[AAACE-NLA] Professional Wisdom

[Hal Beder]

True, some learners have low self-esteem and some do not, but isn't 
that true for all of us?  The problem becomes when we believe that 
ALL learners have low self esteem because they have lived chaotic 
lives of failure in the past.  You are right, research rarely proves 
anything.  Ana's work on self-esteem did not prove anything...but it 
was sound evidence.   So what would a group of professionally wise 
teachers do when confronted with Ana's evidence?  They might examine 
it for strengths and weaknesses.  They might reflect on it ,and when 
they did they would conclude
that that the research  raises at least the possibility that their 
beliefs were wrong. Then they might search for more evidence.  They 
might replicate Ana's study with their own learners [that wouldn't be 
hard to do]. They might look at other research, and they would find 
that, while there is evidence that successful completion of adult 
literacy raises self-esteem, there is nothing substantial that 
indicates adult learners have lower than normal self-esteem to begin 
with. Then they might alter their practice based on a new assumption 
that learners don't have low self-esteem and see what happens...and so on.

What would a group of teachers who are not professionally wise 
do?  They might say UGGH!, that's research.  Let's go home.


At 04:25 PM 6/25/2008, you wrote:

>I was about to add to Susan's and Hal Beder's comments when I 
>realized something.  Both Susan and Hal talked about the problem of 
>teachers/tutors perceiving something as true, like the prevalence of 
>poor learner self esteem, when in fact the premise may not be 
>true.  I was about to chime in my agreement, and mention my own 
>action research on self-esteem (which came to the same conclusion), 
>when I began to ponder the way so many things become true simply 
>because enough people say it is so, or perhaps because of WHO says 
>it is so. Over and over again this happens in our field.  Some would 
>decide, for example, that if Hal, Susan and I all agree that the 
>idea of adult learners "suffering" from low self esteem is a myth, 
>then it must be true that the idea is, indeed, a myth, because three 
>people said so (and these are three people who we assume know what 
>they are talking about.)  Yet in practice, what I find is that the 
>presence of low self-esteem in adult learners is sometimes true, and 
>sometimes not.
>
>As a practitioner, this is the problem I have with 
>researchers.   Always they are looking for the most good for the 
>most people.  This is reasonable, and research of all kinds is 
>important and useful to practitioners.  But research in education, 
>no matter how well done, can't be trusted to provide the best 
>answers consistently when working  in the classroom, especially if 
>you work with learners individually, and I believe, especially with 
>ADULTS.  I believe research in our field can inform and guide 
>practice, but when research becomes the basis for a MANDATE on how 
>to teach, I start to turn red.
>
>When I read about research in the medical field. there are always 
>caveats that conclusions are tentative.  But I rarely hear education 
>researchers underscore that their conclusions are by nature based on 
>a certain set of conditions that may not be consistently 
>replicable.  It is true, I think, that an actual research report in 
>education almost always calls for yet more research and always puts 
>limits on the application of the conclusions, But with the 
>exceptions of John Comings and Tom Sticht, who I know respect 
>practitioners, where are the researchers when policy-makers grab a 
>hold of conclusions and proceed to ram them down our throats by 
>connecting them to funding and demanding inflexible program designs?
>
>The picture provided by David and John in this discussion where 
>researchers and practictioners work side by side as equals is 
>exactly what we need.  Soon the
>WIA will be reauthorized.  The first concensus I would like to see 
>among adult ed practitioners and researchers is a sound, published 
>critique of what the WIA has done, and has not done, since 1998, and 
>a statement that research in education should inform practice, not dictate it.
>
>Some empirical scientists have stated that the job of the researcher 
>is to find the truth, and that's all.  What others do with it is not 
>their problem.  We can't allow this in education.  The idea of 
>capturing professional wisdom as John Comings has proposed badly 
>needs support.
>
>Deborah W. Yoho
>director, Turning Pages
>(formerly the Greater Columbia Literacy Council)
>a community service of Volunteers of America Carolinas
>803-765-2555 Fax: 803-779-1657
>PO Box 1447 Columbia, SC 29202
><mailto:yohogclc at earthlink.net>yohogclc at earthlink.net
>
>
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