Things That Sound Smart But Are Actually Dumb Vol. 1
(The first in a series of posts?) about logical fallacies in education
I hate when people describe practices in education as “antiquated.” It’s a clever piece of rhetoric but it doesn’t communicate anything substantive about why a particular teaching practice is helpful or unhelpful. No one ever describes Socratic questioning as antiquated. It’s literally from antiquity! No one describes project-based learning as antiquated, yet William Heard Kilpatrick’s work on the project method in 1918 would fit right in to an Edutopia article about PBL. Antiquated doesn’t mean old, it means I don’t like this thing and the quickest way to convince you it’s bad is to call it antiquated.
I’m not saying teaching practices that have been around a long time are always good. There are plenty of things schools have been doing without thinking twice for too long. But just because you can pull out that line about something being antiquated doesn’t mean you’re right. Argue on the merits. Be specific. Describe why that thing you don’t like is bad and what you suggest instead and what it looks like for real teachers.
The other issue with calling something antiquated is it implies that “modern” teaching practices must be better. Don’t use those antiquated whatever whatever…get with the times and have ChatGPT tutor your students! Engage students in authentic reperformances!1 Pack every lesson to the gills with SEL!2
There’s so much nonsense in education. One of many reasons is this dissonance between rhetoric and reality. Lots of ideas sound great when you package them in the right lingo but don’t actually do anything to help teachers or students. That lingo echoes around social media and educonferences and then real principals make real decisions about real students because someone came up with a clever line about how knowing the times tables is antiquated.
We wanted to say we do social-emotional learning but no one knew how to do it so we bought you the Second Step curriculum and when you try to tell us it’s garbage we’ll call you antiquated behind your back and tell everyone you’re stuck in the factory model of teaching.
"...stuck in the factory model of teaching." 😂
The factory model argument just grinds my gears.
You and Randall on the same rhythm https://xkcd.com/2929/