ABSTRACT: I give ten quotes in honor of THE INERTIA OF THE
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM and stimulated by the backlash of parents and
teachers to the implementation of Leon Lederman's (2001) "Physics
First" in the San Diego schools, as reported by Wall Street Journal
reporter Rob Tomsho.
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Herewith are ten quotes in honor of THE INERTIA OF THE EDUCATIONAL
SYSTEM (Hake (2004a)] and stimulated by the backlash of parents and
teachers to the implementation of Leon Lederman's (2001) "Physics
First" in the San Diego schools, as reported by Rob Tomsho (2006) and
discussed by Hake (2006)].
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1. John Belcher, in his PhysLrnR post of 16 Apr 2006 wrote [bracketed
by lines "BBBBBBBBB. . . ."; my insert at ". . . [.......] . . ."]:
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Here is my favorite quote, which is pertinent . . . [to the problems
of implementing Leon Lederman's (2001) "Physics First" in the San
Diego schools] see e.g. Hake (2006)]. . . .:
"And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take
in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain of success, than to
take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the
innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old
conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on
their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily
believe in new things until they have had a long experience with them. Thus
it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to
attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly...."
Niccolo Machiavelli (1513)
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2. Not to be outdone, Sanjoy Mahajan (2006), in his PhysLrnR post of
18 Apr 2006 wrote [bracketed by lines "MMMMMMMMM. . . ."]
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Another favorite quote on those lines, relevant for reformers and
radicals of all varieties:
Principle of the Dangerous Precedent: "You should not now do an
admittedly right action for fear you, or your equally timid
successors, should not have the courage to do right in some future
case, which, ex hypothesi, is essentially different, but
superficially resembles the present one. Every public action which is
not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous
precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first
time."
Francis Mcdonald Cornford (1908/1949)
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3. And another priceless Cornford quote, especially valuable for the
young would-be educational reformer:
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I shall take it that you are in the first flush of ambition and just
beginning to make yourself disagreeable. You think (do you not?) that
you have only to state a reasonable case, and people must listen to
reason and act upon it at once. It is just this conviction that makes
you so unpleasant. There is little hope of dissuading you; but has it
occurred to you that
nothing is ever done until every one is convinced that it ought to be
done, and has been convinced for so long that it is now time to do
something else? And are you not aware that conviction has never been
produced by an appeal to reason which only makes people
uncomfortable? If you want to move them, you must address your
arguments to prejudice and the political motive, which I will
presently describe.
Francis Mcdonald Cornford (1908/1949)
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4. On 18 Apr 2006 07:28:44-0400 John Belcher, in response to Mahajan
(2006) presented a quote from Garvin (2003), contained in "Re:
Student resistance to changes in professional education practice"
[Hake (2004b)]:
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Christopher Columbus Langdell, the pioneer of the case method, attended
Harvard Law School from 1851 to 1854 - twice the usual term of study. He
spent his extra time as a research assistant and librarian, holed up in the
school's library reading legal decisions and developing an encyclopedic
knowledge of court cases. . . .
In his course on contracts, he insisted that students read only original
sources-cases-and draw their own conclusions. To assist them, he assembled a
set of cases and published them, with only a brief two-page introduction. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Inducing general principles from a small selection of cases was a
challenging task, and students were unlikely to succeed without help.
To guide them, Langdell developed through trial and error what is now
called THE SOCRATIC METHOD: AN INTERROGATORY STYLE IN WHICH
INSTRUCTORS QUESTION STUDENTS CLOSELY ABOUT THE FACTS OF THE CASE,
THE POINTS AT ISSUE, JUDICIAL REASONING, UNDERLYING DOCTRINES AND
PRINCIPLES, AND COMPARISONS WITH OTHER CASES. Students prepare for
class knowing that they will have to do more than simply parrot back
material they have memorized from lectures or textbooks; they will
have to present their own interpretations and analysis, and face
detailed follow-up questions from the instructor.
