Educational Insanity

In Part 1, I took a philosophical approach to my critique of Malcolm Gladwell and his book, Outliers.  I promised a second part and I’ve really struggled writing it despite having some pretty strong feelings about the book. Not having the book in front of me (I returned it to the library…remember the library?) hasn’t helped, but I think it’s more a simple case of writer’s block. Thankfully, Justin stepped up and wrote a killer post that captured much of what I was thinking.

Thus, to get this stuff out of my system, I’m taking more of a rapid-fire, shotgun approach to this post.  In no particular order…

Finally, Let me make clear that I’m not anti-Gladwell. I think he’s a fine storyteller…in short form. He’s also an engaging speaker. When he ventures into book-length work, I think he really struggles.

That’s it; I’m glad I finally got that done. On to more important things…

Since Will Richardson dubbed me IWB Bummer Boy, and my one blog post (so far) about Edubloggercon ‘09 came off as cranky, I figured I’d stay in role and finally churn out my long promised take on Malcolm Gladwell and specifically his newest book, Outliers.

I’ve had some quick back-and-forth with some folks on Twitter about Outliers, and the main theme of those arguing against me has been that I shouldn’t take Outliers as any serious work of social science.  I should understand Gladwell’s work as a collection of loosely-tied, interesting stories.  To that, I say “HOGWASH!”

The New York Times refers to Outliers as “The Sociology of Success.”  Gladwell himself subtitles the book “THE [emphasis added] Story of Success.”  In other words, Gladwell suggests quite explicitly that he is proposing a theory to explain success.   I simply do not know how to understand the book as anything other than a serious effort to develop an explanatory model.  That, to me, is a social scientific effort.

My contention, then, is that Gladwell’s work is the result of (weak) inductive thinking/reasoning.  In other words, Gladwell is attempting to ascribe “properties or relations to types based on an observation instance (i.e., on a number of observations or experiences)…” (Wikipedia).  Or, as is quoted in Wikipedia, Gladwell attempts to take us “”beyond the confines of our current evidence or knowledge to conclusions about the unknown.”  That process is depicted in the following figure.

SOURCE: Trochim, 2006

I won’t write a treatise on inductive reasoning, but I encourage you to read the Wikipedia article.  It’s quite well-written, IMHO.  If you’re into philosophy, I’d also encouarage you to read David Hume’s text on the problem of induction, which is referenced in the Wikipedia article.

My problem here is that Gladwell relies on incredibly weak induction.  Over and over, he uses a single case as a premise for his ultimate conclusion.  For example, he uses the case of Christopher Langan to make the point that genius alone does not lead to success.  Langan is a guy with an IQ of 165 who works on a horse farm in Missouri.  He has a higher IQ than Einstein, yet he works on a horse farm.  Gladwell’s logic, then, is that since Langan did not become highly successful, it must be that IQ is not enough.  In other words, here’s the logic:

• Langan has a really high IQ
• Langan was never in an environment that provided an opportunity to capitalize on his IQ
• Langan did not become successful
• Therefore, nobody with a high IQ can succeed without the right environmental circumstances.

As Lev Grossman of Time magazine wrote, “Gladwell’s weapon of choice when assaulting myths is the anecdote.”  I would add that Gladwell’s weapon of choice when reaching all of his conclusions is the anecdote.  In other words, if he can find one case that fits his thinking, he readily draws a conclusion by generalizing from that one case.  Over and over again, he states a conclusion and backs it up by telling a story.

There is a place for inductive thinking in the social sciences.  In fact, as Trochim points out, social science research often involves a cyclical process involving both deductive and inductive thinking.  But, some inductions are stronger than others.  For example, if you observe something very frequently, you might reach a conclusion that is reasonably probabilistic. That is a strong induction.

A real example:  Imagine if Martians had come to Earth for the first time and landed at Edubloggercon ‘09.  They would have observed nearly 100 edubloggers, all of whom were light skinned.  From that premise, they could have concluded that all edubloggers are light skinned.  THAT would have been a strong induction.

