Not eating broccoli, spinach, sprouts, seed cakes...
Why don't educators eat their vegetables?
Why don’t we eat broccoli regularly? We’ve been told for years—most of our lives thanks to mothers (and others) all around Earth—that it’s good for us. We’ve, had opportunities to eat it cooked (“to death”) and raw. We’ve had it served with sauces and seasonings (many of which do make it yummy). But there are still many of us who will go to great lengths to not eat it: knock it onto the floor, hide it under napkins, even put it in our mouths and then rush away from the table to a place were we can spit it.
Thinking about excuses for not eating broccoli got me to thinking about reasons we educators don’t employ evidence-based practices. Here are a few rationalizations that I’ve heard during my career.
“Oh, yeah. That sounds great, but it just doesn’t fit my teaching style.”
“Well, that might work well for those kids, but my kids don’t need it. They just lap up learning like kittens around spilled cream.”
“I’ve been teaching this way for 30 years, and I’m not about to change now.”
“Well, you know, you can prove anything you want with research.”
“I’m not sure that would work with my kids….”
“Oh, we’re already doing that!”1
I don’t intend these reports to demean or belittle folks who say such things. I think the comments are quite interesting when viewed as logical arguments, though.
Perhaps some of the Dear Readers of Special Education Today have heard similar comments. If so, please add them to the comments!
Footnote
Probably my favorite version of this one occurred when I was describing the details of a highly structured peer-tutoring program in which students took turns questioning each other in pairs according to a precise script. A teacher in the meeting, piped up, “Oh yeah, I love that. We do group work all the time.” I must not have done a good job of describing the tutoring procedures.