Credibility First - Part 2 - Take Your Work Seriously

Imagine this scenario.  

You go to a gym and hire a personal trainer, excited to meet your fitness goals and willing to pay for it. When you arrive, the trainer:

• gives you snacks.
• chats with you about movies and music for 10 minutes. 
• jokes with you throughout the session.
• asks you about your hobbies. 
• About halfway into the session, she hands you a relatively small weight and asks you to do bicep curls but doesn't show you how to do it properly.  
• You do a few with very poor form because you don't know the right way to do it. The poor form is okay with her because "the point is that you do it, not how you do it." 
• She praises you for your effort and says, "Look how strong you are." 

When you leave that session, you may like your new trainer on a personal level, but you will leave feeling that your time and money has been wasted.  You won't be sore the next day, indicating that you didn't challenge any muscles. You won't know any more about fitness when you leave than you did when you entered. And, I'm going to guess that, while you may like your new trainer, you won't respect her work.

You won't achieve your goals, and you won't return to this gym.

Yet, there are people who think this is what classroom teachers should do. Give snacks, make it fun, and build relationships first.  And the result with students is the same as it was in the above scenario. They like the fun and relationship-y teacher, but they don't achieve their goals, and they don't respect the teacher's work.

As a teacher of 25 years, I do understand that relationships matter, but I also understand that they cannot come first.  In fact, adolescents find it kind of creepy when you try to establish a relationship too early. They can sense a scam a mile away, so they know if you are forming a relationship in a manipulative way. After one first day of school, my nephew (who was then in middle school) said, "She's weird. She smiled way too much." For him, her relationships first approach came off as false.

So, please allow me to propose a different model - credibility first.  If you give students confidence that you know what you are doing and will help them achieve, they are more likely to be open to the teacher-student relationship you hope to establish.

Let's revisit the gym. You show up for your personal training session and you:

• notice the trainer has her certifications posted on the wall. This helps you feel confident that she is trained.
• see that she has weights already laid out in a circuit. You know your time won't be wasted and she isn't depending on your to tell her what you should do.
• hear explanations of proper form, explanations of what you should feel as you lift, and feedback on what you are doing in an encouraging and jovial way. This helps you feel confident you could do it later on your own.
• feel challenged throughout the session even though she has a lighthearted manner. You know she is getting the best out of you, and you'll be the good kind of sore tomorrow.
• have a nice chat after the session. You like that she wants to get to know you a little and may feel inclined to share a little more after next week's session.

Do you see the difference? Knowing the trainer takes her work seriously makes you more comfortable with her, not less.

Let me divert to yet another context.  I have been attending a liturgical church for about a year.  For those who don't know, liturgical churches involve a lot of scripted time that is repeated regularly. Every week, we say the creed and the Lords' prayer. Every week, we sing the doxology. There is some call and response (e.g. Officiant: "This is the Word of the Lord" Congregation: "Thanks be to God.") 

Having had little prior experience with that kind of service, I assumed before my first visit that it might be kind of dry. In fact, it has been quite the opposite. Not having to generate my own response to everything has allowed me to notice certain parts of the creed differently in different weeks. 

• Some weeks, it may be "Creator of heaven and earth, all that is, seen and unseen" that sticks with me.  
• Other Sundays, it might be the fact that Jesus "suffered under Pontius Pilate" that my mind dwells on. 
• Replying to an officiant's "Peace be with you" with "and also with you" encourages empathy throughout my week.  
• After communion, we say a post communion prayer.  It includes the line, "And now, send us out to do the work You have given us to do."  Because we say it so often, I look forward to that line and think about it throughout the week.  

This is is so far from a dry recitation; it buries words deep within me in a way that only repetition can. And it happens because the clergy take their work very seriously.  This is never more obvious to me than when they prepare and administer communion.  During the offering, one of the ministers lays out the wafer plates and pours the wine and water into several goblets. They each do it a bit differently, but they all do it with care.  It's clear that it is a responsibility they don't undertake lightly.  Lest you think this means they are stone faced about it, let me assure you that watching them administer communion is one of the highlights of my week because they do it with such joy. They look the congregant directly in the eye as they hand them the wafer, saying, "Take this in remembrance that Christ died for you." They know my name, so I get a very personal, "Beth, take this in remembrance that Christ died for you." They pray for and fist bump small children who are not yet taking communion, and those kids walk away knowing someone cares for their spiritual health and also enjoys their presence in the church.  As I described watching my pastor during communion to a friend, "I love watching his joy during communion.  It's like he just can't believe this is part of his job."

