Being right is not a strategy

The world prefers fiction

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At my school, over time, we have developed a lexicon of mantras. Some of these have a definite origin that can be traced to an article or book. One of these is ‘knowledge is what we think with’ that originates in my own writing. Others may also have coined this phrase but, if so, I cannot find any sources. I thought that ‘being right is not a strategy’ was also a mantra with a clear origin, but when I looked into it, the phrase pops up in multiple places. Nevertheless, it entered our lexicon through the writing of Michael Fullan, probably around ten to fifteen years ago.

This is the mantra I embody. I have been, and continue to be, right about many issues, not through some weird psychic power or technically flawless calculus—I am no Hari Seldon—but because the issues I have been right about are obvious to anyone who examines them.

For example, in August 2020, I wrote an open letter in the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald to Sarah Mitchell, the then Liberal education minister in New South Wales, that warned about her plan to crack down on schools’ use of suspensions and expulsions. I called these moves ‘brave’ because of ‘how they are likely to be received by teachers and, as the consequences start to filter through the system, by parents.’ By 2023, a new Labor minister, Prue Car, was rolling back these reforms because they, ‘took authority away from teachers to appropriately manage discipline in classrooms.’

Was I preternaturally prescient? No. This happens over and over. Inclusion activists persuade politicians to remove safeguards such as suspension and expulsion, behaviour deteriorates, teachers and parents complain and then the politicians reverse course. The same is happening in Scotland now.

In my Sydney Morning Herald piece I also briefly mentioned the issue of ‘differentiation’. Why? Because part of the argument activists make is that violent or criminal behaviour can somehow better be tackled by deploying this abstract noun.

The first issue with differentiation is that it can mean so many things. However, a common interpretation is that a teacher should plan for students within the same classroom to complete different tasks, often organised by grouping the students. The basis for determining which child gets which task is only ever loosely defined and so the first problem faced is that of potential bias. Other problems include the ballooning planning workload for teachers and the fact that teacher attention is now split across different groups, diluting the teaching any one student or group receives. It is a transparently bad idea.

When I wrote a version of this argument back in 2016, I was surprised to find it being linked to in an article in The Conversation by two academics as an example of people misunderstanding differentiation. The academics went on to promote differentiation, promote a particular model of differentiation called Universal Design for Learning—dubbed the new ‘learning styles’ by Guy Boysen—and ominously conclude that differentiation is a requirement under the law.

A debate ensued where I argued there was little evidence for differentiation. One of the authors of the piece for The Conversation went on to co-author a scoping review, presumably to find such evidence and thus win the argument. That scoping review concluded:

“The diversity of focus and methodological approaches across the 34 studies prevents comparison of findings and weakens the evidential basis to make claims of either differentiation's effectiveness or indeed its ineffectiveness.”

This is all the wrong way around. We should complete our scoping reviews before recommending practices and attempting to mandate them by law. Did I have a particular insight that foresaw what the results of this review would be? Not really. Even if rigorous studies of the practice had been done, common sense suggests it won’t work very well. However, the kind of people who push differentiation are not the kind of people who conduct rigorous studies. So the hunt for evidence was always going to fail on both of these levels.

Back in 2015, I voiced frustration that people were holding up Finland as an educational example to us all when it had been declining in the very measures that had made it famous. I didn’t even need to predict the future in this case because the historical data was available for all to see. I had also read Tim Oates on Finland in which, to summarise, he explains that the reasons Finland did well in early rounds of PISA are not the reasons why Finland had been lauded by commentators. Unfortunately, Finland appeared to have believed the commentators and introduced progressive reforms such as phenomenon-based learning. Sure enough, ever since, Finland’s PISA performance has continued to decline.

What else am I right about? Explicit teaching is an obvious example. It is supported again by common sense—why would we not use our human superpower of explaining complex ideas to each other? It is supported by research, even if the generally poor quality of education research muddies the waters. And it is supported by experience as anyone who has implemented an explicit teaching approach can attest.

It is therefore with some satisfaction that I see the turn in Australia towards explicit teaching—a turn I think I have contributed to—even if I am worried about implementation.

And I am right about the importance of knowledge. It is what we think with and in this belief, as in many others, I am in good company.

So, why is being right not a strategy?

The Sydney Morning Herald article from 2020 is the exception. You are reading me on this platform because I am an underground figure. I am grateful to all my readers and especially my wonderful paid subscribers who go some way to making all this furious output worthwhile, but we are a club for those in the know. We are the cool kids. Most people working in education today are not reading Filling the Pail. Their assumptions remain unexamined.

Fundamentally, the mainstream does not want commentators who are right. It cares little for rude and obvious truths. A roughly-hewn fact litters an otherwise comforting vista. The mainstream seeks the calming balm of a familiar narrative. It wants to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are so it can cheer and boo. The truth can wait because, when it finally dawns, we will be on to the next big thing. With no accountability for failure, being wrong does not matter and bourgeoise sensibility means we will rarely mention it again.

For my part, I will continue being right. Pointing out obvious and glaring truths is not hard to do and some people, at least, seem to appreciate it.

But I know it is not a strategy.