What if your philosophy is wrong? (1/7/08)

Malcom Gladwell, renowned author of national bestsellers The Tipping Point and Blink, does a beautiful job of convincing his readers that word of mouth is one of the essential ingredients in creating epidemics. In a poignant example to illustrate his hypothesis he refers to Paul Revere and his famous ride in which he yelled to the people, "the British are coming." One person acted as a catalyst for creating an epidemic that spread like wild fire. Gladwell, doing a tremendous job of providing countless anecdotal evidence to his theory, shares a multitude of illustrations to illuminate his point. But...what if he had been wrong? What if his beautiful idea about word of mouth epidemics was flat out invalid? What if everything he believed around his theory was proved unsubstantiated when put to the test? What if only one person had listened to Revere's words while everyone went about their business, sipping tea and knitting sweaters (I don't really know what they did in those days)?

That's how I feel at this point in time...like an invalid Gladwell. An amazing theory with no support. My grounding philosophy as a progressive educator framed around heterogeneous grouping has been compromised (to an extent). Although my students have shown growth through out the first semester of school and data from our assessments will support that claim, I still know that their needs have not been met. Sir and Iesha could have accomplished so much more...Milton and Liz learned hardly a thing...McKena did what was expected of him even though he could have rose to greater heights...and Aramis still hasn't proved he can make a prediction using a linear model. I feel like the data that shows student growth is hiding the truth...student's needs were not met to the extent that they could have and should have been.

As a result of this realization we have made changes to our grouping of kids as described in my initial blog. The only way that my mind is able to deal with this shift that goes against my "Wilhelm bottom line" is that it doesn't represent the traditional form of tracking. Why? For two reasons.

1.) Our grouping is fluid. Students can move in and out of the Algebra-X class as well as the Algebra support class and the frontloading elective. Nothing about our sectioning of students is final.

2.) If you examine the Algebra-X class roster closely you start to see that it's not really homogeneous. It's a beautiful mixture of female, male, Black and Hispanic students who encompass a wide range of student categories. Ranging from behavior problems to high performing, mature intellectuals the class really is more of a variety pack than just one flavor.

Perhaps the above is just a cleverly orchestrated excuse in helping me deal with the fact that I've broken my core philosophy, but the objective part of me likes to believe that there is some merit to my argument. If the changes being made create a positive increase in learning for all students then how can such change be deemed unworthy?

Gladwell's theory was right...mine may have been wrong, but...we're doing something about it.