I said all of that to say this.  Credibility first isn't sour and joyless.  You can show your care, your passion, and your knowledge of content simultaneously. And this will attract students to your work. You will still end up with relationships if you don't make them first.  You may never establish credibility if you do.

What does this look like in the classroom?  I imagine there are a number of ways it could look, depending on your context, but I'll tell you what I did in mine:

• I started the first day by telling students why I went into education, what degree I had (diploma posted on the wall next to my teaching certificate), and my years of experience. I said, "I'm not bragging; I just want you to know you are in good hands.")
• I gave them an outline of the year, so they knew I had a plan from the start.
• I assigned seats in rows. I know that is a controversial one, and I'm not saying you have to do it. For me, it communicated from the start that there was someone in charge and that I was the person to whom they should pay attention.
• I promised that, while not everything would be fun, everything would be worthwhile.  I made it fun where I could, of course, and I had an amiable classroom demeanor, but I made it clear that fun wasn't the goal; learning was.
• We established some procedures and routines that I assured them would make things run more smoothly.
• I meant what I said. There were never false promises or empty threats.
• I explained my reasons for what I was doing whenever possible.
• I laughed at myself when I made mistakes. Taking your work seriously doesn't have to mean taking yourself too seriously.
• When I screwed up, I did everything I could to make it right for my kids.
• If I got through all of the planned things with a few minutes left, it was only then that I chatted with them about hobbies or pets. I also used lunch duty, morning door duty, and after school interactions for those kinds of conversations.  I attended sporting events and concerts and plays to show that I cared about their extracurricular interests. 

I assure you, most of my students felt we had a friendly relationship. I just didn't start there.  

When I left at the end of last year, I got a lot of lovely notes and emails from colleagues and parents and students, but the one that touched me the most was an email that came from a former student. I can't make a better point about credibility first than she did, so I'll end this post with the opening line of her email. 

"I want to thank you for quite literally changing my life. You were the first teacher to take my grades seriously and helped me when I needed it." 

Credibility First - Part 1 - Why it Matters

Warning: This post ended up a little angrier in tone than I intended.  So let me start with this.  I know that those who believe in "Relationships First" are well intended and loving.  This post is meant to address the outcome of the belief, not the heart that causes you to believe it.  Second, I had great relationships with thousands of students.  I'm not saying that they don't matter.  I'm making the case for why they are not first and cannot be built in isolation from doing your job of content teaching.  With that out of the way, my rant:

Stay part of EduTwitter for longer than a few minutes, particularly at the start of a new semester, and you will eventually find the "relationships first" people.   

• Kids bouncing off the walls? The answer certainly isn't to implement your school's discipline policy. Clearly, you didn't spend proper time building relationships. 
• Student playing on their phone rather than paying attention? It isn't because billions of dollars have been spent making their phones addictive. It's because you would be more engaging for students if you took less time teaching at the beginning of the semester and more time building realationships.
• A student isn't making a good grade. That's obviously not from lack of study time or ineffective study techniques (or even improper teaching techniques). They aren't learning because you didn't spend the first two weeks of the semester building relationships and "kids only learn from people they like." 

There's never any practical advice about how to build a relationship or evidence offered for the notion that they can't learn from you if they don't like you (despite centuries of experience to the contrary). They sell the idea that relationships are the golden key that unlocks all doors, and you should spend all of your class time doing that before you do anything else.  I actually read a tweet suggesting that you should teach no content for the first two weeks and spend all of that time on relationships.

