Why Do Colleges Cling to ‘Silly’ Concepts?

Rick Ginsberg and Yong Zhao are out with an intriguing new e book, Duck and Cowl: Confronting and Correcting Doubtful Practices in Schooling. The title refers back to the mantra of Fifties-era college drills, again when a nation residing beneath the specter of nuclear holocaust taught its kids to “duck and canopy” within the occasion of a Soviet assault.

Because the authors clarify of their introduction, “The follow was easy. If there was imminent worry of a bomb hitting a faculty or touchdown in its neighborhood, college students have been skilled to dive beneath their desks and canopy their heads with their fingers.” The implication, after all, was that kneeling beneath their desk would shield college students from a nuclear blast. Spoiler: It wouldn’t. However the Federal Civil Protection Program produced the 1951 movie “Duck and Cowl,” anyway, by which Bert the cartoon turtle cheerfully taught a technology to “duck and canopy.”

As Ginsberg and Zhao drolly observe, “This must be probably the most silly academic insurance policies ever enacted.” Why did so many policymakers and educators go together with a coverage that terrified younger college students whereas doing nothing to guard them? Ginsberg and Zhao argue that policymakers and educators felt obliged to do one thing—and, if one thing silly was the one choice, nicely, they’d do this. They provide this as a metaphor for a lot of silly, ineffectual insurance policies in American education.

I’m a fan of each authors. Ginsberg is dean of schooling on the College of Kansas, former board chair of the American Affiliation of Schools of Instructor Schooling, a savvy observer of faculty reform, and an outdated good friend. Zhao is a distinguished professor at Kansas and a refugee from communist China, whose contempt for paperwork and quasi-authoritarian meddling has made him one of many nation’s extra heterodox schooling thinkers.

In the midst of the e book’s brisk 156 pages, Ginsberg and Zhao skewer a variety of sacred cows. The 19 chapters cowl the tutorial waterfront: social-emotional studying (SEL), academic know-how, school and profession readiness, class measurement, gown codes, skilled improvement, trainer analysis, gifted schooling, testing, college board governance, and way more.

The breadth of matters hints at each the strengths and the weaknesses of this quantity. Its nice power is its evenhanded willingness to say important issues about a variety of widespread concepts. Readers of each ilk can relaxation assured that they’ll discover some issues to please them and others that infuriate them. In our polarized world, this marks a welcome departure from the acquainted groupthink. The authors deserve kudos for that alone.

Their strategy additionally permits them to cowl a variety of floor, making a lot of provocative observations and providing a lot of helpful cautions. However the trade-off is that they don’t spend a variety of time or vitality making the case {that a} given thought is silly. Many of the chapters didn’t provide parallels to “duck and canopy” or a lot as thumbnail sketches of the nice, unhealthy, and ugly of how these concepts work in follow.

Thus, relating to SEL, Ginsberg and Zhao word the stress college leaders face from “specialists and researchers, do-gooders, and typically snake-oil salespersons procuring their wares.” They then sketch the rationale for SEL and a lot of issues about it, earlier than providing some smart recommendation about the necessity to transfer intentionally and make clear targets. That is all superb. However none of it actually makes the case that SEL is a “doubtful follow” (and I say this as somebody who’s been loads skeptical of SEL). As a reader, given the promise of the e book’s subtitle, central metaphor, and setup, this felt like lower than I bargained for. That is fairly constant all through.

And I’d’ve favored to see them push more durable when explaining how doubtful concepts catch on and why we might be so reluctant to confront them. In spite of everything, I’ve explored the frenzied tempo of faculty reform and why some reforms may enchantment greater than others. Provided that, I hoped for greater than the broad reminder that “colleges truly implement a variety of various things” and the commentary that “duck-and-cover insurance policies persist as a result of they aren’t questioned.” On the outset, the e book guarantees a daring exploration of folly; on this rely, it delivers one thing lower than that.

Finally, although, this can be a well timed and precious contribution. Ginsberg and Zhao have penned a fair-minded survey of schooling coverage, with a wholesome emphasis on the necessity to assume extra intentionally about how issues truly work. And that’s a worthwhile train and a much-needed reminder, one which educators, policymakers, and advocates ought to take to coronary heart.