Langdell's innovations initially met with enormous resistance. MANY STUDENTS
WERE OUTRAGED (my CAPS). During the first three years of his administration,
as word spread of Harvard's new approach to legal education, enrollment at
the school dropped from 165 to 117 students, leading Boston University to
start a law school of its own. Alumni were in open revolt.
David Garvin (2003)
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5 But in this celebration of inertia one should not overlook "Tactics
for Change" by MIT's Halfman et al. (1977):
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"Difficulties of Change: . . . 9. The PRIMA FACIE AFFRONT: Whereas I
have spent a significant fraction of my professional life perfecting
my lectures and otherwise investing conscientiously in the status
quo, therefore to suggest an alternative is, by definition, to attack
me."
Robert Halfman, Margaret MacVicart, W.T. Martin, Edwin Taylor, and
Jerrold Zacharias (1977).
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6. And former presidents of Universities, who find it "harder to move
the faculty than a graveyard" (Richard Cyert), speak from bitter
experience. Cyert, former president of Carnegie Mellon University
complained:
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The academic area is one of the most difficult areas to change in our
society. We continue to use the same methods of instruction,
particularly lectures, that have been used for hundreds of years.
Little scientific research is done to test new approaches, and little
systematic attention is given to the development of new methods.
Universities that study many aspects of the world ignore the
educational function in which they are engaging and from which a
large part of their revenues are earned.
Cyert in Tuma & Reif (1980)
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7. Also voicing his frustration with recalcitrant faculty is James
Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan, who
opined:
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"Few faculty members have any awareness of the expanding knowledge
about learning from psychology and cognitive science. Almost no one
in the academy has mastered or used this knowledge base. One of my
colleagues observed that if doctors used science the way college
teachers do, they would still be trying to heal with leeches."
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8. John Dewey addressed a root cause of human inertia:
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Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental
reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old
beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.
John Dewey (does anyone know the source?)
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9. And then there's the famous quote that currently seems to be on
the tip of everyone's tongue:
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Lesson #13: THE MONUMENTAL INERTIA OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM MAY
THWART LONG-TERM NATIONAL REFORM: The glacial inertia of the nearly
immovable U.S. educational system is not well understood. A recent
issue of Daedalus (1998) contains essays by researchers in education
and by historians of more rapidly developing institutions such as
power systems, communications, health care, and agriculture. The
issue was intended to help answer a challenge posed by
physics Nobelist Kenneth Wilson: "If other major American 'systems'
have so effectively demonstrated the ability to change, why has the
education 'system' been so singularly resistant to change? What might
the lessons learned from other systems' efforts to adapt and evolve
have to teach us about bringing about change - successful change - in
America's schools?" As far as I know, no definitive answer has yet
been forthcoming.
Hake (2002)
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10. In conclusion, lest all hope for change be abandoned, it is
encouraging to recall the words of Max Plank:
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An important scientific innovation. . .[IMO, "unorthodox idea" could
be substituted for "scientific innovation] . . . rarely makes its way
by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely
happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that ITS
OPPONENTS GRADUALLY DIE OUT and that the growing generation is
familiarized with the idea from the beginning: another instance of
the fact that the future lies with the young."
Planck (1936)
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Cornford, F.M. 1908/1949. "Microcosmographia Academica - Being A
Guide for the Young Academic Politician" (Bowes & Bowes, Cambridge,
4th ed.). Online in HTML at
<http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/iau/cornford/cornford.html>,
courtesy Ian Utting; and as a 148kB pdf at
<http://tcode.auckland.ac.nz/~mark/microcosmographia.pdf>, courtesy
Mark Titchener. Cornford's "advertisement" reads: If you are young,
do not read this book; it is not fit for you; If you are old, throw
it away; you have nothing to learn from it; If you are unambitious,
light the fire with it; you do not need its guidance. But, if you are
neither less than twenty-five years old, nor more than thirty; And if
you are ambitious withal, and your spirit hankers after academic
politics; Read, and may your soul (if you have a soul) find mercy!