This leads to weeks of time spent on games.  Icebreakers, getting to know you activities, team building exercises, and lots of chatting - all in the assumption that the time spent doing this is an investment that will pay off later because they will learn better and behave better once they "know how much you care." When you visit their classrooms later in the year, it turns out that it just isn't true.  There is a lot of relationshipping going on, but there is little learning and lots of poor behavior. There was a teacher across the hall from me years ago that playing hackysack with his students for 20 minutes 3-4 days a week well into the year.  It was so loud that I had a hard time teaching.  I asked him one day when he taught his content, and he said, "I usually get in 15 minutes, but I want to make sure they know I love them."

I'll talk next week about what I think the right way is, but I wanted to set up the problem with this approach first.  The problem is that it does not actually communicate that you love them; it communicates that you don't value their time or learning.  I know because:

• They come to my room and talk smack about you behind your back, using phrases like "thinks he's cool" and "tries too hard to be like us."
• They tell me about their lack of appreciation for you as a teacher and the non-academic atmosphere you have created because they call your class "a waste of time."  
• If I need a student to make up a test, yours is the class they know it's okay to leave.  They say, "Yeah, we never learn anything in there.  We can do whatever we want." 

Another problem:  Substitute teachers don't have relationships with the students in front of them, and you have sent the message to your students that they don't have to behave properly with anyone they haven't bonded with.  

The biggest problem.  You have students who genuinely want to learn, and you spend a lot of time not teaching them.  There are nerds like me, but there are also kids from low income backgrounds who know that education is their only way up.  The students who can afford tutors usually end up okay because they pay someone to do the teaching you aren't doing while you build relationships, but the ones who can't afford that are left to fend for themselves. And the relationship you have with them does nothing but widen the opportunity gap.

I know your intent is loving when you say "Relationships First," but in reality, it just isn't helpful.  For kids, it comes off a little creepy when they don't know you at all, and you are digging into their personal lives on day 1 of the school year.  Next week, I'm going to suggest an alternative.  

Credibility First

Establishing your credibility will give kids a reason to want a relationship with you, help them know you value their time and take your job seriously, and ultimately result in better behavior and more learning.  I'll give you practical examples of how to build credibility from day 1.  See you next week.

Credibility: Part 2 - The Power of Not Knowing

Two weeks ago, I wrote about establishing credibility.  I opened with a story about a kid who declared, "She knows everything."  I know a lot of things, but I definitely do not know everything.  I have a job that presents me with daily opportunities to model the power of not knowing, admitting that I don't know, and learning (or very rarely, deciding not to learn) many things.

This week presented an opportunity.  Two students were working on a project and needed to interview someone about the war in Ukraine.  Well-known Ukraine expert that I am, they decided to interview me (Please note the enormous sarcasm in that sentence. They chose me because I was the first person they found who didn't have a class during that period.)  Some of the questions were about my opinion and were simple to answer.  Some required a great deal of speculation.  But there was one I couldn't answer at all.  They asked if I thought the terrain of Ukraine was helpful or harmful to their effort to defend themselves. I don't know where these 8th-grade students found this question, but I definitely wasn't expecting it.  My answer to them was that I don't know enough about geography to give an answer.  Wanting quotes for their project, they attempted to press me for a specific answer.  I said, "No, the answer I gave you was valid. I just don't have enough knowledge to give you an informed opinion."  They decided they were happy enough with my other answers to call it a day, but I don't know if they realized that it is important not just to guess at an answer like that, that is okay to say, "I don't have an opinion on that because I don't know enough."

During the summer, President Biden announced the forgiving of up to ten thousand dollars of federal student loan debt.  Within seconds, people flooded social media with either criticism or praise.  Everyone, it seemed, was an expert on the economic impact of such a move or the theological implications of agreeing with or disagreeing with it.  People's opinions were as strong as they were instantaneous, and I wondered how informed they could possibly be.  I'm certainly not informed enough to have a strong opinion on it, at least not yet.  The one reaction I'm sure is not okay is, "It's not fair. I had to pay mine, so they should have to pay theirs." That's a middle school level understanding of fairness and justice, so I pretty quickly dismissed the thoughts coming from those people.  I don't know if this will increase or decrease inflation, and neither do most of the people spouting about it online.  My natural inclination is to say that if you signed a contract, you knew what you were getting yourself into and should be required to fulfill it, but I also don't know if the interest rates are at usurious levels or how hard to interpret the contract was to the average college freshman.  I just don't know enough to have a strong opinion.

