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#reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms
flipchild · 2 years
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Against Method -- A Sketch of the Argument (italics mine)
Introduction: Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.
1: This is shown both by an examination of historical episodes and by an abstract analysis of the relation between idea and action. The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes. (epistemological anarchism)
2: For example, we may use hypotheses that contradict well-confirmed theories and/or well-established experimental results. We may advance science by proceeding counterinductively.
3: The consistency condition which demands that new hypotheses agree with accepted theories is unreasonable because it preserves the older theory, and not the better theory. Hypotheses contradicting well-confirmed theories give us evidence that cannot be obtained in any other way. Proliferation of theories is beneficial for science, while uniformity impairs its critical power. Uniformity also endangers the free development of the individual.
4: There is no idea, however ancient and absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge. The whole history of thought is absorbed into science and is used for improving every single theory. Nor is political interference rejected. It may be needed to overcome the chauvinism of science that resists alternatives to the status quo.
5: No theory ever agrees with all the facts in its domain, yet it is not always the theory that is to blame. Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress. It is also a first step in our attempt to find the principles implicit in familiar observational notions. (relates to the theory-laden nature of observation, observational norms, idea that the particular selection of what evidence would falsify a theory is normatively-derived)
6: As an example of such an attempt I examine the tower argument which the Aristotelians used to refute the motion of the earth. The argument involves natural interpretations - ideas so closely connected with observations that it needs a special effort to realize their existence and to determine their content. Galileo identifies the natural interpretations which are inconsistent with Copernicus and replaces them by others.
7: The new natural interpretations constitute a new and highly abstract observation language. They are introduced and concealed so that one fails to notice the change that has taken place (method of anamnesis). They contain the idea of the relativity of all motion and the law of circular inertia.
8: In addition to natural interpretations, Galileo also changes sensations that seem to endanger Copernicus. He admits that there are such sensations, he praises Copernicus for having disregarded them, he claims to have removed them with the help of the telescope. However, he offers no theoretical reasons why the telescope should be expected to give a true picture of the sky.
9: Nor does the initial experience with the telescope provide such reasons. The first telescopic observations of the sky are indistinct, indeterminate, contradictory and in conflict with what everyone can see with his unaided eyes. And, the only theory that could have helped to separate telescopic illusions from veridical phenomena was refuted by simple tests.
10: On the other hand, there are some telescopic phenomena which are plainly Copernican. Galileo introduces these phenomena as independent evidence for Copernicus while the situation is rather that one refuted view -Copernicanism - has a certain similarity with phenomena emerging from another refuted view - the idea that telescopic phenomena are faithful images of the sky.
11: Such “irrational” methods of support are needed because of the “uneven development” (Marx, Lenin) of different parts of science. Copernicanism and other essential ingredients of modern science survived only because reason was frequently overruled in their past.
12: Galileo’s method works in other fields as well. For example, it can be used to eliminate the existing arguments against materialism, and to put an end to the philosophical mind/body problem (the corresponding scientific problems remain untouched, however). It does not follow that it should be universally applied.
13: The Church at the time of Galileo not only kept closer to reason as defined then and, in part, even now: it also considered the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s views. Its indictment of Galileo was rational and only opportunism and a lack of perspective can demand a revision.
14: Galileo’s inquiries formed only a small part of the so-called Copernican Revolution. Adding the remaining elements makes it still more difficult to reconcile the development with familiar principles of theory evaluation.
15: The results obtained so for suggest abolishing the distinction between a context of discovery and a context of justification, norms and facts, observational terms and theoretical terms. None of these distinctions plays a role in scientific practice. Attempts to enforce them would have disastrous consequences. Popper's critical rationalism foils for the same reasons. (Facts are socially-situated; all observational terms are theoretical terms -- there is no presuppositionless or theory-free observation)
Appendix 1
16: Finally, the kind of comparison that underlies most methodologies is possible only in some rather simple cases. It breaks down when we try to compare non-scientific views with science and when we consider the most advanced, most general and therefore most mythological parts of science itself.
Appendix 2
17: Neither science nor rationality are universal measures of excellence. They are particular traditions, unaware of their historical grounding.
18: Yet it is possible to evaluate standards of rationality and to improve them. The principles of improvement are neither above tradition nor beyond change and it is impossible to nail them down.
