Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis OR Tacit Knowledge
You know the feeling you get when something intuitively strikes you as true?
My job is about raising student achievement, and that implies for many people doing things differently. But teachers frequently resist doing things differently, which is often seen in a negative light.
I talk about this little moment a lot, but I don’t think I’ve written about it in my blog before: I went to an ASCD conference in New Orleans about 15 years ago, and attended a session with Debbie Meier, who was principal of a famously successful small school in New York City. One of the things she said, and I paraphrase her loosely, was:
Let’s face it, new things come along in education all the time, and most teachers are unaffected by them. And Thank God for that.
Her point was, I think, that if teachers tried to change their practice every time some new book was published, or a new training program marketed, the education system would be in chaos. This struck me as inherently true and wise.
So how do teachers decide when to change and when to stand firm with their current practices? I think I could write a dissertation on this. (Hmmm, what a good idea.) I was working on some other topic over the summer, and came across a couple of sources that I think help to answer some of this question.
One is the research on tacit knowledge, which, as soon as I started reading it, also struck me as true. The idea here is that we know more than we can articulate. We acquire knowledge about our craft through practicing it, or by observing others, and only partially through formal instruction. While I’m sure this is true for all professions, I have most knowledge of teaching, and I know from my own experience the intuition you build up about what will work and what will not, what to say in certain circumstances, how to deal with challenging students, and so on. I also know that I learned almost none of this from my teacher training program, and almost all of it from watching other teachers and from trial and error in my own classroom.
I went through the same experience when I became an administrator. A lot of my classroom-based expertise was of no use to me in the new setting, and I had to go through the same process of building up tacit knowledge, using what I had learned in educational leadership classes as a foundation, certainly, but only a foundation and not the whole structure.
Teachers value their tacit knowledge greatly, for good reason. It’s what makes them an asset to their students and their schools. And it is hard-earned; there is no pride to be had in something that anyone could just pull off the shelf and start using.
The corollary of this is a degree of skepticism about new knowledge (let’s call it research) that is presented without attention being paid to how it fits with one’s tacit knowledge. I think it’s this skepticism that is often interpreted as resistance to change, but I think it’s a healthy thing. In fact, I think a professional has an obligation to examine critically new information, to see how it fits with what has worked for them in the past.
Looking back on the change efforts that I have witnessed or participated in, I see a failure to account for teachers’ tacit knowledge. New things are presented without consideration for how they fit with what is working for teachers. This is an easy mistake to make, and is related to what we talk about regarding clarity of target in the classroom: the teacher has to know what the objective is, but what matters more is that the students understand it. The same is true when we talk about improving student achievement: the leader has to know what the objective is, but what matters more is that the people charged with implementing it (principals, teachers, paraeducators) understand it.
Reading that last sentence, it occurs to me that this example illuminates what it means to understand. It is more than comprehending the words. To understand means that it makes sense to you; it fits with what you already know and what works for you. Teachers are often asked to implement things without truly understanding it.
The other thing I came across that was helpful was an article that talked about how to harness tacit knowledge and make it explicit and therefore accessible to others. And really, that’s about asking people to share their tacit knowledge, and test it against new knowledge, and see where the gaps are, and try to fill them. It puts teachers in the driver’s seat regarding improvement of their practice, and engages them in action research. I like this concept very much, and will try to expand upon in it in the work I do.
Tacit knowledge is important, but it is not sacrosanct, and just as teachers should not be willing to adopt new strategies without asking good questions, they should not be willing to rely on their tacit knowledge without asking good questions.
Oh, and the title of this post? I couldn’t think of what to call it, which got me thinking about titles in general, which reminded me of this poem.
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis
Wendy Cope
It was a dream I had last week
And some kind of record seemed vital.
I knew it wouldn’t be much of a poem
But I love the title.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Isobel, this is very well done. One of your best I believe, and, I think you’re dead on. I think sometimes our presentations can feel, although they’re not meant to be, insulting.
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Isobel Stevenson Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Better than Kung Fu Panda? Just kidding. Thanks for the compliment, I really appreciate it, and I’m glad you agree.
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August 19th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
This is so valuable. Finding a way to share what you wrote with building administrators could be huge! I think it is often at the building level that certain new-fab programs are introduced (often lacking buy-in from staff). They could consider taking this idea into account when working with their staff during professional development.
Cheers!
