Ed Reformers - Missing the proximate cause level

While driving down to the mountains last week, I had some time to ponder why most educational reformers' efforts fail (Tyack & Cuban, 1995; Giles & Hargreaves, 2006; Goodson, Moores & Hargreaves, 2006).  Even hybridizing reforms tend to fair poorly: only grabbing real traction when they resonate with larger societal currents (Tyack & Cuban, 1995).

UTOPIAN MYOPIA

Reformers who push total reform visions seem captured by utopian myopia.  Transformational leadership easily falls into the trap of solving emergent "skeletons" by increasing levels of transformational effort (Briskin 2001; Mulford & Moreno, 2006). It therefore becomes very tempting to view human problems as mere transformational targets.  This approach becomes drastically over-extended when it tackles symptoms and misses proximate genetic causes.  Missing these levels of insight while assuming a transformational paradigm creates utopian myopia.

EXAMPLES

Professional Learning Community Implementation
Over-extension of Dufours' professional learning community (PLC) theory is a solid example of myopic utopia. Dufours' argument goes that if all teachers just bought into

1. a belief that all students can learn, and,
2. that collaboration is the most effective way of directing teacher effect,

then education effectiveness would be radically transformed.  As many authors point out, this totally misses the effects of micro-politics (see annotated bibliography) and the whole field of human dynamics.  The PLC solution attempts to transform the symptoms of a proximate state:

1. Feeling good about individual effort vs. feeling good about collective effort, 
2. Feeling good about effort vs. feeling good about results.

However, Dufour's PLC theory into practice has no real solution for the proximate causes producing the symptoms it hopes to change.  As such it is a classic example of utopian myopia.  It neglects the underlying physics and applies band-aid type solutions to fundamental tendencies/problems.

Thomas Jefferson Education
An example closer to my direct sphere of practice are homeschoolers who overgeneralize radical humanistic pedagogies.  A Thomas Jefferson Education (TJED) provides the framework I encounter  most.

TJED is a modern utopian based educational philosophy.  It's pedagogy is based on idealized, circular humanistic principles:

1. all students want to learn, 
2. learning what you want is motivating, 
3. rich topics produce additional depth whenever revisited.  New knowledge isn't always needed, just 'classical' literature which continually enable novel interpretation and hence novel inquiry (think - Bible study as an enabler of multiple levels of insight)
4. therefore because classical literature is available, mentoring students through their personal interests creates a feedback loop of near limitless depth.  

Pedagogical applicability is hugely limited by this instructional processes' strong humanistic assumptions.  In practice, few students meet attitudinal requisites, and the source of depth is likely obfuscated.  However, universality is still pushed: attitudinal problems are considered transformational problems solved by "un-schooling" and program buy-in.

PROXIMATE CAUSES & SUPERFICIAL SYMPTOMS

The problem with these and a great many other total reformer approaches is failure to distinguish proximate causes and superficial symptoms.  In the Dufour case, there is a critical failure to accept the strange attractor dynamics associated with individual level vs. group level selection.  Thus, non-rational human dynamics emerging from these and other attractors are marginalized.   Proximate causes of group dynamics are therefore ignored either by omission or design.

In terms of current promoted PLC implementation strategies team collaboration is pushed at the expense of large group (education as an institution level) coherence.  The result is an attempt to change group membership classes with little demonstrated awareness of the ultimate significance and causes such moves strive against.  Therefore education's role as a societal level moral coherer (Tyack & Cuban, 1995) is fought in the name of collaboration!  In simpler words, if you're inclined to PLC groupings then the reform works: if you're not so inclined then you and your history needs reprogramming regardless of your history's value or purpose.

TJED is, unfortunately, blind to both proximate causes and some obvious superficial symptoms of these causes.  TJED assumes universality despite its obviously narrow entry point.  Its rhetorical apologetics which minimize the 'buy in' problem mimic Dufour PLC's utopian strategy: both present the 'buy in' issue as superficial concern rather than a fundamental flaw.

CONCLUSION

Applying a transformation approach to educational reform sets up a challenge of deciding what things can and can't be changed.  Some superficial things can be.  Some things that appear superficial can only be changed within a set of people already inclined to such changes.  Some things that appear superficial can only be changed with great coercive effort for limited times.  Myopic utopian reforms fail to properly identify which crucial elements are really just superficial symptoms and which are actually symptoms arising from deeply ingrained proximate causes.  The result is the infamous 'skeleton in the closet' problem which stymies total reform.

Notes

I'm viewing proximate causes in education as something like the immediate direct benefits that come from going to school.  Examples might include: hanging out with friends, minimizing social stigma, social progression, knowledge & skills, fulfilling others' promises that it will be good for you, etc.

I'm viewing ultimate causes in education on the level of evolutionary selected traits and behaviours. Examples might include coherence with a group, participation in a group that has a high probability of providing individual benefit.

References

Ariew, A. (2003).  Ernst Mayr's 'ultimate/proximate' distinction reconsidered and revisited.  Biology and Philosophy, 18, 553-565.
Briskin, A. (2001).  The stirring of soul in the workplace.  San Franciso: Jossey-Bass.

Mulford, B., Moreno, J. M. (2006).  Sinking ships, Emerging leadership: A true story of sustainability, The Educational Forum. 70(3), 204-214.

Goodson, I., Moores, S., Hargreaves, A. (2006).  Teacher nostalgia and the sustainability of reform:  the generation and degeneration of teachers’ missions, memory and meaning, Educational Administration Quarterly, 42(1), 42-61.