19: Science is neither a single tradition, nor the best tradition there is, except for people who have become accustomed to its presence, its benefits and its disadvantages. In a democracy it should be separated from the state just as churches are now separated from the state.
20: The point of view underlying this book is not the result of a well-planned train of thought but of arguments prompted by accidental encounters. Anger at the wanton destruction of cultural achievements from which we all could have learned, at the conceited assurance with which some intellectuals interfere with the lives of people, and contempt for the treacly phrases they use to embellish their misdeeds was and still is the motive force behind my work.
Feyerabend, Paul. 1993. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge.
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kimplicaties · 7 years
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Semmelweis reflex
The Semmelweis reflex or Semmelweis effect is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms.
The term originated from the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, who discovered that childbed fever mortality rates reduced ten-fold when doctors washed their hands with a chlorine solution between patients and, most particularly, after an autopsy (at the institution where Semmelweis worked, a university hospital, physicians performed autopsies on every deceased patient). Semmelweis's decision stopped the ongoing contamination of patients—mostly pregnant women—with cadaverous particles. His hand-washing suggestions were rejected by doctors of his time, often for non-medical reasons. For instance, some doctors refused to believe that a gentleman's hands could transmit disease.
Meer lezen over deze fascinerende ontdekking:
Semmelweis was erin geslaagd een verklaring te vinden voor een verschrikkelijke ziekte, hoewel de bacteriologische achtergrond pas later door (onder meer) Louis Pasteur aan het licht werd gebracht. Maar veel eer zou de Hongaarse arts niet krijgen. Hij had aangetoond dat het medische personeel decennialang verantwoordelijk was geweest voor de dood van duizenden en duizenden vrouwen. Dat woog bij velen te zwaar op het geweten om het onder ogen te zien. 
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mahleur · 4 years
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100 (big) little idea
Depressive Realism: Depressed people have a more accurate view of the world because they’re more realistic about how risky and fragile life is. The opposite of “blissfully unaware.”
Skill Compensation: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.
Curse of Knowledge: The inability to communicate your ideas because you wrongly assume others have the necessary background to understand what you’re talking about.
Base Rates: The success rate of everyone who’s done what you’re about to try.
Base-Rate Neglect: Assuming the success rate of everyone who’s done what you’re about to try doesn’t apply to you, caused by overestimating the extent to which you do things differently than everyone else.
Compassion Fade: People have more compassion for small groups of victims than larger groups, because the smaller the group the easier it is to identify individual victims.
System Justification Theory: Inefficient systems will be defended and maintained if they serve the needs of people who benefit from them – individual incentives can sustain systemic stupidity.
Three Men Make a Tiger: People will believe anything if enough people tell them it’s true. It comes from a Chinese proverb that if one person tells you there’s a tiger roaming around your neighborhood, you can assume they’re lying. If two people tell you, you begin to wonder. If three say it’s true, you’re convinced there’s a tiger in your neighborhood and you panic.
Buridan’s Ass: A thirsty donkey is placed exactly midway between two pails of water. It dies because it can’t make a rational decision about which one to choose. A form of decision paralysis.
Pareto Principle: The majority of outcomes are driven by a minority of events.
Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crap.” The obvious inverse of the Pareto Principle, but hard to accept in practice.
Cumulative advantage: Social status snowballs in either direction because people like associating with successful people, so doors are opened for them, and avoid associating with unsuccessful people, for whom doors are closed.
Impostor Syndrome: Fear of being exposed as less talented than people think you are, often because talent is owed to cumulative advantage rather than actual effort or skill.
Anscombe’s Quartet: Four sets of numbers that look identical on paper (mean average, variance, correlation, etc.) but look completely different when graphed. Describes a situation where exact calculations don’t offer a good representation of how the world works.
Ringelmann Effect: Members of a group become lazier as the size of their group increases. Based on the assumption that “someone else is probably taking care of that.”
Semmelweis Reflex: Automatically rejecting evidence that contradicts your tribe’s established norms. Named after a Hungarian doctor who discovered that patients treated by doctors who wash their hands suffer fewer infections, but struggled to convince other doctors that his finding was true.
False-Consensus Effect: Overestimating how widely held your own beliefs are, caused by the difficulty of imagining the experiences of other people.
Boomerang Effect: Trying to persuade someone to do one thing can make them more likely to do the opposite, because the act of persuasion can feel like someone stealing your freedom and doing the opposite makes you feel like you’re taking your freedom back.