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Isobel Stevenson Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Well, leadership is taking responsibility for what matters to you, so this is certainly a conversation that you could begin. I was at Brighton High School this morning, actually, meeting with the social studies teachers, and talked about this at length. That’s why I decided to write about it on my blog. And if you want the citations to read more about this, let me know.
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August 20th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Should this embrace of tacit knowledge then serve to lead administrators to abandon artificial constructs like pacing charts? Or to go even further, and abandon district-mandated curricular materials in some situations? And how does this dovetail with the wording of current district policy wording regarding equal educational opportunity and guaranteed curriculum and the more commonly-stated concern about a level of consistency between buildings and even between classrooms in the same building, at the same grade level?
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Isobel Stevenson Reply:
August 20th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
There is a big difference here. This is not about what to implement, and only partially about how to implement it. Here’s an example. My grandfather was a shipbuilder. He had no control over the type of ship the client wanted built, and no control over the templates the designers told him to follow. But he had huge tacit knowledge, built up over decades, on how to take a two dimensional blueprint and turn it into a three dimensional plate for the hull of a ship. Tacit knowledge fills in the gap between established procedures and execution. We’re not doing away with curriculum and curriculum maps, just like we wouldn’t let a pilot decide to land without the flaps, or a surgeon operate on a knee like it was done in 1972. That doesn’t detract from the skill either of those professionals needs to employ, and doesn’t lessen the value of their tacit knowledge.
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August 20th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Isobel, I loved this “blog”, my favorite line is:
“Tacit knowledge is important, but it is not sacrosanct, and just as teachers should not be willing to adopt new strategies without asking good questions, they should not be willing to rely on their tacit knowledge without asking good questions.”
I do have to confess, that I had to look up the meaning of “sacrosanct” to make sure it meant what thought you were saying.
I beleive that asking the good questions is one of the hardest skills to achieve as an educator when it involves reflecting on our own practices and aligning with new knowledge.
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Isobel Stevenson Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Here’s a quotation from Nonaka’s article, which I can pass on to you if you like:
People don’t just passively receive new knowledge, they actively interpret it to fit their own situation and perspective. Thus what makes sense in one context can change or even lose its meaning when communicated to people in a different context. As a result, there is continual shift in meaning as new knowledge is diffused in an organization.
The confusion created by the inevitable discrepancies in meaning that occur in any organization might seem like a problem. In fact, it can be a rich source of new knowledge—if a company knows how to manage it. The key to doing so is continuously challenging employees to reexamine what they take for granted. Such reflection is always necessary in the knowledge-creating company, but it is especially essential during times of crisis or breakdown, when a company’s traditional categories of knowledge no longer work.
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August 21st, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I always enjoy your blog, Isobel. I don’t read it nearly enough, mostly out of fear that my little mind will explode from all the information you provide.
I work in an industrial environment and this blog makes sense to me because we face the very same issue. What is the most effective way to reach the goals of the company while allowing the employees to utilize their tacit knowledge, promote autonomy among the employees, and achieve higher levels of engagement at all levels of the organization? Most people are resistent to change, no matter how rational the request for change is. This is not the domain of only teachers, but that of all humans.
High functioning organizations require trust. Trust comes from mutually committed participants, competence, and an understanding that most people really want to do the right thing. I am confident that as our school district builds trust among committed, competent, trustworthy participants we will reach the goals of the organization, take advantage of the tacit knowledge of our educators, and fully engage the entire organization.
Thank you for the thoughtful blog. You bring to light an important element of high functioning organizations, the utilization of expertise and experience.
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Isobel Stevenson Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I think it’s great that you can make the connection to your field. I think that’s part of what makes the concept of tacit knowledge so useful–it clearly applies across the board.
And thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate them.
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August 24th, 2009 at 9:01 am
WOW Isobel, you nailed this. I work with resistance pretty regularly these days and now understand the comment I sometimes hear from techers – “You need to respect our experience and expertise.” It’s all about balance, and understanding new research through the lens of tacit knowledge is a great image for me, as I continue to try to change the world!
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Isobel Stevenson Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I will email you a couple of things: a summary of Nonaka’s article on knowledge creation and the knowledge spiral, and the paper that I wrote on this topic. I won’t be upset if you don’t read my paper, but I really recommend you get hold of the Nonaka article. The citation is Nonaka, I. (2007). The knowledge-creating company. Harvard Business Review, 85(7, 8), 162-171.
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November 18th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
[...] stuff. I think it’s a really useful idea, so it’s worth coming back around. Maybe this post would help? I also have to do a little work to get back up to speed on action research–if [...]