Teachers, we are in the profession of modeling, among other things, appropriate adult behavior.  Admitting we don't know things or don't have enough information to have an opinion on some things is an important thing to model.  It is counter-cultural in the best possible way because it models humility and openness and shows them that education is an ongoing process.  

Bonus: It gives us more credibility when we do actually know something because we haven't bluffed our way through other things.      

Credibility First

One of my favorite moments of each year happened this week.  A student asked a question, and, as I began to answer it, another student said, "How does she know all of this?"  Other students remind him that I am a teacher, to which he replies, "But she knows everything."  

Let me be clear.  I know a lot of things, but I do not know everything.  I make no attempt to convince students that I know everything.  In fact, I probably say, "I don't know" at least once a class period every day.  They tend to forget that, in part, because I often follow it up with, "but my best guess would be . . ." Rather than recognize that as educated speculation, they forget that I opened with the admission that I didn't actually know.  The reason it is one of my favorite moments isn't that it is good for my ego; it is because I know at that moment that I have established credibility with my class.

There are teachers everywhere who use the phrase "relationships are everything" on their social media and in their conversations and wax eloquent about how they spend the first two weeks just building relationships with their new students.  While I appreciate their intention, I always think about how creeped out I would have felt as a student if any of my teachers had spent the first two weeks trying to bond with me.  We don't expect that from other relationships or professions (with the possible exception of ministers).  When I go to a new doctor,  I first want him to have a medical degree from a good university.  While I want him to be professionally warm and have a good bedside manner, I don't want him to try to make friends with me.  If I needed a lawyer, I might appreciate a personable approach, but before that, I would want to know how many cases he has successfully tried and what kind of law he studied in school.  Relationships would not be "everything" to me; credibility would be.

Please understand that I am not saying the opposite is true.  I'm not saying that relationships are nothing.  I am simply saying that credibility comes first.  Only then do students have any reason to want a relationship with me.  Relationships follow credibility, so let's talk about how to build credibility.

1. Convey your credentials - In the same way, I would want to see a diploma on my doctor's or lawyer's office wall, I do the same thing in my classroom. My college diploma and my teaching certificate are both framed and hanging behind my desk.  I tell my students how many years I have taught the subject I am teaching them.  It may seem like you are bragging on yourself, but what you are really doing is making students comfortable that they are in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing.
2. Keep your word - You tell students a lot of things in the first few days of school.  It may be about rules or procedures or what you are going to put on their first test.  It is always important to keep your word, but it is especially vital during those first couple of weeks.  If you tell them a question is going to be on a quiz, make sure you put that question on that quiz.  If you tell them that something will happen if they don't follow a certain procedure, you have to follow through on that the first time it happens.  (That means you don't make empty threats or promises, so don't say things just to be dramatic.) If you introduce yourself to your students as a person whose word cannot be trusted, you will never get to the point of developing relationships.
3. Take your job seriously - Students can tell the difference between teachers who plan lessons intentionally and those who wing it every day.  They can tell the difference between teachers who grade with care and feedback and those who just give everyone an A (They may say they like the latter, but I've heard them talk about them behind their back. They don't respect them, and they certainly don't do any valuable work for them.) Students can tell the difference between a teacher who manages their classroom to ensure everyone can learn and those who let the class run wild (or conversely are on a power trip).  If you take your job seriously, students see that and respond to it. 
4. Show your enthusiasm - You chose teaching for a reason. It may have been purely that you loved kids or it may have been a love of learning or an excitement for your subject.  Show that to your students.  History was not naturally my favorite subject, but when I had a teacher who truly loved it, he inspired me to read books about Russian Czars (in 7th grade, no less).  And if you want to build relationships, showing enthusiasm is one of the best ways to do that.  People are drawn to those who enjoy things. I get emails from students during breaks, in which they share something they saw out in the wild that reminded them of something I taught them.  They only do that because they know I will be excited about it.

After you have earned credibility with your students, then they will be more naturally inclined to want a relationship with you.  It won't be creepy that you are asking them questions about their lives if they trust you as their teacher. 

