Perceptual Glasses

Two things have really moved me intellectually this past week. First, my research methods course presented three articles (one an original commentary on what needs to come of educational research - the other two responses to the first; one supporting the other attacking) that brought me to a new place of understanding - a flat earth moment. Second, the pre-class assignment that I have been working on tonight for my grad school seminar presented the concept that identity and reality are reflexive - that is the perceptual frame through which my identity is formed is the same frame through which I see the world. The perceptual glasses I wear cloud both my vision and my projection. Not in itself a flat earth moment - but as you will read - it lead to one.

The research methods course presented an original article where Robert Slavin (http://www.jstor.org/pss/3594400 - login required) or look it up (Evidence-Based Education Policies: Transforming Educational Practice and Research, by Robert E. Slavin © 2002 American Educational Research Association.) speaks to the US government funding available due to the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) legislation and how this is really a great opportunity for "Education" to make the jump to real research. You see, unlike hard sciences, Education has lapsed behind with very little quantitative research guiding the improvement of the profession. The majority of changes to teaching and schooling occur as the passing of anecdotal successes and the use of techniques and methods that have not been tested in true random and rigorously matched trials. Bottom line (and an examples he uses is) should a turn of the 20th century (1900) person be brought forward in time to today -- if they were a doctor in 1899, they would not be able to work as a doctor today -- but if they were a teacher then, they could easily step in as a teacher today. (This is arguable - but changes in classroom culture and content not withstanding - but much closer than in medicine, agriculture, chemistry, physics, biology, etc.) With the funding now available the opportunity exists to move education research into the quantity and quality required to really advance the field.

Reading the article, and the two responses, really helped move me to a place that I had perhaps known, but not every articulated. Education is starving for quality research. And lots of it. What a "flat-earth" moment for me. And I am surprised that it was. I have been an educator for sixteen years and a student for much longer. This I should know.

Or maybe not. You see, the pre-amble to the pre-class assignment (how is that for pre- pre-?) speaks to the perceptual glasses that we all wear. And how these glasses tint both our projection of ourselves, but also our view of the world. Both my vision and the projection of myself is tinted.

The perceptual glasses metaphor is a helpful way of illustrating this. Suppose the lens of our world is coloured blue. If we shine a light through the lens, this projects an image to the world. We could call this our self-image or identity. The light coming back to us is what we perceive to be the exterior reality. However in this situation both the projection and the perception of the exterior reality are coloured blue....The observer and the observed are inextricably tied together in a reflection. Like an image in a mirror, they are looking at one another. How does one then escape a particular reflection? (source: Course document which referenced it from: http://www.neoscience.org/reflexiv.htm)

The pre-amble goes on to say that the escape of a reflection occurs when an individual is able to "let go of how what they thought they knew and move into another place." The examples of Galileo, Columbus and Einstein are strong. And courage and honesty are key components of letting go. The flat earth experience is what I seek. It is why I study. It is why I live. It is me.

It is also my lens.

This may be harder than I thought.