have an United or a purposeful, like, you know, way of shaping the university.
00:33:36
Speaker
It's like because we all feel pitted against each other and in competition, you know, and like you have to defend your school of thought against other people.
00:33:44
Speaker
It keeps you from actually taking that – you have a scarcity mindset, you know, which has been critiqued in a lot of contexts.
00:33:50
Speaker
And you think, I have to get the funding.
00:33:52
Speaker
I have to –
00:33:54
Speaker
Well, that's the thing.
00:33:55
Speaker
It's not the debate that's the problem.
00:33:57
Speaker
I want to be in a system that debates.
00:33:59
Speaker
I actually don't know if I want a system that's fully unified in a sense of what we do, but I do want a system that's more unified and understanding that debate is normal, but not have power and money held over people's heads over it.
00:34:13
Speaker
And to admit that some people are right.
00:34:15
Speaker
It's like maybe in this realm, it's like...
00:34:18
Speaker
They have some knowledge that they generated through their approach that we couldn't have generated through ours.
00:34:23
Speaker
Right.
00:34:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:24
Speaker
And then it's like, I wish that we could be okay being like, that's their thing and I can still use it and go and turn to it if I need to.
00:34:32
Speaker
And I'm talking, of course, not about harmful perspectives, you know, that deny oppression.
00:34:38
Speaker
Right.
00:34:39
Speaker
Or like they try to gaslight you out of like whatever.
00:34:41
Speaker
But I think that, yeah,
00:34:43
Speaker
There are some we need to also be able to feel okay about being like, I want to know as much as I can about all different perspectives and how the world works and know that the world is really complex and we're better for having multiple perspectives than one approach.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:00
Speaker
I wish that there was just more.
00:35:01
Speaker
It's harder to make money off of.
00:35:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:04
Speaker
Right.
00:35:05
Speaker
Right.
00:35:06
Speaker
If you, but everyone has to push their one way, you know, to get the recognition, get the book deal.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:15
Speaker
Even if everyone's saying the same thing in eight different ways, just to get there, your book deal.
00:35:22
Speaker
That being said, buy the book written by Emily and I coming.
00:35:25
Speaker
I'm just kidding.
00:35:27
Speaker
We're manifesting that.
00:35:28
Speaker
We will write a book one day.
00:35:29
Speaker
I have a feeling we will.
00:35:31
Speaker
I just have a feeling.
00:35:32
Speaker
We just problematized it and now we're going to do it.
00:35:34
Speaker
I don't know.
00:35:35
Speaker
I have a feeling.
00:35:35
Speaker
There's going to be a picture.
00:35:37
Speaker
One day we'll have a picture in a bookstore and there's going to be a huge photo of us together with our little headshots.
00:35:44
Speaker
I see it.
00:35:45
Speaker
I see it clear as day.
00:35:46
Speaker
I see going to some bookstore and seeing us in Barnes & Noble.
00:35:51
Speaker
Adventures in thinking acrobatics.
00:35:53
Speaker
I don't know what we would call it.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:58
Speaker
Well, it sounds like we have some food for thought for next time.
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah.
Assessing Scientific Claims Critically
00:36:04
Speaker
Thanks for indulging me.
00:36:05
Speaker
So, as always, you can email us at pedagogyofthedistressed at gmail.com.
00:36:10
Speaker
Encouraging you to listen to the other podcast that we brought up, which was the episode called Educational Neuroscience with Michael Thomas from the podcast Meet the Education Researcher.
00:36:22
Speaker
I love it.
00:36:22
Speaker
Anything else, Emily?
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:26
Speaker
No, I just, you know, hone that critical eye.
00:36:29
Speaker
If something says it's backed by science, read more about it.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, what's science?
00:36:36
Speaker
Tell me more.
00:36:38
Speaker
What paper?
00:36:39
Speaker
Art, science, art, science.
00:36:41
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:42
Speaker
What do you mean by that?
00:36:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:45
Speaker
Well, thank you, Emily.
00:36:47
Speaker
All right.
00:36:47
Speaker
Well, I love you.
00:36:48
Speaker
Thanks for helping feeding my brain.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:52
Speaker
Oh, likewise.
00:36:52
Speaker
And I hope that losing that hour today isn't too insane.
00:36:57
Speaker
Devastating to my nap schedule and baby's nap schedule.
00:37:00
Speaker
Pues hasta la próxima.
00:37:03
Speaker
Bye-bye.
00:37:04
Speaker
Bye.