Fame Doesn't Make You Right (More Stories on the Death of Expertise)

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of professional sports.  I would never be a member of a fantasy anything team and feel like I am hearing a foreign language when people discuss games and calls.  I do, however, like a few players.  Steph Curry was one of those players. 

Then, a few weeks ago, Steph appeared on a podcast and discussed, among other things, conspiracy theories.  In the discussion, he stated that he did not believe men had walked on the moon.  As a science teacher and life-long lover of NASA, my heart sank.  My students (many of whom really like conspiracy theories anyway) would come to class with a new argument - a famous person doesn't believe it.

To be fair, Steph has recently said that he was joking, and he did take the time to tour NASA's JPL and talked with Buzz Aldrin.  He apologized to astronaut Scott Kelley for the problems his statements have caused.  Kyrie Irving has done the same, apologizing to science teachers everywhere for his statements that he thought the earth was flat. 

Let's set aside for the moment that I teach the moon landing, love the history of our space program, and therefore, have an emotional connection to this particular topic.  Let's just say for a moment that the issue is a topic I have less passion for.  There's a larger question here.  Why is Steph Curry's opinion important?  Why do students think that his statement is a win in their column?  Why does his status as a basketball champion make him more right in their minds?  It's the same argument I had with them after Kyrie Irving's statement that the earth was flat.  If he comes out with an opinion about the rules of basketball, I would find that credible, but he has no expertise in science.  Even with their walking back their statements, the question I have is why we care.  Why does a basketball player's opinion on issues of science mean anything?  If a geologist comes out and says he thinks the earth is flat, that should make big news.  But why does it matter if a professional athlete believes it?

Please understand that I am far from saying, "Shut up and dribble."  We live in a country where the right to speak is our first right.  Everyone is truly entitled to their own opinion.  Steph and Kyrie are equally as free to have and state their opinions on any issue as I am.  But the equal right to an opinion does not mean equally valid opinions.

These two stories are not isolated.  They are reflective of many issues.

- I am facebook friends with a woman whose son is autistic.  She is an anti-vaxxer as a result of her son's condition.  She, a nurse, has had ample opportunity to examine the studies involving this issue.  She has read every report, all of which show no linkage between vaccines and autism.  They all show genetics and trauma during the third trimester of pregnancy as the primary risk factors.  She does not care.  She openly says she does not care.  She has said out loud and in writing, "I don't care what the CDC found.  I know what I know.  Autism moms can't stop. Won't stop."  She is openly saying that her expertise as the mother of one child is more valuable than the expertise of those who have researched thousands of children.

- When the product Airborne started being sold, many people recommended it to me.  I have no problem with this product.  It is essentially powdered Vitamin C, which we have known for decades supports your immune system.  I have a problem with the way in which people recommended it to me.  "You should use this.  It was invented by a teacher."  I'm not sure why that should matter.  If it were invented by an immunologist, I might be more inclined to care.  Why should the fact that a teacher invented it make me more inclined to trust it? 

- Even members of Congress, while performing an investigation, fall into this trap.  While asking Google executives about how Google functions, they follow up by disagreeing with them.  This video would be funny if it weren't so sad.  They have brought an expert into the room and asked them questions only to replace his reality with their own.

We have stopped caring about whether or not people know what they are talking about.  We have entered an age of populism about knowledge.  There are people who praise that, calling it the "democratization of knowledge."  I called it the Death of Expertise.  We no longer care if someone holds a degree in the topic at hand or has experience in it.   How did this happen?

I think it starts with our cultural worship of fame.  This goes back at least as far as the age of television.  It may go back farther, but I know that when celebrities started endorsing products on television commercials, it reflected the idea that their opinions mattered more than those of others.  Remember the "I'm not a doctor but I play one on tv" commercials.  They didn't hire a doctor because people were more likely to believe a famous person.  If you believe you don't worship fame, look at who you follow on social media.  At the time of this writing, Kim Kardashian has 59.3 million Twitter followers, compared to Buzz Aldrin's 1.36 million, and the fact that I have to use google to name any of last year's Nobel prize winners.  We absolutely worship fame over expertise.  The few scientists whose names you do know (Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson) work hard at maintaining their public presence and hire publicists to do so.

