Creativity without purpose? Experimentation without control?

At the risk (or perhaps hope) of continuing to antagonize a few readers (see once again, the excellent responses to Friday's post "Is Experimentation Ethical"), I am going to wear my conservative hat again for this entry. I'm not satisfied that either experimentation or creativity by teachers is in-and-of-itself a prima facie good. I'm not convinced that teaching is an art, nor should it be. I'm worried that we have the potential of doing as much harm with new approaches as we have of doing good.

Why should we treat our children's intellectual health any differently than we do our children's physical health?

For those teachers who wish to deviate from research-based best practices, established curricula, and adopted resources (and wish to use either technology or leeches), the following requirements ought to be in place:

1. The purpose of the changed practice needs to be clearly stated in terms of a student outcome.
2. There needs to be a quantifiable method of measuring the effect of the new practice.
   
3. The result of the experiment/creative approach is shared with other professional in such manner that it can be replicated.
4. The rigor of the above requirements should be high, all experiments should be externally monitored, and all data should be statistically validated.
   

Would we ask any less of those whom we entrust our kids physical health?

One of the reasons that we have NCLB is that the educational establishment itself never addressed its own accountability to the satisfaction of the public. Now we are chaffing under the short-sighted (but measurable) metrics non-educators have placed on our shoulders. If we are to be creative in our methodology, to use new technology tools, to emphasize new skills over basic skills, we better damn well take the time to make accountability a part of our efforts - and respect parents' and the public's need for it.  Do we really want to continue to be known as good-hearted, but fuzzy headed, artistes?

Comments

[Miguel Guhlin]

Unfortunately, I'm too tired (for reasons shared in email) to write a cogent, brilliant rebuttal to your points. If I were to write one, Doug, it would be to point out that the frame you're working out of is rife with arrogance. How can you pretend to teach content in a world where information changes so quickly? Instead, we must focus on strategies, process, communication, and global collaboratives of problem-solving instead of content. It's difficult to imagine, but that's exactly why we must do it--it is the unexpected future, or a future of unexpected events and opportunities.

So, since I can't write back in length, I'll have to settle for this tongue in cheek story. Enjoy!
http://www.mguhlin.net/blog/archives/2006/04/entry_1359.htm

Hoping you're laughing, too,

Miguel Guhlin
http://www.mguhlin.net/blog

[Albert Ip]

I have no answer to your question. I would only ask this.

*Should we keep our children in a sterilized bubble so that they would never catch any deadly germs?*

The rest of the response is in my blog post http://elearningrandomwalk.blogspot.com/2006/04/response-to-doug-johnson-posts.html.

[Doug Noon]

One of the most irresponsible, unethical, and harmful experiments ever to be implemented in educational settings in the US is known as No Child Left Behind. It is, in itself, a research project which is having devastating consequences for schools and students nationwide under the cloak of the rhetoric of reform. Yet there is no research to support this coercive and inhumane effort. Your assumptions about the inferences that can be made from standardized tests are naive. The validity of my opposition to it will be borne out in time by either the abolition of the law or the destruction of public education in the US. Any treatment that risks the life of the patient can only be ethically attempted when all other avenues are exhausted. Some feel that this is the case. I don't. The problems with education do not originate in schools, but in the society that that schools are asked to serve.

[Miguel Guhlin]

Ok, here's another shot at a response (see? It stuck with me!):
http://www.mguhlin.net/archives/2008/01/entry_4125.htm

Warm regards,
Miguel