Last week while eating some amazing gnocchi that my wife made, I suddenly felt something hard in my mouth. Given the soft pillowy texture of my wife’s pasta, I knew something was wrong and I soon realized that a crown on one of my molars had fallen off. I was furious as I had had done no more than 2 years ago and the thought of dishing out another exorbitant amount of money to have it fixed destroyed my appetite. Fast forward 14 hours and I am sitting in the dentist’s chair, and she is checking it all out. She starts by saying this never should have fallen out and there would be no charge to have it replaced. However, she went on and informed me that current research recommended a full crown rather than a partial one. I was thrilled for two reasons. Yeah…no charge. The second reason was to hear such reassuring words. Current research was informing her practice. All I could say was Wow. I sat back and let her do her thing comforted by the knowledge that I was being treated by a real professional.
Of course, on my way home I realized how I was triggered by what she had told me. Having spent decades in the field of education, I wondered if and when a teacher ever said that. I am sure that somewhere in some far reaches of the world where schools exist, a teacher or two may have actually said that. “Oh yes, I was looking over some research coming out of XYZ university on how students actually learn, and I immediately looked to see how I could adjust what I was doing in my classrooms.” Pretty hard to imagine, right?
I started up a peer-reviewed journal about 20 years with the hope of bridging academic work and classroom practice in my province and elsewhere. We managed to get some of the biggest names in educational research write for us, and every quarter we proudly published these articles. It soon became very obvious despite every effort to promote the journal that the only readers of the journal were other academics who were hoping to get their own work published. Regular elementary and secondary school teachers rarely bothered to open the journal which was available online at no charge. We decided to look into the reasons why, unlike my dentist, teachers did not feel the need to look at research. In turns out there were numerous reasons, most of which are familiar to most. No time, too busy. Research is ivory tower stuff not relevant to the real-world problems of the regular classroom educator. Digging a little deeper, it was apparent that it was not part of the mindset, not incorporated into the culture of educators.
I know many teachers attend conferences and return with new ideas they incorporate for a week or two and then drop. This is similar to the 20 second sound bites with which we are inflicted via most media. It is also related to the Ai summaries which are so popular right now. Quick and superficial, and just enough to get by.
But here is the rub. Imagine if my dentist had said to me, “I’m going to do it the way my great grandfather used to do it.” I might have jumped out of the chair and slammed the door on my way out. Our children though are those patients who are being treated in pretty much the same way children were treated 200 years ago. Anyone who doubts this just has to asked any platform you want to show you pictures of classrooms chosen at random. I have done this numerous times, and you will see most of the classrooms have the students sitting facing the front with a teacher at the board. Still doubt me? Walk through a high school and peek into the classes. Teacher in front with students facing the front. Didactic pedagogy at work and research tells us it is among the least effective ways to teach. But then again, who reads research anyway.