September 1, 2024
Professor Carl Hendrick explaining the Semmelweis Reflex at ResearchED in Greenwich, Connecticut in April 2024
On the Semmelweis Reflex, cognitive science, and Building Thinking Classrooms
Hi, how are you, I hope you’ve had a good summer, and that you’ve had a good start to the school year. I have so much that I’d like to write about that I’ll never get to it all at this rate. But Building Thinking Classrooms has been on my mind a lot lately, so BTC it is.
I know that BTC is a big topic because my most widely read posts ever have been about BTC—many more people have read them than are actually subscribed to this Substack, so they’ve clearly been shared a lot. Coaching Letter #181 is about what I learned from watching Peter facilitate the first time we brought him to Connecticut, just over a year ago. That was mostly about facilitating adult learning. Coaching Letter #198 is a mildly snarky rejoinder to people who criticize BTC without having gone to much trouble to try and understand what a BTC classroom actually looks like. I mean, I’m all for a healthy debate, but surely you should know something about what you’re tearing down? (CL #198 was also nicely summarized by Kim Marshall in issue 1038 of the Marshall Memo, in case you have access to that archive.)
Jason To wrote a blog post a couple of days ago, related to but a different approach to of what I tried to do in CL #198. At the very least it’s less catty. And then Greg Ashman responded with why BTC is nonsense.
My dad owns a very old copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I believe it’s the 9th edition, published in 1889, but I could be off by a few years. Anyway, it’s 25 volumes, in its own rotating bookcase, with an attached reading stand. Very beautiful. And, there’s an article on flight, and how it’s not feasible because, you know, 1889. So I have this picture in my head of the BTC critics standing at the end of the runway at LAX with bullhorns and copies of the encyclopedia trying to explain to the pilots of 747s and A380s taking off why what they are doing is just not possible.
I don’t mean to sound like a BTC zealot, because I’m really not. I just think that if you want to have a conversation about it, you should come to the conversation with an open mind. I mean, is nobody interested in data? Because even if there are no large scale studies showing the effects of a BTC approach, there are lots of teachers who can show high growth scores with BTC, and tell stories of previously unmotivated kids who participate now, or kids whose IEP accommodations have become unnecessary, or kids who speak English as a second or third language who find a BTC approach much more accessible. Don’t you want to know what’s happening in those classrooms? (You could go observe in one, or you could listen to this Mindshift podcast, which is pretty good.) I firmly believe that we should forever be trying to find effective practices to test out in other settings in a quest to continuously improve the instruction that students experience. (I wrote about that in CL #190).
I’m also pretty desperate not to fall into the same trap that the cognitive science crowd has, I think, fallen into—I can’t immediately explain this, it doesn’t fall neatly into my schema for how things ought to work, and so I dismiss it out of hand. The irony here is that there is a term for this, the Semmelweis Reflex, “The reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms,” (closely related to confirmation bias) that the cognitive science crowd likes to quote all the time because they think that they are the ones doing the schema-challenging. And I count myself as one of the cognitive science crowd! And intellectual humility is always one of my growth goals…
Speaking of intellectual humility, there are a few other articles that you might find interesting. “What does it really mean to learn?” in the New Yorker, is an argument for reading widely. “Beyond inquiry or direct instruction” is a research article about the ongoing spat between the “Inquiry sucks! DI rules!” branch of the cognitive science crowd and the “Not so fast, it depends on what you’re trying to teach” dissenters. “Don’t be blinded by your own expertise” is an HBR article that I go back to from time to time, because I think I am susceptible to the Semmelweis Reflex—in particular, I tend to start thinking about why some idea is horsefeathers before I’ve even finished reading/listening. It’s not an attractive trait, nor is it helpful in the long run, especially to me, but it is gratifying in the short term, which is why it’s dangerous. I know a lot, and I’m invested in that knowledge, and sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m supposed to use that knowledge as a tool and not a weapon.
So, for what it’s worth, I responded to Greg Ashman’s Substack post. I remember telling one of my sons during Covid that I’d got into a Twitter war over a post about vaccines. I was quite proud of my rhetorical parries, but he just rolled his eyes and went back upstairs. I am confident that I am not alone in believing that my children are wiser than I am.
We hosted a book study for the new BTC book this summer (and by “we”, I mean Tom). If you want those resources, you can find them here. Many thanks to Tom, Bridget and Amber for making that happen, and to Peter for joining us for one of the sessions. Tom has a new Substack, The Core of the Matter, which you should sign up for if you are interested in math instruction or if you want to know more about effective instruction in general. And if you want to be on our BTC update list for all the work that we’re doing to support thinking classrooms, sign up here. Finally, the Coaching Letter is free, so please share with others you think might be interested. Good luck for the new school year, and thank you for all you do to support students. You rock. Best, Isobel
Isobel Stevenson, PhD PCC
860-576-9410
@IsobelTX
Author of The Coaching Letter
Author with Jennie Weiner of The Strategy Playbook for Educational Leaders: Principles and Processes Routledge, 2021
Author with Sarah Woulfin & Kerry Lord of Making Coaching Matter: Leading Continuous Improvement in Schools Teachers College Press, 2023