Speaking of Twitter, I think social media has contributed to this problem as well.  A few decades ago, you would know the opinions of people you knew well and people who were interviewed on the news (and before 24-hour news killed good journalism, you could believe they had taken the time to seek a credible expert).  Social media has given everyone a megaphone, and while you have some ability to cultivate your echo chamber by who you choose to follow, you are exposed to the opinions of far more people than you used to be.  All opinions lie side by side in the age of social media (with the edge to your side if you are famous, of course).   Because they are all right there together, our brains process them as equally valid.  We get to choose who we will agree with, regardless of their credibility.

I know this has gotten long, and my blog is supposed to be about education, so let me wrap up by speaking to teachers.  This perfect storm of cultural cynicism, fame worship, social media leveling everyone, and some high profile falls of authority figures has led to this, and we need to do what we can as teachers to model better for our students.  We need to openly care more about expertise than fame.  We need them to see that we seek out credible sources; they should never hear us say that we "read something somewhere" without caring about who we get information from.  We need to teach them to seek out credible information (including but not limited to their sources for research papers). 

We live in a sea of "information" that is a mix of good an bad, credible and ridiculous, worthy and unworthy of our time.  We, as teachers, cannot be passive.  We must act as lighthouses on this sea, pointing them to the good and credible and worthy and teaching them to recognize it.

Establishing Credibility Before Connection

Several months ago, a local youth pastor came to my school to speak to our students in chapel.  At the beginning of his speech to our middle school students, he said, "What?  You are in 7th and 8th grade?  I thought you were juniors and seniors."  Thank goodness I was on the row behind my students because I couldn't conceal my distaste.  I was offended on behalf of my students because he was treating them like they were stupid (young and stupid are not the same thing).  Telling students an obvious lie is not a way to get them on your side because this generation values authenticity above all, and a youth pastor should really know that.  For the rest of his speech, I was unable to take anything he said seriously because of the way he started.

If in hindsight, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, I can guess that he was trying to make a connection with them.  Given that he was going to be with them for about twenty-five minutes, I don't think that is possible.  You can't make a meaningful connection with middle or high school students in half an hour or less; it requires the hard work of relationship building.  What he needed wasn't connection; it was credibility.

Later that day, I was talking through this experience with the teacher friend I go to when I need wisdom and/or perspective.  As we talked about this idea of credibility before connection, she said, "One way to start would be by showing them that he took his work seriously."  During teacher week, we had a workshop (actually presented by that same friend) about student motivation based on the work of Dave Stuart, Jr.  The first key was credibility.  Making genuine connections is discussed but not until later.  Obviously, this is an important aspect of teaching, so let's address how we can make ourselves and our classes credible.

1.  Communicate that you take your profession seriously.  Many teachers are focused on being fun and entertaining in order to engage.  These aren't bad things, and I like to think I'm fun for my students, but it doesn't build credibility.  Too many jokes early on may undermine your credibility.  Start with the message that you take your class seriously by telling students about your preparation.  Hang your diploma and teaching certificate on the wall of your classroom (You wouldn't go to a doctor who didn't hang his, no matter how funny he was).  On day one, I tell my students about my education, years of experience, and ongoing professional development.  Do I throw in jokes?  Of course.  Is the first day a stand-up routine?  Absolutely not.  One day last year, a delightful 8th-grader said to me, "I've decided I trust you more than my other teachers because you have been doing this for a really long time."  Setting aside that she complimented me and called me old at the same time, it reflected something important.  She knew that I had been doing it long enough to know what I was doing, and that made her trust my decisions.

2.  Communicate that you take all classes seriously.  I've seen many parents over the years tell their students that they "don't use algebra either" or that "8th-grade doesn't matter anyway" or that they "couldn't spell very well either."  Then, they are at a loss for why their student doesn't do their homework.  They mean well; they mean to comfort their child.  Instead, they demotivate their child.  We can't stop that from happening at home, but we can stop it from happening in our classrooms.  As a teacher, you should never communicate that some part of education doesn't matter, even if it isn't your own subject.  Undermining any class' credibility undermines them all.  When a student asks "when am I going to use this in life," make the answer about something other than getting into college or a job.  Showing your love for your class motivates your students in ways you may never be aware of (I should write about my history teacher some time).