Chronological Snobbery: “The assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also ‘a period,’ and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions.” – C.S. Lewis
Planck’s Principle: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
McNamara Fallacy: A belief that rational decisions can be made with quantitative measures alone, when in fact the things you can’t measure are often the most consequential. Named after Defense Secretary McNamara, who tried to quantify every aspect of the Vietnam War.
Courtesy Bias: Giving opinions that are likely to offend people the least, rather than what you actually believe.
Berkson’s Paradox: Strong correlations can fall apart when combined with a larger population. Among hospital patients, motorcycle crash victims wearing helmets are more likely to be seriously injured than those not wearing helmets. But that’s because most crash victims saved by helmets did not need to become hospital patients, and those without helmets are more likely to die before becoming a hospital patient.
Group Attribution Error: Incorrectly assuming that the views of a group member reflect those of the whole group.
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: Noticing an idea everywhere you look as soon as it’s brought to your attention in a way that makes you overestimate its prevalence.
Ludic Fallacy: Falsely associated simulations with real life. Nassim Taleb: “Organized competitive fighting trains the athlete to focus on the game and, in order not to dissipate his concentration, to ignore the possibility of what is not specifically allowed by the rules, such as kicks to the groin, a surprise knife, et cetera. So those who win the gold medal might be precisely those who will be most vulnerable in real life.”
Normalcy Bias: Underestimating the odds of disaster because it’s comforting to assume things will keep functioning the way they’ve always functioned.
Actor-Observer Asymmetry: We judge others based solely on their actions, but when judging ourselves we have an internal dialogue that justifies our mistakes and bad decisions.
The 90-9-1 Rule: In social media networks, 90% of users just read content, 9% of users contribute a little content, and 1% of users contribute almost all the content. Gives a false impression of what ideas are popular or “average.”
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: Goals set retroactively after an activity, like shooting a blank wall and then drawing a bullseye around the holes you left, or picking a benchmark after you’ve invested.
Fredkin’s Paradox: Confronted with two equally good options, you struggle to decide, even though your decision doesn’t matter because both options are equally good. The more equal the options, the harder the decision.
Poisoning the Well: Presenting irrelevant adverse information about someone in a way that makes everything else that person says seem untrustworthy. “Before you hear my opponent’s healthcare plan, let me remind you that he got a DUI in college.”
Golem Effect: Performance declines when supervisors/teachers have low expectations of your abilities.
Appeal to Consequences: Arguing that a hypothesis must be true (or false) because the outcome is something you like (or dislike). The classic example is arguing that climate change isn’t real because combating climate change will hurt the economy.
Plain Folks Fallacy: People of authority acquiring trust by presenting themselves as Average Joe’s, when in fact their authority proves they are different from everyone else.
Behavioral Inevitability: “History never repeats itself; man always does.” – Voltaire
Apophenia: A tendency to perceive correlations between unrelated things, because your mind can only deal with tiny sample sizes and assuming things are correlated creates easy/comforting explanations of how the world works.
Self-Handicapping: Avoiding effort because you don’t want to deal with the emotional pain of that effort failing.
Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
False Uniqueness Effect: Assuming your skills are unique when they’re not. Comes from conflating “I’m good at this” with “Others are bad at this.”
Hard-Easy Effect: Hard tasks promote overconfidence because the rewards are high and fun to dream about; easy tasks promote underconfidence because they’re boring and easy to put off.
Neglect of Probability: Arguing that Nate Silver was wrong when he said Hillary Clinton has a 70% chance of winning, and using Donald Trump’s victory as your proof. Good predictions are based on probabilities, but the assessment of predictions are always binary, right or wrong.
Cobra Effect: Attempting to solve a problem makes that problem worse. Comes from an Indian story about a city infested with snakes offering a bounty for every dead cobra, which caused entrepreneurs to start breeding cobras for slaughter.
Braess’s Paradox: Adding more roads can make traffic worse because new shortcuts become popular and overcrowded.
Non-Ergodic: When group probabilities don’t apply to singular events. If 100 people play Russian Roulette once, the odds of dying might be, say, 10%. But if one person plays Russian Roulette 100 times, the odds are dying are practically 100%.
Pollyanna Principle: It’s easier to remember happy memories than bad ones.
Declinism: Perpetually viewing society as in decline, because you’re afflicted by the Pollyanna Principle and you forget how much things sucked in the past.