Giles, C., & Hargreaves, A.  (2006).  The sustainability of innovative schools as learning organizations and professional learning communities during standardized reform, Educational Administration Quarterly, 42(1), 124-156.

Tyak & Cuban (1995) Tinkering toward utopia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

History of Educational Reform Readings

Next year, a few teachers from a neighbouring school are doing a study session on the history of educational change.  Because almost all local PD initiatives tend to be utilitarian, I figure a change back into a bit of theory would be fun.  I'm hoping to poach some of the conversation to broach fun topics like macro-time-scale dynamic measures (Dooley & Lichtenstein, 2008) and other sundries.

With that in mind I thought I'd take a second and jot down my ideas on a intro to the topic of Ed reform historical dynamics.

Historical Philosophical Contexts
  -list, at a superficial level, some classic philosophical issues surrounding humanistic & and a-humanistic views of free will to determine the utility of coercion
- judge if the application of unstable equilibria & strange attractors explain the tensions of classical educational philosophy conundrums 

• Hobbes vs. Russeau debate or any similar clash (this table may be a decent starter)
• Process philosophy - say Rescher's intro to the issues (note: I'm just getting into this topic and can't say for certain how relevant this will turn out to be)

• I'll add David Sloan Wilson's multi-level selection stuff here because it 1) captures the idea of conundrum's arising from competing tensions, and 2) it doesn't fit in any of my other categories. I'd also say that you can't fully grasp large-group dynamics without multi-level selection theory's answer to the macro-micro sociological problem.   Darwin's Cathedral is my pick for a good read here.  His New Scientist Instant Expert is a good, brief intro, but it misses the practical punch of Darwin's Cathedral. By confronting the formation of non-rational based large groups, Darwin's Cathedral helps you avoid overly utopian organization change or systemic change traps.  Thus it really helps understanding the dynamics occurring in education reform and reform resistance. 

History of modern North American educational change
-analyze historical trends in North American education reform

• Tyack & Cuban Tinkering to Utopia
• Cuban Inside the Black Box of Educational Reform
• Goodson, Moores & Hargreaves (2006) - an investigation of sustainable teacher reform nostalgia
• Giles & Hargreaves (2006) - why school innovations fade over time
• Some Fullan & or Hargreaves stuff (books from the middle of the 00 decade seems about right - many are pretty repetitive, so one doesn't have to be too picky to get the major ideas)
• I'm not a great fan of Owen's & Valesky's educational change textbook, so it is purposefully omitted.

Complexity theory
-conceptually understand phase change, unstable equilibria and strange attractors

• Something simple like Ball's Critical Mass or even Gladwell's Tipping Point (never read it!) to get the idea of phase change.  
• Dooley & Lichtenstein's (2008) methodology paper on complex leadership dynamic analysis
• There's a million pop books out on complexity, including many specific to education complexity. Many are suitable, and, surprisingly, I actually don't have any particular preferences here…

Historical dynamics
-evaluate the degree to which historical dynamics are "complex"

• Turchin's Historical Dynamics: An intro to agent based modelling of complex situations which, at least to me, ironically shows why agent based modelling is better at inspiring creativity and forcing articulation than it is for testing and determining causal factors.
• John Ralston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards.  This captures a bit of the evolutionary cycling down into technocracy heroic solutions.  Excellent theorizing, and it ties in nicely with Bounded Rationality.
• While not a history book, Willis' complexity ladder gives a nice way to view cycling, especially in organizations.  While his complexity ladder is pretty much hand-waving, his conceptualization processes are very informative.
• The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace:  A misleading title as the gist of the book is that there are always skeletons in the closet of any change.  He just expounds case study in a personal way that highlights people's good intentions. Unfortunately his other work has largely gone down Margaret Wheatley's new-age pseudo science path.
• I think you may also need something on the free-loader problem and how that produces cyclical dynamics.  While Why we Lie got me interested in this topic, I haven't stayed current on free-loader research.  Darwin's Cathedral's view of self-interest actions as 'proximate' rather than 'ultimate' causes tends to suffice for my work. 

Bounded rationality
-comprehend that despite the possibility of seemingly high precision, accuracy is limited, especially for forward perdition

• Haidt's Emotional dog and its rational tail paper
• Kauffman's Reinventing the sacred (a bit too difficult for many people to grasp without prejudice)
• Some of the Center for Inquiry's podcasts on debunking pseudo-science
• I think I'd actually avoid some of the classic texts on traditional Bounded Rationality and Fast & Frugal heuristics.  These tackle the decision process, and to me, educational change dynamics is less about the process used to come to reform decisions and more about the causal factors producing cyclical changes and hybridized change.

Quasi-sacred or lightly transcendental cultures/organizations
-judge the degree to which non-rational factors influence change resistant groups

• Haidt why good people are divided by politics and religion
• Atran In Gods we Trust
• Norenzayan Big Gods

To me this last one is the key for deeply understanding the dynamics occurring in educational reform and reform resistance.

Case studies for analysis

• Balancing change and tradition in educational reform I haven't done more than read the amazon sneak peak, but it looks like a promising foil for pet theories. 

Notes:

Dooley & Litchenstein, 2008, pp.5

In a fractal time ecology (Koehler, 2001) the assumption is that dynamical patterns at one level of interaction are linked to emergent patterns at other levels.   Micro-scale interactions can be studied with Real-Time Observation techniques (Dooley et al., 2003);   Meso-scale interactions across days and weeks can be studied using Social Network Analysis (Wasserman & Faust, 1994), and   Macro-scale interactions across weeks, months and even longer can be studied using Event History Analysis (Poole, Van de Ven, Dooley, & Holmes, 2000)