College Summit

Author : Keith Frome

Towards "Praxis" in Education: Removing Silos for Innovation

Posted by: College Summit Education Posted date: Mar 16, 2011

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Topics: Research and Innovation

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<a title="Silo by eirikref, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/eirikref/727551264/"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1158/727551264_ff7b9c06a8.jpg" alt="Silo" width="500" height="333" /></a> creative commons photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/eirikref/" target="_blank">eirikref</a> via flickr In 1892, in his “<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16287/16287-h/16287-h.htm" target="_blank">Talks to Teachers</a>,” <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_james" target="_blank">William James</a> summarized the relationship between schools and scholarship and innovation: “I say moreover that you make a great, a very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind’s laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use. Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediary inventive mind must make the application, by using its originality.” 119 years later, we still find the same separation between schools and scholarship and innovation. Most practitioners are thirsty for but unaware of the latest advances in educational research and there are no systematic mechanisms for bringing that research into their practice and to bring practice back to research in order to innovate. In education, there are researchers and there are practitioners and there are innovators but these silos do not speak the same language and rarely work together. What we need is a shuttle service between schools and scholarship and implementation and we all need to be riding that train. I am married to a physician who specializes in breast cancer. When she goes to bed at night she brings a stack of medical journals with her and flips through them and rips out the articles relevant to her practice. In philosophy, “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_%28process%29" target="_blank">praxis</a>” is the kind of knowledge where theory is applied to practice or truth is put into action. If you could hear praxis it might sound very much like my wife’s fingers shredding those journals--literally tearing out the knowledge that her patients will need and that may save their lives or at least make her work more efficiently. In my 25 plus career in education, I have not met very many teachers who take educational research journals to bed at night and rip out the relevant articles for their classroom practice. I certainly did not do this when I was a classroom teacher. At best, we might recall some research we learned in grad school or we might read about research on a list serve that delivers newspaper or magazine summaries of some research to our computers. There are 3 different enterprises toiling in the field of education reform today: (1) scholarly research including theory, statistical surveys and experimental studies; (2) teachers and administrators working in schools and school districts; and (3) social entrepreneurs or innovators who are trying to bottle the most efficient and effective practices, in effect trying to marry the findings of scholarship with the actual conditions in learning environments to export practices that are both efficacious and easy to do and affordable, hence sustainable. How do we create structures so that the three enterprises work together seamlessly and systematically? Frankly, I’m not sure just yet how to do this. I think one of the keys, though, is that each enterprise must learn to appreciate and celebrate the other as an equal contributor to the solution of getting all of our kids to achieve. Part of the problem is encapsulated in the military acronym <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity" target="_blank">VUCA which stands for “Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.”</a> The art of school leadership and administration is to contain a school’s VUCA through the implementation of a research based, deliberate analytic and moral structure. Any discussion or planning about education that does not acknowledge and account for VUCA is empty and ultimately ineffective. There are plenty of tools and theories about how to increase high school achievement metrics but rarely do these take into consideration the actual day-to-day realities of running a public school-rural, urban, suburban, big, medium or small. In my experience, school reform research and discussion hardly ever endeavors to measure or consider the VUCA context of a school and the difficulty of implementation and achievement within an actual learning environment. It is easy enough to create pristine theories of change, immaculate tools, and clear dashboards of success. It is another matter to inject them into a school day and year where the only thing to be expected is the unexpected, where on any given day, your entire schedule can be taken up with unanticipated appointments with students, family members, and teachers-as well as district officials, vendors, and even the press. Theories and tools are abstractions and schools are human-as Nietzsche would say, “All too human.” Too solve for VUCA, researchers must work in schools and teachers must be given the time to tear the pages out of journals and the incentive structures to try new things out. And the role of the social entrepreneur is to constantly ride the schools and scholarship shuttle, spreading truth as defined by both experimental validation and practical application in as efficient a way as possible.  <div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style "><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like"></a> <a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a> <a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a></div> <script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#pubid=xa-4d81333130089a60" type="text/javascript"></script> 

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