Empathy Gap: Underestimating how you’ll behave when you’re “hot” (angry/aroused/rushed), caused by the inability to accurately foresee how your body’s physical response to situations (dopamine, adrenaline, etc.) will influence decision-making.
Abilene Paradox: A group decides to do something that no one in the group wants to do because everyone mistakenly assumes they’re the only ones who object to the idea and they don’t want to rock the boat by speaking up.
Collective Narcissism: Exaggerating the importance and influence of your social group (country, industry, company, department, etc.).
Moral Luck: Praising someone for a good deed they didn’t have full control over. “Avoid calling heroes those who had no other choice.” – Taleb.
Feedback Loops: Falling stock prices scare people, which cause them to sell, which makes prices fall, which scares more people, which causes more people to sell, and so on. Works both ways.
Hawthorne Effect: Being watched/studied changes how people behave, making it difficult to conduct social studies that accurately reflect the real world.
Perfect Solution Fallacy: Comparing reality with an idealized alternative. Prevalent in any field governed by uncertainty.
Weasel Words: Phrases that appear to have meaning but convey nothing tangible. “Growth was solid last quarter,” or “Many people believe.”
Hormesis: Something that hurts you in a high dose can be good for you in small doses. (Weight on your bones, drinking red wine, etc.)
Backfiring Effect: A supercharged version of confirmation bias where being presented with evidence that goes against your beliefs makes you double down on your initial beliefs because you feel you’re being attacked.
Reflexivity: When cause and effect are the same. People think Tesla will sell a lot of cars, so Tesla stock goes up, which lets Tesla raise a bunch of new capital, which helps Tesla sell a lot of cars.
Second Half of the Chessboard: Put one grain of rice on the first chessboard square, two on the next, four on the next, then eight, then sixteen, etc, doubling the amount of rice on each square. When you’ve covered half the chessboard’s squares you’re dealing with an amount of rice that can fit in your lap; in the second half you quickly get to a pile that will consume an entire city. That’s how compounding works: slowly, then ferociously.
Peter Principle: Good workers will continue to be promoted until they end up in a role they’re bad at.
Friendship Paradox: On average, people have fewer friends than their friends have. Occurs because people with an abnormally high number of friends are more likely to be one of your friends. It’s a fundamental part of social network dynamics and makes most people feel less popular than they are.
Hedonic Treadmill: Expectations rise with results, so nothing feels as good as you’d imagine for as long as you’d expect.
Positive Illusions: Excessively rosy views about the decisions you’ve made to maintain self-esteem in a world where everyone makes bad decisions all the time.
Ironic Process Theory: Going out of your way to suppress thoughts makes those thoughts more prominent in your mind.
Clustering Illusions: Falsely assuming that the inevitable bunching of random results in a large sample indicates a trend.
Foundational Species: A single thing that plays an outsized role in supporting an ecosystem, whose loss would pull down many others with it. In nature: kelp, algae, and coral. In business: The Federal Reserve and Amazon.
Bizarreness Effect: Crazy things are easier to remember than common things, providing a distorted sense of “normal.”
Nonlinearity: Outputs aren’t always proportional to inputs, so the world is a barrage of massive wins and horrible losses that surprise people.
Moderating Relationship: The correlation between two variables depends on a third, seemingly unrelated variable. The quality of a marriage may be dependent on a spouse’s work project that’s causing stress.
Denomination Effect: One hundred $1 bills feels like less money than one $100 bill. Also explains stock splits – buying 10 shares for $10 each feels cheaper than one share for $100.
Woozle Effect: “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.” - Daniel Kahneman.
Google Scholar Effect: Scientific research depends on citing other research, and the research that gets cited the most is whatever shows up in the top results of Google Scholar searches, regardless of its contribution to the field.
Inversion: Avoiding problems can be more important than scoring wins.
Gambler’s Ruin: Has many meanings, the most important of which is that playing a negative-probability game persistently enough guarantees going broke.
Principle of Least Effort: When seeking information, effort declines as soon as the minimum acceptable result is reached.
Dunning-Kruger Effect: Knowing the limits of your intelligence requires a certain level of intelligence, so some people are too stupid to know how stupid they are.
Knightian Uncertainty: Risk that can’t be measured; admitting that you don’t know what you don’t know.
Aumann’s Agreement Theorem: If you understand your opponent’s beliefs you cannot agree to disagree. If you agree to disagree it’s because one side doesn’t understand the other side’s view.
