Our unhelpful metaphors: The Ivory Pendulum

If there is anything that I've learned over the last five years, it is that the idea of "the right way to teach" is unhelpful.

What exactly are the "right things" and what exactly is the "right way" anyway?  If we recognize that teachers are different people with different strengths and challenges, then employing a one-for-all approach without opportunities for variation can be devastating.

I have always maintained the opinion that I can, and should, learn from everyone.  This learning, ultimately is through my own lenses and connecting my own experiences.  For me, I am seeking coherence between my experiences (conversations with other teachers, reading of research, conferences, twitter, blogs...etc) and my actions (what I do in classes...etc)

At the core of every teacher that I have learned from, is the desire to promote learning in children - to motivate them in mathematics - to help them find success.  This means I don't only learn from those who "are doing inquiry methods" or "are following the latest in education" or "are on twitter."  I learn from the ivory tower, the "traditional teachers," #MTBoS, the students, and myself.  For example, I don't only learn from the amazing Fawn whose classroom involve intense problem solving, and filled with excitement from students.  I also learn from conversations with teachers who object to "exploration" types of lessons, and who prefer direct instruction (I will come back to this later).

As such, I think there has been two well-known metaphors that damage our conversation about effective mathematics education - at least from the standpoint of every teacher attempting to learn more about their practice.  (See how I wrote their practice and not just the practice)  The first is the concept of the ivory tower, and the second is the idea of a pendulum.

Let me elaborate.

The Ivory Tower.

A place that symbolizes the detachment of "academia" from the "real world."  Similar to how "pure mathematics" is perceived as separate from "reality," the ivory tower embodies, at least partially, the distaste many educators has towards education researchers (or any researchers in general).  In these metaphors, the ivory tower houses academics who have no idea what it's like on the ground -- who have no idea what it's like to communicate with or understand students -- who have no idea how to implement their fancy theories.

But wait.  Why stop at just academics? If this tower symbolizes an elitist detachment from the authentic experiences of teaching and learning, then its inhabitants ultimately include far more members than just academics.  It would include most of the world who are misunderstanding the process of learning.  It would even include some teachers.  It would simply refer to anyone who has lost touch with the realities of education.

Alongside teaching, I am also doing some graduate work in the area of mathematics education.  Upon learning that I am doing this, I am usually met with one of two reactions (of course, not always).  Either they are impressed and think that I have answers to everything (noone does), or they peg me as one of those teachers who is only into the latest "edu-fads" - who cares little about the realities of the classroom.  Untrue on both accounts (even though I often wish that I could do more about these realities of the classroom).

Perhaps it is because I seek a specific kind of research, but in my experience I have met primarily researchers who care very much about the "realities of the classroom."  They actively engage with the community - not to dispense knowledge, but also to provide conversation and a sense of community among teachers.

But let's pretend that wasn't the case, and that all the researchers are elitists.  I still don't think the metaphor of this Ivory Tower is useful or helpful.  The most important thing we should learn from, are the ideas.  They can be terrible human beings, but we can choose to pretend they are not, and learn from the words.  Not to take them as some sort of holy scripture, but to actively understand and reflect upon them, and seeing how we might make use of them in our own contexts.  This is how we should be treating all ideas.  Not to implement them as-is.  For example, a lot of people love the idea of #3acts.  @NatBanting revealed how some teachers assume that we just "wing it," but Dan reveals what he believes are important teacher moves in the whole process.

Besides not immediately dismissing ideas, we also need to understand them, think about them carefully, and then mold them within our own contexts and environments in ways that work for us.

This brings me to a discussion of another unhelpful metaphor to our practice.

The Pendulum.



This certainly isn't how it is portrayed in the media, with all the mention of reform efforts as "just another swing of the pendulum."  Unfortunately this also isn't how it is viewed by some teachers that I have had conversations with.
But regardless of whether the realities match the actions of this massive bob on a massless rod hanging from a frictionless pivot, this kind of metaphor is unhelpful for us as teachers who seek growth.

A weight hanging from a fixedpoint that swings back and forth, is used to describe the "back-and-forth" nature in educational research.  This massive bob hurts us as educators in more ways than one. Oh boy, where do I even begin?

It implies that there is only two directions for which educational research is going, when in fact there are many perspectives of, for example, how people learn.  Also not to mention, from what I can tell, researchers in the areas of education have not disagreed on the general ideas of, for example, how people learn.  Instead, they are trying to explore the nuances and details of our conception of learning as (for example) a process that is constructive, self-regulated, situated, collaborative, cumulative, and individually different.  Instead of a pendulum changing back and forth all the time, it's more like branches are growing from the tree trunk of our idea of learning.


We can, and should, learn from everyone.  Often by imagining this pendulum, we envision two sides to our conversations.  This sometimes even turns up as "you're either on my side, or you're on the wrong side" or "you're either on twitter and awesome, or you're not."  Which also gives a false sensation of something like an "ivory tower."  This time, we've walled up all on our own.  Let me draw some contrasts with a hypothetical example.

One, a teacher who teaches through direct instruction only.  This teacher tells stories and connects to students like you wouldn't believe.  She's animate and has the students grasping at her every word.  Students get excited and motivated by what she says, and they have a ton of fun.  On the other hand, another teacher sets up what she calls "inquiry-based" lessons throughout the entire semester.  Students often feel lost as to what to do, and is unengaged with what happens during class.  She believes that she's doing the right thing and sets up to do the same things year after year.

Who would you learn from?  Who would you imitate?

I would learn from both but imitate neither.  From the first teacher, I would recognize her ability to connect to students and engage students, but be careful about what and how the students learned.  From the second teacher I would learn from her ideas, but pay close attentions to the disengagement of the students.

Labeling ourselves and what we do is unhelpful.  Thinking carefully about what we do, recognizing our different circumstances, is helpful.

My objection is not that these metaphors are largely untrue, but that they are largely unhelpful.  To me, the concept of the ivory tower and pendulums are like unicorns.  It may be fascinating, beautifully constructed, or have similarities based in reality (a horse) -- but it ultimately does not exist.

So let's throw them at each other and break down both metaphors.