{"id":2361,"date":"2021-06-19T04:56:59","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T04:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/?p=2361"},"modified":"2021-07-03T11:32:47","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T11:32:47","slug":"why-cant-you-just-make-it-simple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/06\/19\/why-cant-you-just-make-it-simple\/","title":{"rendered":"Why can’t you just make it simple?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Teaching and learning are arguably two of the most intriguing human activities. In this article, Nick Alchin brilliantly wades through the subtle layers of simplicity and complexity that manifest in the classrooms. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Simplicity could render complexity
(Image by Ralf Kunze<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/sup><\/sub>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I am a great believer in seeking simplicity, and it troubles me that it often eludes me in my professional life.  As far as I can see, while principles may be simple, operationalising them is complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was, for example, recently explaining our approach regarding awarding grades on report cards to parents.  A somewhat exasperated father asked me why can\u2019t you just make it simple?<\/em> I had some sympathy \u2013 if you\u2019re not an educator, it probably seems like assessment should be easy and two approaches immediately spring to mind. Set a test, and award the top 10% (say) the top grade, the next 20% the second top grade (say) and so on. Or, award everyone who gets over 90% (say) the top grade, between 75% and 90% (say) the second top grade, and so on. Simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
There’s something in this.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The trouble is that the simplicity here is achieved at the expense of meaning (the first, surprisingly common, method above actually awards a grade to a student on the basis of the performance of other <\/em>students!). If our purpose in assessment is to measure what a student understands, and not simply to rank students in some order, then as any parent or teacher will know, any measure is just a measure,  not a true representation.  That measure will vary from day to day, depending on how a question it is asked and interpreted, what mood the child is in, what happened with his or her friends earlier that week and so on. And then there\u2019s the question of how you would assess several hundred (or more) students’ understandings in robust and reliable ways if you were accountable for getting it right under high stakes circumstances.  And then there’s the fact that by awarding one grade, you may prevent a student from believing he or she has the capacity to achieve a higher one.  And then there’s the fact that different cohorts and classes have very different characters.  It\u2019s not <\/em>simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My point here is not to get into assessment issues (I have written here<\/a> and here<\/a> on grading); it\u2019s more to think about the fact that simple solutions are easy to think of \u2013 and almost certainly wrong. If these matters were simple, we would have solved them decades ago and not be talking about them now. That\u2019s the message I drew from a letter from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation a few years back. I have full admiration for the Foundation; they are doing spectacular work in many areas and are also seeking to impact education, so I was interested to read the letter from Sue Desmond-Hellman, Gates Foundation CEO.  After a decade of deploying huge resources, they are moving away from simple large-scale solutions to more incremental ways which draw on local tailored systems, and which recognise complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
We should seek simplicity, but need to go through
 complexity to avoid being simplistic. <\/strong><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That’s a new and very welcome move and a different approach to earlier thinking.  In the early 2000s Gates was convinced that the real problem with many schools was that they were too big, and that schools no bigger than 500 would do a better job.  So build smaller schools – simple! Alas, many hundred of millions of dollars later, it proved to be a bit more complicated than that and that initiative has been dropped.  The next idea was that teachers should be financially incentivised to get better performance.  So re-design the evaluation system – simple!  But the experiment started in 2009 in Florida program, evaluation system and all, was dumped at great expense having made no real difference to students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last 17 years, the Foundation has spent some USD3 billion for what seems to be fairly meagre results; and has now moved on to curriculum development and digital resource creation – now recognising, in their own words that no one knows teaching better than teachers<\/em>.  That approach is not simple \u2013 there are many disciplines and platforms and teaching remains as much art as science.  This slowly-slowly approach does not promise radical breakthroughs – but that’s simply a recognition of how the world is<\/em> rather than how we might like it to be.<\/em>  This reflects not a lack of ambition or drive, but a pragmatic (I am tempted to say business-like<\/em> but that’s another story)<\/em> recognition that it\u2019s not <\/em>simple. We\u2019re facing the fact that it is a real struggle<\/em> says Desmond-Hellman. And when she says it is really tough<\/em> she means it\u2019s hard to know what to do because the task is complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, to return to the question ‘why can\u2019t you just make it simple?\u2019 I guess the answer is simply that we do not know how to do so.  Perhaps we will one day, but we are not there yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: This article was originally published in June 2016 in Nick\u2019s personal blog \u2018Education, Schools and Culture\u2019<\/a>. Please visit his blog for more such profound thoughts and deep insights into many things related to Education<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teaching and learning are arguably two of the most intriguing human activities. In this article, Nick Alchin brilliantly wades through the subtle layers of simplicity and complexity that manifest in the classrooms. I am a great believer in seeking simplicity, and it troubles me that it often eludes me in my professional life.  As far…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/span>+<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":2364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32],"tags":[31,42,12,93,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2361"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2424,"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2361\/revisions\/2424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverpi.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}