Focusing Effect: Overemphasizing factors that seem important but exist as part of a complex system. People from the Midwest assume Californians are happier because the weather is better, but they’re not because Californians also deal with traffic, bad bosses, unhappy marriages, etc, which more than offset the happiness boost from sunny skies.
The Middle Ground Fallacy: Falsely assuming that splitting the difference between two polar opposite views is a healthy compromise. If one person says vaccines cause autism and another person says they don’t, it’s not right to compromise and say vaccines sometimes cause autism.
Rebound Effect: New symptoms, or supercharged old symptoms, emerge when medicine or other protections are withdrawn.
Ostrich Effect: Avoiding negative information that might challenge views that you desperately want to be right.
Founder’s Syndrome: When a CEO is so emotionally invested in a company that they can’t effectively delegate decisions.
In-Group Favoritism: Giving preference to people from your social group regardless of their objective qualifications.
Bounded Rationality: People can’t be fully rational because your brain is a hormone machine, not an Excel spreadsheet.
Luxury Paradox: The more expensive something is the less likely you are to use it, so the relationship between price and utility is an inverted U. Ferraris sit in garages; Hondas get driven.
Meat Paradox: Dogs are family, pigs are food. Some animals classified as food are wrongly perceived to have lower intelligence than those classified as pets. An example of morality depending on utility.
Fluency Heuristic: Ideas that can be explained simply are more likely to be believed than those that are complex, even if the simple-sounding ideas are nonsense. It occurs because ideas that are easy to grasp are hard to distinguish from ideas you’re familiar with.
Historical Wisdom: “The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril.” – Niall Ferguson
Fact-Check Scarcity Principle: This article is called 100 Little Ideas but there are fewer than 100 ideas. 99% of readers won’t notice because they’re not checking, and most of those who notice won’t say anything. Don’t believe everything you read.
Emotional Contagion: One person’s emotions trigger the same emotions in other people, because evolution has selected for empathizing with those in your social group whose actions you rely on.
Tribal Affiliation: Beliefs can be swayed by identity and a desire to fit in over rational analysis. There is little correlation between climate change denial and scientific literacy. But there is a strong correlation between climate change denial and political affiliation.
Emotional Competence: The ability to recognize others’ emotions and respond to them productively. Harder and rarer than it sounds from https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/100-little-ideas/
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endevia · 5 years
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9 Ways to Teach Tolerance
If you watch the news, tolerance seems to be a lost art. College kids shout down speakers. Mobs throw chairs through windows. Hordes of hooligans loot stores. It’s not that we don’t try. The Kindness Movement is more popular than ever. TeachingTolerance.org even uses Black Lives Matter as a model for tolerance education. Martin Luther King Day is always chockful of admonitions against prejudice and intolerance.
But how do you teach it in the confines of a classroom? Another lesson plan? A movie about Mahatma Gandhi? Quotes like this from Helen Keller:
The highest result of education is tolerance.
These have all been done and by many measures, America and the world are more intolerant than ever. So what do you do in your classroom to get this important attitude across? Here are some fresh ideas that you may not have tried:
Model tolerant behavior
Words don’t stem the tide of intolerance. No matter how many times we say, “See the other’s perspective,” or “Be kind,” these words are meaningless to a dedicated zealot who feels the end justifies the means. Sometimes, the best way is simply to model tolerance. In writing, this is a powerful storytelling device called “show don’t tell”. It means instead of talking about tolerance, be tolerant. When a student gets angry over a grade, explain where they fell short or how to improve a grade.
Admittedly, in the current social media world, words are today’s doing. People join hashtag campaigns like #Nevergiveup or #Bringhomeourgirls. While these may raise public awareness, they don’t deliver the tolerance necessary to change the outcome. Don’t hashtag a sentiment; find an action for the words.
Defend yourself, but kindly
When a child is attacked, it’s instinct to counterpunch but that isn’t the most effective strategy. Usually, intolerant behavior is rooted in either 1) mimicking others the student respects,  or 2) having a lack of knowledge. On the second grade playground, kids throw insults back and forth but as they grow up, they learn to show respect even to an attacker by asking questions, starting a conversation, and digging deeper into the cause.
Reject intolerant behavior.
