Push, Pull, Design

As soon as anyone gets involved in education, they are exposed to the origin of the word “education”. It doesn't really matter much what the origin is, but it is a nice conversation (or blog-entry) starter. The origin of the word education is said to be the Latin educere, made of - ex- and ducere. “lead out”. This origin is often used to remind us that education has to do with bringing out what’s already there in the child. Yet the average schooling system works hard on pushing things from the outside into the student’s mind. In a time prescribed by the education system, a teacher prescribed by the system speaks the prescribed words about the prescribed issue, and the students must accept the lesson pushed at them. This can sometimes work, depending on the charisma of the teacher. But charisma is hard to come by, in any profession.

Alternatively, one can think of the origin as pointing to the idea of leading the student out of ignorance. Our school systems often try to yank the student out of ignorance, at a pace and content set by the system. And what does a normal human do when yanked? Same as a donkey - Resist! The system then tries to do what the average donkey-master would do: Beat the beast into compliance with either a stick or calling the parents; Bribe the beast into compliance by either giving it some hay or permission to go and play a ballgame.

A worthy goal in some schools of education is that of letting each kid set the pace and content of learning. The kids can pull information from various sources: Their environment, books, Internet, experiments. They can even ask the teachers for assistance. One of the questions here is whether enough kids will pull information and construct knowledge, skills and habits in domains that will serve them throughout their life. Many kids like to play ballgames. If we let them pull information and practice time, they may become good soccer or basketball players. Most of us will be uncomfortable with the idea that a student graduates a school being very good at basketball, but not quite being able to read. We talk about the freedom to pull anything, but we do have a hidden agenda of things we think would be good for the student to learn. There is a real benefit in having the student learn what is personally relevant to them and what they asked to be taught. There is also a definite benefit in developing certain specific skills. How do we get to enjoy both?

One way sometimes being attempted is to pull from the other end. The teacher pulls the pupil’s interest by asking questions. For example, the kid who likes soccer may be aware that many exceptional players come from South America. A teacher might want to use this to get that kid interested in Brazil and its history. Maybe by asking the kid what he thinks makes Brazil a place where great soccer players grow. In some cases, and with a skillful teacher, this can work well. But one danger with this method, is that the kid may not be readily pulled from playing a game to anthropological query. This may quickly deteriorate back into yanking the pupil around.

The question remains: How to reconcile what the kid wants (play soccer) with what the parents want (that the kid learns certain skills relevant for civilized life)? It would be nice if we can gently lead the students from ignorance towards worthy knowledge, skills and habits. This doesn't need to invoke the need for great Capital-L "Leadership", which is scarce. It does have to do with encouraging the desired interests in the kids.

Looking at ways to lead the kids so that their genuine interests are better aligned with those of the parents and society, we can start with extreme methods, and work our way back to where we feel more comfortable. The extreme can be represented by tricks such as those used by Derren Brown, who is able to manipulate a victim into wanting something, or into inventing something - exactly as Brown wanted them to. Hairy stuff, and by the way, this is not the worst of it. Using this sort of manipulation in the context of education would make most of us unhappy, and anyway it requires uncommon abilities that are not easily teachable. But it does point in a certain direction:

Designing the environment in which students play and study, can have an effect on what they are inclined to do and feel about learning. This is not a new idea. In many classrooms, one sees "targeted decoration themes" relating to the studied materials, such as the ABC, numbers, etc. These decorations sometimes include motivational messages, morality issues, materials that may enhance self esteem, and whatever the decorator thought conducive to a learning environment. Unfortunately, in most cases this design work is done as an afterthought based on overly simple guidelines, and not as part of a systematic methodology. And of course there is no feedback - there is no systematic checking of the actual effect of one design choice or another. This state of affairs can be improved: Persuasion design is currently mostly concerned with the effect of Internet web design on the tendency of a surfer to continue using the web-site. The same principals can be adapted to classroom, lesson and study-material design. The knowledge and method behind Derren Brown's work mentioned above, can be softened and used to encourage the kids in the desired directions.

There are pitfalls inherent in discussing a "desired" attitude: Desired by whom? By the powers that be? By the politician temporarily in control of the Ministry of Education? The immediate answer is "Desired by the parents." Since the system of education that emerges from this text gives parents the choice of where and how to educate their children, this should be an important part of that choice. Of course there should be some careful control here, like the control over the materials being taught. A question of regulation, which we need to address anyway.

For those who feel terrible about brainwashing, do bear in mind that what the kids want (and let’s reluctantly admit that - what we want) is immensely affected by the standard brainwashing by media - mostly TV, politics, market, … Suggestions are already there in abundance. What we may do here is add some suggestions that will hopefully benefit the kid rather than the commercial or political interest of someone.

One final thought: Imagine being able to get kids to have an attitude of curiosity rather than fear with regards to mathematics.