First published in 1908, but as current today as it was then. See
also Johnson (1994).
Garvin, D.A. 2003. "Making the Case: Professional education for the world of
practice" Harvard Magazine, September/October; online at
<http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/090322.html>. A footnoted pdf is
available at this site. Thanks to MIT's Lori Breslow and John Belcher for
bringing this article to my attention.
Hake, R.R. 2002. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort,"
Ecology and Society 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol5/iss2/art28/>. Ecology and Society
(formerly Conservation Ecology) is a free online "peer-reviewed
journal of integrative science and fundamental policy research" with
about 11,000 subscribers in about 108 countries.
Hake, R.R. 2004a. " Re: The Inertia of the Educational System,"
online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=pod&P=R1619&I=-3>.
Post of 2 Oct 2004 17:34:07-0700 to AERA-C, AERA-D, AERA-J, AERA-K,
AERA-L,
ASSESS, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Physhare, Phys-L,
PhysLrnR, POD, RUME, & STLHE-L.
Hake, R.R. 2004b. "Re: Student resistance to changes in professional
education practice," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=pod&P=R1366&I=-3>.
Post of 1 Oct 2004 12:30:24-0700 to AERA-I, AERA-J, AP-Physics,
ASSESS, Dr-Ed, EvalTalk, PBL, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, POD, and STLHE-L.
Halfman, R., M.L.A. MacVicar, W.T. Martin, E.F. Taylor, & J.R.
Zacharias. 1977. "Tactics for Change." MIT Occasional Paper No. 11.
online at <http://web.mit.edu/jbelcher/www/TacticsForChange/>. Thanks
to John Belcher for placing this gem on the web.
Johnson, G. 1994. "University Politics : F. M. Cornford's Cambridge
and his Advice to the Young Academic Politician ." Cambridge
University Press. Amazon.com information at
<http://tinyurl.com/ew9xb>. Note the "Search inside this book
feature. I thank Sanjoy Mahajan for this reference.
Lederman, L. 2001. "Revolution in Science Education: Put Physics
First." Physics Today 54(9): 11-12; online at
<http://physicstoday.org/pt/vol-54/iss-9/p11.html>: "Laboratory work
must be inquiry dominated (the opposite of cookbook labs) and
designed to illuminate concepts. . . . The three-year sequence must
include a lot of process in addition to content. How does science
work? How did we discover some of these things? Why is science such a
universal culture? How do the traits of skepticism, curiosity,
openness to new ideas, and the joy of discovering the beauty of
nature affect the process of science? Long after all the formulas,
Latin words, and theories are forgotten, the process will be
remembered. The goal of teachers using the new curriculum would be to
produce high-school graduates who will be comfortable with a
scientific way of thinking."
Machiavelli, N. 1513. For the various modern versions listed by
Amazon.com see <http://tinyurl.com/gjk92>.
Planck, M. 1936. "The Philosophy of Physics." W.W. Norton. See also
Planck (1959)
Planck, M. 1959. "Where is science going? The universe in the light
of modern physics; The philosophy of physics" (Greenwich editions).
Meridian Books.
Tomsho, R. 2006. "Textbook Battle: Top High Schools Fight New Science
As Overly Simple; San Diego's Physics Overhaul Makes Classes
Accessible, Spurs Parental Backlash; Test Scores Barely Budge," Wall
Street Journal, 13 April; freely online for only about a week at
<http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB114488997269924686-lMyQjAxMDE2NDE0MzgxODM5Wj.html>,
or more compactly at <http://tinyurl.com/rn7cn>. For a more
permanently available copy see Mahajan (2006).
Tuma, D.T. & F. Reif, eds. 1980. "Problem Solving and Education:
Issues in Teaching and Research." Lawrence Erlbaum.