We teachers want to teach the "truth" or reality. What is reality? First, there is a religious reality, which cannot be proven or disproven. I think it exists but I have no means other than argument to convince. The other reality is a logical, scientific reality based on proving a hypothesis. Hypotheses are checked using replicated experimental studies. These can be proven at a certain confidence level, typically 95 percent, meaning that we have a 95 percent certainty that the change in the dependent variable is due to the intervention and not to chance. This is how we know, through experiments, that medical or other interventions do certain things.
We also have correlational studies, but these are less convincing because variables are not controlled, so a third variable could be the cause. Anecdotal evidence is similar. It has emotional weight, and we really believe it when we see it in front of our eyes, but it is not logically convincing because another variable could be the cause. For example, a kid gets sick after a vaccine. It could be the vaccine, but it could also be thousands of other things. Only the scientific method, experiments, will find the truth. So, not all evidence has equal weight or validity. Otherwise, reality would be a matter of opinion and personal choice (as it is in the religious realm).
In psychology, biology, physics, and chemistry classes we test reality through experimentation as described above. As a history teacher, how do I teach reality? We do not perform or cite experimental studies in history. All of the evidence is correlational at best and usually anecdotal. So how do we know if the Democratic party ensures greater prosperity or the Republicans defend the country better? How do we know if Keynesian policies work? We cannot be as sure that past successes or failures were due to this or that policy, though if the same results keep happening I would form biases. Since we don't really know the truth, the only fair way to teach non-scientific controversial issues is to give our students information about all the major viewpoints.
Very interesting. Well written and thought provoking (as you shall see). I agree with your conclusion to teach all major schools of thought, in regards to history.
ReplyDeleteBut, I am compelled to ask... Isn't "religious reality" really "religious faith"? From my perspective reality has properties that are distinct from faith. If indeed there is such a thing as religious reality, how would you distinguish that from faith?
Excellent point. I differentiate religious reality from faith by looking at the difference between what we believe without proof and what we believe through a more objective process. The Rambam (Maimonides)wrote that logic and reason and Scripture end up in the same place. We agree that it is logical to have a society with laws against murder and stealing. Religion tells us the same thing. On the other hand, waiting for the Messiah may be a more faith-based exercise. I hope this explanation clarifies my thinking. :-)
ReplyDeleteThis comment is from talented musician and well-read friend, Steven Schuster. He has inspired me to read the Greek and Roman classics. He emailed me his comments and gave me permission to post them here. The system won't accept a post this long, so I have broken it up.
ReplyDelete> Why teach all viewpoints?
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> We teachers want to teach the "truth" or reality.
I believe this is impossible. You may be able to teach what you believe to be true. And you may be able to convey many aspects of the reality YOU believe exists. You may also (most important thing to teach!) teach the tools which will enable the students to be more likely to recognize true things, and expand the parameters of what they perceive as reality.
> What is reality? First, there is a religious reality, which cannot be proven or disproven. I think it exists but I have no means other than argument to convince. The other reality is a logical, scientific reality based on proving a hypothesis. Hypotheses are checked using replicated experimental studies. These can be proven at a certain confidence level, typically 95 percent, meaning that we have a 95 percent certainty that the change in the dependent variable is due to the intervention and not to chance. This is how we know, through experiments, that medical or other interventions do certain things.
There are an infinite number of realities. You have delineated two. Even if you believe in an objective reality, we are victims of our limited senses. A hummingbird's sense of objective time, eg, is a distinctly different sense of time from a tortoise's. And time is, apparently (an apt word for time) objectively based on light, and its behavior, which is not constant, but variable.
Steven part two:
ReplyDeleteI won't touch a religious reality, any more than you would touch a too much LSD peaking reality. I can navigate more comfortably in my own hallucinations than in the group hallucinations of 2600 (Jews), 2400 Greeks, or 2010 (Christians), or 1410 (Moslems) years ago, all tempered by the passage through the filters of Syrian stylites, insaneimams, rabid rabbis, meretricious monks, pedophiliac popes, et al. I don't deny your religious reality, but I find all such realities incongruent with the scientific method.
I believe teaching tools of understanding the "scientific" method (not a reality, just a means of better understanding what may be real) is the ONE of the most important things one can try to teach. As a history teacher it seems important to present matters as reconstructions of possible realities, to teach the students that thinking about the past is fascinating, and yet, essentially unknowable, at the same time. If you can make the student's sense of reality (what a bizarre sense of reality a teenager in today's culture has!) in some way be congruent with the presented tale of the past, you have done your job well.
Steven part three:
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> We also have correlational studies, but these are less convincing because variables are not controlled, so a third variable could be the cause. Anecdotal evidence is similar.
> It has emotional weight, and we really believe it when we see it in front of our eyes, but it is not logically convincing because another variable could be the cause. For example, a kid gets sick after a vaccine. It could be the vaccine, but it could also be thousands of other things.
Things are complicated. Heisenberg is uncertain. Like using a slide rule, or a calculator, or writing music, one must proof read results to make certain they are congruent with empirical knowledge. If not, either there has been a mistake made, OR one's empirical observations have errors.
> Only the scientific method, experiments, will find the truth.
Depending, unfortunately, on who funds the scientific tests. Follow the money.
> So, not all evidence has equal weight or validity.
Jeez, ya' think?
> Otherwise, reality would be a matter of opinion and personal choice (as it is in the religious realm).
You believe there is an objective reality. I don't, in that all the exterior (to our"selves") is subject to input via our senses, which are beautifully adept at managing to make our world survivable. A dog's reality involves a lot more gradations of smell, than mine which is pretty basic, but mine lets me not eat food gone bad (except wine, which after all is just grape juice gone bad). And your sense of time lets you play drums very well between about 60 and 320 beats a minute, but, I suspect, leaves you a little sketchy at 30 undivided BPM.
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> In psychology, biology, physics, and chemistry classes we test reality through experimentation as described above.
I fear I don't share your inclusion of "psychology" as a hard science subject to the same disciplines as the others.
> As a history teacher, how do I teach reality?
I would suggest you can only teach your tools for your understanding of the past.
> We do not perform or cite experimental studies in history. All of the evidence is correlational at best and usually anecdotal.
Cliche'..., but also included in the etymology of the word "history"-written by the victors.
> So how do we know if the Democratic party ensures greater prosperity or the Republicans defend the country better?
This doesn't seem (to me) to be the function of history, or its teaching. To even ask such questions one would have to simplify the structure of events overly, or take infinitely thin slices of time to analyze situations with such simplified questions.
> How do we know if Keynesian policies work? We cannot be as sure that past successes or failures were due to this or that policy, though if the same results keep happening I would form biases.
As we all do. So, if you can continue to remember that these are biases, (not become a "true believer" [word play intentional]) and label them as such, and give as best you can the reasons you believe them to be true, you are performing valuable service to the students.
> Since we don't really know the truth,
And can't.
> the only fair way to teach non-scientific controversial issues is to give our students information about all the major viewpoints.
Like Fox news, fair and balanced?
But you can but try.
Steven