Why can't we talk about "what is"?

More on human nature and blank slate

Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels

I studied evidence use in graduate school. I wanted to understand how evidence was used  by nonprofit organizations to advocate for or against education policies—specifically school choice policies. Turns out, not all that surprisingly, if research evidence is used by those advocating for policies, it's used in a way that supports what the advocate already believes to be the good or bad of school choice. Yes, believes. If one believes that granting parents choice in their selection of schools is a good thing, they will likely use forms of evidence that show the benefits of school choice, whether through parent surveys or research on academic outcomes, and the opposite will occur if advocates view school choice as a bad thing. 

Advocates join causes they believe in. Their beliefs and values often matter more than what the evidence says. This is a human problem. What we believe determines how we view the world. If we are truly open-minded, evidence we had not previously considered can move us toward a different perspective. But being open to changing ones own mind takes practice and usually a lot of evidence. 

Teachers, and parents, want to believe that every child is capable of great things and should have all possibilities open to them. It's very uncomfortable for a teacher to look at a 10 year old and know that they are never going to be a great engineer or writer. It's more comfortable to teach them the skills of a great writer and blame some external force when they don't produce great essays. But acting as if all students in a classroom can be equally great writers is setting some students up for failure. Kids are not all the same.

The No Child Left Behind Act was premised on the notion that all students in the U.S. can achieve at the same level academically. The policy was a failure, and blame was dulled out to teachers, school funding, poverty, zoning policies, and so on—seemingly everyone and everything except human nature, the fact that children are not born with equally empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. Certainly, I have worked in schools where children struggle to do well academically due to factors that have nothing to do with their natural ability. But to exclusively point the finger of blame at external factors is to ignore what might be the actual cause. Thus, closing off the possibility of solving the problem.

We have put too much faith in institutionalized education to remedy all social ills and make our society function well. Schools and teachers are under pressure to be everything to everyone, to graduate students who can work as computer scientists or fill whatever function policymakers or corporation have deemed a priority. Never mind if few students have the ability to master the content and skills required to do a particular job, or want to. 

But the problem is that most of us are uncomfortable discussing what is. Not just what is the Good, or what is the Truth, but what is our human nature? Or even simpler, what is my nature—what am I good, or great, at, and how do I harness that to live a good life and improve the lives of others? These are questions that parents and teachers should be encouraging kids to answer for themselves. 

I don't hold out hope that schools will change much from their current structure. If they are dead set on job training or career preparation, with policymakers pushing them to serve that function, they can at least help students realize their gifts and talents to set them on a path toward capitalizing on those gifts and talents. If we assume an aspect of living a good life is to make the lives of others better, then turning a gift or talent into something trade-able should be the result of a good education. Trade, after all, is about improving lives—I create a good or provide a service that you need, and you pay me for it—or at least it should be. As Steven Pinker pointed out in the Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature, trade is what forces otherwise self-interested humans to cooperate. 

Schools can't make great welders, electricians, computer scientists, or philosophers. But they can notice the gifts and talents of their students and guide them in a direction that best suits them. Schools, instead of hopelessly forcing students into a pre-defined mold, should pass along the best of what has been said, thought, and written in a variety of disciplines, then, with that knowledge in hand, provide paths for students to advance in their area of interest. 

But first, educators from pre-school to K-12 to higher education need to stop pretending that students equally possess the same gifts and talents and acknowledge that the human brain, just like the human body, is a complex system, and though humans are one species, they vary in meaningful ways—meaningful for themselves and for what they can offer their community.