In Diane Ravitch's Reign of Error, she organizes her book by presenting problems in the first half and solutions in the second half. While this does an excellent job of conveying the complexity and pertinence of the problems, I questioned her integrity at various points. Ravitch presents almost solely opinions until half way through the book, and at times I wondered if she was presenting her few pieces of evidence in an honest way. Once I reached the second half of the book, however, I saw her opinions backed by evidence and possible solutions. If I was to pick up this book on my own, I would have abandoned it shortly because of the lack of hope it conveyed. They end, however, made me hopeful. I wonder if it would have been beneficial to organize the book by switching off between presenting problems and solutions, but then again I could see this taking away from the pertinence of the problems.
While Milton Chen, in his book Innovation Nation, presents problems and solutions in an alternating manner, I walked away from the book thinking that the problems in education reform had simple answers - and that they had only one answer, which was Chen's.
Both books struggled with maintaining integrity throughout. In both cases, I didn't believe that the authors were sharing all sides of the story - only the good aspects of potential solutions. Additionally, by not conveying the complexity of problems and/or the prospect of hope, they left readers with false beliefs about the path to addressing education reform.
When presenting any information in the realm of education, the complexity and pertinence of problems need to be conveyed fully and from all perspectives. The audience should walk away with hope that we can solve these issues, but not with the false assumption that this will be easy. Finally, those delivering the message need to ensure that they include all pertinent information, presented in an unbiased way, in order to maintain the integrity of what they are saying.
The problem is, we might never be able to come to a solid conclusion of what the problems in education actually are. We might never be able to list out every single possible solution to every single problem. And we can never fully understand the perspective of every person involved, as there are as many unique perspectives as there are people in the world. But we can try to present the issue of education with integrity, and often times this means giving up our "all-knowing" demeanor and admitting that one person can't possibly have all of the answers.
Please let me know when you meet an esteemed professional who's ready to make this sacrifice.
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| Above: Educator walks with integrity. No real-life photo available. |
Eliza -
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you mentioned your doubts about the reading in class, I've also been feeling that both Chen and Ravitch may not have complete integrity in their books. I also would love to read a book by someone who is passionate about the issue of education, but who also can come from a place of more integrity and facts to back up their thoughts.
Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Sumner
Eliza & Sumner,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your critical reflections and readings of the books. I think all authors and researchers come from a place of bias. Their own worldview, made up their culture(s), identity, experiences, beliefs, values and more bleed into their work. Quantitative research methodology tries to eliminate bias, but many would argue it is still there. Qualitative researchers recognize that bias is present and therefore try to "call out" the biases present, or in essence, "frame" the context of their work. Chen and Ravitch certainly only gave us a very small slice of the education pie, so I am hopeful you add to your intellectual tool kit while in college and beyond.
Keep up the thoughtful and critical dialogue!
Tina