No matter how well-intentioned it is, the ends rarely justify the means. Always push back on intolerance. The ugly truth is that little intolerances grow into big ones. When you let minor stuff get by, you provide precedence for major stuff. Don’t do that. Stop it — kindly — before that action becomes habit.
There is more than one right answer.
Little in life has one right answer. Even 3+3 is 6 if you’re talking about Base 10 or 10 if you’re in Base 6. Don’t assume your answer is the only answer and don’t assume everyone agrees with you. In the face of disagreement, ask questions that start a conversation.
Chat — don’t lecture.
Lecturing is conflated with pontificating. Don’t do that. Instead, have a discussion. Because conversations are more relevant when supported by evidence, include the facts that support your lesson plan’s essential questions and big ideas. Welcome what students say to either support or contradict your points. In the end, students feel like they reach the right conclusions on their own and everyone feels valued for their contributions.
Every story has two sides.
Every one of them. No matter how obvious you believe something is, there’s someone who believes the opposite. Accept this other side even while asking that students support it with facts and evidence.
Teach respect.
Always respect students. They aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled. They are learners ready to evolve their thinking. They all have experiences, based on their own background, that you don’t. These will affect the way they learn. Accept that. If you don’t, they won’t respect you either.
By the way, bullying and cyberbullying have no place in a tolerant ecosystem. Expunge them. If it happens, address it immediately. Tolerance isn’t allowing these sorts of destructive actions to continue. It’s caring enough for the (cyber)bully to find out why he acts this way and reach out to help him fix it.
See other perspectives
Instead of trying to convince a child their view is wrong — using kind, non-judgmental words — look through their eyes. Why are they saying this? It’s unlikely they’re a horrible person so is it learned behavior? Or part of their culture? Many of our actions are based on our upbringing and accepted norms in our culture. If these are different than someone else’s, it doesn’t make them right or wrong. Just different. In my classroom, that’s a learning opportunity.
Review your school climate for tolerance
The conclusion of the CSEEE and NCLC’s White Paper, The School Climate Challenge, will not surprise most teachers, administrators, or parents:
…a safe and supportive school environment, in which students have positive social relationships and are respected, engaged in their work and feel competent, matters.
Assume students are innocent until proven guilty. Assume their perceived intolerance is not about attitude but lack of understanding. For example, many label recent politically-charged Supreme Court decisions as intolerant but when you dig into the facts behind it, you find closely-held beliefs on both sides to this story. They’re different perspectives that give you two sides to the story. Whether you agree or not with one side, being tolerant means accepting everyone doesn’t agree with you — and that’s a good thing.
In reviewing your school tolerance climate, start by establishing an accepted definition of the terms “school climate” and “tolerance”. That done, assess school climate in the cold eye of reality using one of the many procedures available (like this one from the National Center for Community Schools). The final step is to act on the results.
***
This is not an easy topic. It is fraught with danger, hurt feelings, angry retorts, and not at all for the faint of heart. Still, the repercussions of intolerance make the effort worth it. I’d love if you would share how you address intolerance in your school.
— published first on TeachHUB
More on teaching tolerance in schools
5 Lesson Plans to Teach Tolerance (from Education World)
Empatico-Build Global Awareness in Students
Positive focus; Positive behaviors
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a weekly contributor to TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
9 Ways to Teach Tolerance published first on https://medium.com/@greatpricecourse
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corpasa · 5 years
Text
9 Ways to Teach Tolerance
If you watch the news, tolerance seems to be a lost art. College kids shout down speakers. Mobs throw chairs through windows. Hordes of hooligans loot stores. It’s not that we don’t try. The Kindness Movement is more popular than ever. TeachingTolerance.org even uses Black Lives Matter as a model for tolerance education. Martin Luther King Day is always chockful of admonitions against prejudice and intolerance.
But how do you teach it in the confines of a classroom? Another lesson plan? A movie about Mahatma Gandhi? Quotes like this from Helen Keller:
The highest result of education is tolerance.
These have all been done and by many measures, America and the world are more intolerant than ever. So what do you do in your classroom to get this important attitude across? Here are some fresh ideas that you may not have tried:
Model tolerant behavior
Words don’t stem the tide of intolerance. No matter how many times we say, “See the other’s perspective,” or “Be kind,” these words are meaningless to a dedicated zealot who feels the end justifies the means. Sometimes, the best way is simply to model tolerance. In writing, this is a powerful storytelling device called “show don’t tell”. It means instead of talking about tolerance, be tolerant. When a student gets angry over a grade, explain where they fell short or how to improve a grade.
