Think RIght, Do Right, Love Right

"You can have orthodoxy and orthopraxy but not have orthopathy." - Lacrae

This is an education post, but I encountered this statement on the Russell Moore podcast in which he was interviewing Christian rapper, Lacrae, about the reconstruction of his faith after a time of doubt.  I was driving, so I had to repeat it over and over again until I got to a stoplight where I could write it down. He was talking about how Christians with solid doctrine (orthodoxy) and solid church practice (orthopraxy) often don't respond with the same compassion that Christ would (which he called orthopathy).

He was spot on about the Christian response to things, but this isn't the place for me to address that.  What I want to address is how this applies to education - particularly those of us in the evidence informed movement.

I do believe we have educational orthodoxy - right thinking about our desire to use research.  We should obviously want to find the best evidence to inform our classroom decisions and encourage others to do the same.  I believe we have educational orthopraxy - right practices based on the best evidence we could find. It is excellent that we have limited our displays, put our desks in rows, and engaged in direct instruction with checks for understanding. 

Where I think we need to be careful is with our orthopathy. Are we treating people who put their desks in pods as though they are less than we are?  Are we bothering to ask the reason why they put their desks that way? We should care if they do, listen to it, and be open to the idea that it might work for their kids in their classroom. If you know a teacher who still believes in learning styles, are you rolling your eyes and scoffing at them; or do you kindly explain the difference between learning styles and dual coding so they can understand why adding visuals is a good thing? 

It is easy in our age of instant information for us to think that everyone has access to the same knowledge that we have. But many people don't know what they don't know.  They are doing the best they can with what they were taught.  And if they went to education school longer than 7 or 8 years ago, they were likely taught learning styles, pods, and project based learning. I was taught 29 years ago that tests were about to become a thing of the past and everyone would have portfolios.  

Let's remember that teaching is a complex job with lots of expectations from multiple sources. If your administration is expecting project based learning, a teacher may not be in a position to insist on direct instruction.  Parents, principals, and professional development seminars are all making teachers feel demoralized by implying that no matter how good they are, they should be striving to get better.  Going online and celebrating something in their classroom should not be met with more "You're doing it wrong" messages. 

Evidence informed crowd, let's not be the mean kids at the lunch table.  Take the lead of Andrew Watson, who is simultaneous VERY well informed on the evidence AND one of the kindest people I know.  He meets questions about educational myths with understanding first, why the teachers believes what they do. He understands that they were likely taught those myths by trusted sources. He offers a new perspective or a framework in which to think about the topic. He present research for what it is, a dynamic field that we have to adapt in our own contexts. Before I ever met him, I knew him through the Learning and the Brain Twitter account, and one of my favorite things was that he would present a question like "Does X work?" with an answer like, "In some limited circumstances with the right conditions, yes."  Contrary to popular belief, that is what a science answer sounds like. 

So, let's climb down from our soap boxes and look at the context and motives of the people around us. Let's give them the grace we would want. Let's have orthopathy.