[TOMORROW: Part 2, where the fun stuff happens]

Well, other than “technology,” if I had to choose five tags to describe myself, sports, education and law would be in the top 5.  So, imagine my surprise when I was pointed to this video of a Malcolm Gladwell speech/presentation (what is it that he does exactly?) covering those three areas.  The main topic of his speech is the mismatch problem; the idea that in making hiring decisions employers regularly use metrics that are very poor predictors of success within their particular area of employment.  The substance of the presentation is certainly interesting, but here’s what I want to do with this video:

I want to use it as part of a major project for a doctoral level educational research course.  It’d be like a fact-checking exercise.  Students would have to listen to/watch the segment about hiring teachers and note each claim that Gladwell makes which is presumably research-based (i.e. that reducing class sizes from 22 to 16 will lead to increases in achievement of 5 percentile points).  Then, for each claim, they would have to find the research that either supports or refutes his claim.  The students would synthesize the research and write up their findings.  That would be fun/cool, right?

photo credit: Nathan Y

Recently, on Darren Draper’s blog, I commented on the sort of “invention sessions” that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about and that Darren suggested would be an interesting addition to the field of education (I agree completely, BTW).  I wrote: “I wonder if electronic communities are sufficient. Classroom 2.0 is a wonderful resource, but do ‘invention sessions’ necessarily require prolonged f-2-f interactions among a small group of smart people? I think this is an empirical question.”

In response to my comment, Darren wrote, “Strange, but you’re right about the f2f interactions. There is something about having a face to face relationship with someone – and the power that comes from bringing it to online settings. It’s as if one without the other isn’t quite as effective. I know that as I’ve met people f2f, our interactions online become more rich…That said, I think many would argue that f2f interactions aren’t required for effective ‘invention sessions’. This topic needs to be addressed further.”

I henceforth address the topic further, and I respectfully disagree (though maybe it’s just a matter of how we interpret Gladwell’s writing about invention sessions). Please don’t get me wrong…I think there are incredible opportunities and ideas to be pursued through the use of networking sites such as Ning, and the learning opportunities afforded by the combination of networking tools such as Ning, Twitter, UStream, Elluminate, etc. are endless.

However, I think what we are doing by collectively using those applications is creating individualized yet overlapping learning communities.  And, with NECC 2008 approaching, I will meet (with) many of those within my learning community and add face-to-face communication to that community.  I believe this is ideal for two reasons.  First, my own learning is aided because growing evidence suggests that e-learning is best when supplemented with f-2-f interactions (i.e. “blended” learning).  Second, as I’ve written about before, based on the work of Etzioni and Etzioni (THE experts on “community”), the ideal form of community is a hybrid one. Communities that utilize hybrid systems “would be able to bond better
and share values more effectively than communities that rely upon only one or the other mode of communication” (Etzioni & Etzioni, 1999, p. 247).  Thus, adding Web 2.0 tools to traditional learning spaces such as presentations, conferences, etc. creates perfect personal learning communities; the learning is better and the community is better.  PLN/PLE + F-2-F = PLC [NOTE: I believe the PERSONAL learning community is distinguishable from the PROFESSIONAL learning community made famous and popularized by Rick DuFour and others.  But, that's the subject of another blog post...].

However, I understood the “invention session” to be an action/change-oriented, synchronous interaction between a small group of really smart individuals with very different personal and/or professional perspectives.  I suspect that those in the sessions of which Gladwell wrote extended their discussions with computer-mediated communications (CMC), but I think the initial brainstorming needed to be done together, in the same room at the same time for an extended period of time.  I’m as much an advocate of CMC as anyone, but things happen f-2-f that cannot be replicated digitally.  I also think the action orientation of invention sessions necessitates limiting the number of participants.  If you’ve ever chaired a committee or a task force, you can probably appreciate such a limitation.

If someone can offer an example of a major “invention” or “innovation” that was developed purely through CMC among a large group of individuals, I’d be willing to reconsider my argument.  Until then, I throw out two questions:

1. What do you think?  Can an invention session be held solely online?
2. If there were to be an invention session to. let’s say, eliminate the achievement gap, which 5-7 living individuals would you want to be involved?