3.  Communicate that you take students seriously.  It is easy to communicate that you don't take students seriously, even without meaning to.  Blowing off an answer just because you didn't expect it will make that student less inclined to answer again.  Giving a student's question a blow-off answer will make them less inclined to ask them again.  It can be difficult to stay "on" all the time, but it is the quickest way to establish or lose credibility with our students.  If you truly to do not have time to give a question serious consideration, tell the student you will think about it and get back with them.  Make a note to answer them later.  In my school, all students have a computer and school email address, so I ask them to email the question to me in order to remind me to get back to them.  You would be amazed by their response when you give them a thoughtful and thorough reply. 

Taking these things seriously doesn't mean being a dower teacher that doesn't allow fun in their classroom.  Once you have established that we do important work in this room, there's plenty of room for personality, but if you start with personality, that may be all your students ever see. 

The Death of Expertise: Part 2 - Social Media v. People Who Actually Know

Eight days ago, I was casually scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I saw for the first time that Hurricane Irma would be a category 6 hurricane.  I teach science, so I know that there is no such thing as a category 6.  Giving my non-sciencey friend the benefit of the doubt, I assume she did not know this.  However, I looked at the source of the article and did not find that it came from NOAA or NASA or the National Weather Center or any kind of remotely believable source.  This is a smart woman who teaches kids about credibility of sources in research, and she is passing along something from a site with no weather credibility (or arguably no credibility on any topic).  Over the course of the next few days, I saw similar articles posted multiple times on both Facebook and Twitter and had people tell it to me in person.  When I told them there was no such thing as a category 6, they would reply with, "Yeah, but it's going to the be the same conditions as if there were."  This doesn't make sense.  It reminds me of when students ask me what UV light WOULD look like IF we could see it.  It just doesn't exist that way, so no.

The internet has the power to connect us to so much information - if we take the time to find it.  Social media has the power to bring us together with a diverse array of people with perspectives from various cultures, beliefs, and political viewpoints - if we only used it that way.  For the first time in the history of the world, we can find out about scientific research from the researcher - if we go past the first page of a Google search.

Sadly, the invention with the power to bring us in contact with a wider variety of people has actually divided us into tribal groups, reading only the articles posted by those we already agree with.  Sadly, the powerful tools we have at our disposal have not led to greater connection with experts.  We passively consume whatever article our Facebook friends post regardless of source.  Chances are, they didn't actually read the article but passed it on based on the headline.

We had already been primed by 24-hour news not to expect experts in our news broadcasts (see last week's post).  Then, we started trusting the wisdom of the crowd.  (To see how well that worked out, we need only look at the ruined reputations of those men accused by Reddit users who thought they could do police-work in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing.)  As we started getting more and more of our news from our phones, we stopped caring where the information came from.  A blogger you follow disagrees with your doctor?  Who do you believe?  Someone posts a meme about a chemical you've never heard of.  Clearly, you can conclude that chemical is dangerous and the people who make it are evil without looking it up. Expert, amateur, and nut are all there, in one place, appearing to have equal value.  

When an actual meteorologist replied to my friend's post about the hurricane, people argued with him.  Later that week, Raleigh's most famous meteorologist, Greg Fishel, had to take time out of his broadcast to address this.  I ask, as I did last week, "Do we really have to slow down for these people?" But even after these experts weighed in, people continued to say to me, "Yeah, but it's the same as what it would be if it did exist."  We live in a "Yeah, but" world because we cannot be bothered to find out if we are getting information from people who actually know what they are talking about.

Teachers, there has never been a more important time to teach your students about credibility of sources.  Teach them the appropriate place for Wikipedia.  Don't allow them to use Answers.whatever.answer.com as sources for research.  Teach them how to tell the difference between a credible source and a non-credible one.  Model wisdom for them by not sharing everything you read on the internet.  When you do share, tell them why you find that source trustworthy.