Disruptive Innovation, Football and Education
21st Century Education, Sports August 11th, 2008
At the end of his article about an innovative offensive scheme called the A-11 being implemented by one high school football team in California, ESPN.com’s Michael Weinreb writes: “And while I do not know if the A-11 can challenge all our assumptions, or if it is merely a lark, I do know that it accomplishes one very important thing: It reminds us that nothing in the universe can ever remain static. Not even football.”
So, clearly, Weinreb has never considered the institution of public schooling.
That oversight notwithstanding…
Just before I launched this blog, I wrote over on LeaderTalk about an ESPN article by Gregg Easterbrook where he explored a different innovative football strategy: no punting or rarely punting. Easterbrook pointed to research and simulations that rather clearly demonstrated the benefits of a no-punt or rarely punt approach. Yet, he could only find one high school team that was willing to adopt the strategy. Why the reluctance in the face of compelling evidence/data? As I wrote in the earlier post, Easterbrook offers two reasons: “First, ‘because that’s what we always do.’ Second, because if coaches order fourth-down tries that fail, they will be blamed, whereas if coaches order punts, the players will be blamed for the loss.“ More succinctly, coaches are risk and blame averse.
Now, we have Weinreb’s report on the A-11, a radical offensive strategy in football. Weinreb wonders about the viability of the A-11, but does not directly speculate on why coaches will or will not adopt it. Rather, more philosophically, he writes: “The dominant paradigm has always tended toward conservatism; in the previous century, it took several decades for the forward pass to gain acceptance. Change is frowned upon, even as it is surreptitiously embraced by coaches, who will plagiarize almost any scheme that might potentially save their jobs.”
Conservatism as the dominant paradigm…change is frowned upon…save their jobs. Sound familiar educationalists?
If you want to see what the A-11 looks like in action, check out the following video:
Tags: education, football, innovation
I enjoy the post on people being resistant to change. I have seen similar resistance in coaching wrestling. I implemented a different tactic in defending a technique that seemed odd, even to a friend of mine on the olympic team. In my conversation with her about the move she realized that it did work and even worse that her father, a wrestling coach for over twenty years, implemented the same tactic. She told him that it would not work.
Your post and the ESPN article reminded me of a Harvard Business IdeaCast I heard over the weekend. It continues to baffle me how people can be so ingrained on an idea and not realize that something new and innovative is always around the corner. As society progresses people grow, get smarter, and get stronger. We must find new ways to teach or education will fall behind the students. That is if education has not fallen behind already.
Harvard Podcast link:
http://tinyurl.com/65njbq
Change is supported by many teachers and administrators. The change in education seems to demand large broad sweeping change but instead is done daily in small significant ways. Change is easy to promote if those in charge of the change can control it. New ways of teaching are developed and used every day by hard working teachers and trusting administrators. They may not have an article written about them, so look around and notice.
Tina
I agree that some educators in many different locations are wording hard to progress the education system. However, I think the pace of chance in education is extremely too slow and many people, both in education and observing education, resist change because they fear the results. The overall affect of this fear is that often little does happen, aside from primary and secondary education systems declining in meeting the goals of educating students. Why do people across the world come the the US for University level education yet we constantly read how primary and secondary systems are falling behind? Why do Universities resist change less than primary and secondary institutions? This is the source of my frustration.
Enjoy your day,
Kyle
Kyle,
I agree that educational change seems to take too long and then is outdated change at best. So goes the world… Computers and computer programs are outdated after three years ;how can education keep up with that?
I do not agree that University level educational systems embrace change at a higher rate than a primary or secondary school. That is not what I see. They talk about it but when it comes to actual instruction it is the same old thing. The business world seems to be the greatest avenue of change acceptance in this world, oh and also the young.
@Kyle - Wish I would have been reading here a week ago to catch, “Why do Universities resist change less than primary and secondary institutions?” in a more timely manner. Are you seriously indicating that post-secondary is embracing change more than secondary? I guess that would explain why 1-my HS dual credit classes are required to be the curriculum of the post-secondary, 2-GPA and class rank are still used as the major data for scholarships and acceptance, and 3-why unique classes and independent study coursework are frequently not considered acceptable for dual credit. All of these, I say from a building administrator with teachers who are providing at least equal (my bias is superior) education to these students. Hopefully you can sense my light sarcasm at your statement that left my chin hanging only inches off my keyboard. Please tell me you are at least teaching at the collegiate level, and this bias explains your inaccurate depiction of who is missing the target.
I love it when a teacher comes to me and says, “Well, that didn’t work!” Not because of the failure but because he or she is trying a new approach, and they feel comfortable in doing it without fearing my “wrath” for their failure. Learning from failure or missing success is the best way to improve a practice or an idea. Those things that work acceptably over time (for example education) but not really effectively are the slowest to change because they are “close enough” at a given time.