Below is a link to a recent blog post about teaching tricks. This post and a conversation had in my Bioethics class last night led to thinking about a common problem in society, not just education--i.e. the almost blind respect we have for experts in positions of trust.
Katie talks about how students will ask a teacher a question and get the answer once and then head back to their desk, even though they may still not get it. In Bioethics, we were discussing the concept of informed consent in the context of medical trials on humans. One step that must be taken is the the patient/subject of the trial must be informed of a whole host of items, including risks, alternatives, objectives of the treatment/research, etc. I mentioned that most Americans have an almost blind faith in the medical profession, to the point that asking detailed questions when one does not understand what the doctor has said borders on heresy.
I realized this morning that such a situation exists in almost every situation where one is dealing with experts in an authority position or a position of trust. For example, as a future attorney I could be adivising a client about a matter in their case that to me is so basic as to not warrant discussion, but the client may not understand. In general, that client is not likely to keep asking me questions until they do understand. Thus the burden is upon me to make sure they understand, which is normally done with the question, "Do you understand?" or something similar. The usual response would be just like Katie in her example, a quick nod the head and continued existance in the dark.
Given that kids do it in school and adults do it with experts in positions of authority and trust, so have we done in the world of education? The answer, I fear, is that exact same thing, we ask a question (because no question is too dumb), get an answer and if we don't understand still-fail to ask a follow up question!! We do it because we don't want these experts to think we are stupid, uninformed or unable to comprehend their answer. Doing so may be contributing to the failure of our schools.
Many education experts drive our public education system, after all we want experts to do that. But what we have done is let the experts get away with not making sure we, the tax paying public, understand what they propose, what the experts have found out or anything. We may ask a question or two, but we fail to take the time to make those in a position of authority make sure we understand what is going on. We simply don't want to look like we are foolish.
Education is not a great mystery. The job of the education establishment to teach our children the basic skills and knowlege to be a thinking citizen. But if we don't act like thinking citizens ourselves, there is no check on the activities of the education establishment.
So to Katie at A Constrained Vision, thanks for reminding me to ask questions until I understand.
A Constrained Vision: My one teaching trick