Admittedly, in the current social media world, words are today’s doing. People join hashtag campaigns like #Nevergiveup or #Bringhomeourgirls. While these may raise public awareness, they don’t deliver the tolerance necessary to change the outcome. Don’t hashtag a sentiment; find an action for the words.
Defend yourself, but kindly
When a child is attacked, it’s instinct to counterpunch but that isn’t the most effective strategy. Usually, intolerant behavior is rooted in either 1) mimicking others the student respects,  or 2) having a lack of knowledge. On the second grade playground, kids throw insults back and forth but as they grow up, they learn to show respect even to an attacker by asking questions, starting a conversation, and digging deeper into the cause.
Reject intolerant behavior.
No matter how well-intentioned it is, the ends rarely justify the means. Always push back on intolerance. The ugly truth is that little intolerances grow into big ones. When you let minor stuff get by, you provide precedence for major stuff. Don’t do that. Stop it — kindly — before that action becomes habit.
There is more than one right answer.
Little in life has one right answer. Even 3+3 is 6 if you’re talking about Base 10 or 10 if you’re in Base 6. Don’t assume your answer is the only answer and don’t assume everyone agrees with you. In the face of disagreement, ask questions that start a conversation.
Chat — don’t lecture.
Lecturing is conflated with pontificating. Don’t do that. Instead, have a discussion. Because conversations are more relevant when supported by evidence, include the facts that support your lesson plan’s essential questions and big ideas. Welcome what students say to either support or contradict your points. In the end, students feel like they reach the right conclusions on their own and everyone feels valued for their contributions.
Every story has two sides.
Every one of them. No matter how obvious you believe something is, there’s someone who believes the opposite. Accept this other side even while asking that students support it with facts and evidence.
Teach respect.
Always respect students. They aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled. They are learners ready to evolve their thinking. They all have experiences, based on their own background, that you don’t. These will affect the way they learn. Accept that. If you don’t, they won’t respect you either.
By the way, bullying and cyberbullying have no place in a tolerant ecosystem. Expunge them. If it happens, address it immediately. Tolerance isn’t allowing these sorts of destructive actions to continue. It’s caring enough for the (cyber)bully to find out why he acts this way and reach out to help him fix it.
See other perspectives
Instead of trying to convince a child their view is wrong — using kind, non-judgmental words — look through their eyes. Why are they saying this? It’s unlikely they’re a horrible person so is it learned behavior? Or part of their culture? Many of our actions are based on our upbringing and accepted norms in our culture. If these are different than someone else’s, it doesn’t make them right or wrong. Just different. In my classroom, that’s a learning opportunity.
Review your school climate for tolerance
The conclusion of the CSEEE and NCLC’s White Paper, The School Climate Challenge, will not surprise most teachers, administrators, or parents:
…a safe and supportive school environment, in which students have positive social relationships and are respected, engaged in their work and feel competent, matters.
Assume students are innocent until proven guilty. Assume their perceived intolerance is not about attitude but lack of understanding. For example, many label recent politically-charged Supreme Court decisions as intolerant but when you dig into the facts behind it, you find closely-held beliefs on both sides to this story. They’re different perspectives that give you two sides to the story. Whether you agree or not with one side, being tolerant means accepting everyone doesn’t agree with you — and that’s a good thing.
In reviewing your school tolerance climate, start by establishing an accepted definition of the terms “school climate” and “tolerance”. That done, assess school climate in the cold eye of reality using one of the many procedures available (like this one from the National Center for Community Schools). The final step is to act on the results.
***
This is not an easy topic. It is fraught with danger, hurt feelings, angry retorts, and not at all for the faint of heart. Still, the repercussions of intolerance make the effort worth it. I’d love if you would share how you address intolerance in your school.
— published first on TeachHUB
More on teaching tolerance in schools
5 Lesson Plans to Teach Tolerance (from Education World)
Empatico-Build Global Awareness in Students
Positive focus; Positive behaviors
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a weekly contributor to TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
9 Ways to Teach Tolerance published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow
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evnoweb · 5 years
Text
9 Ways to Teach Tolerance
If you watch the news, tolerance seems to be a lost art. College kids shout down speakers. Mobs throw chairs through windows. Hordes of hooligans loot stores. It’s not that we don’t try. The Kindness Movement is more popular than ever. TeachingTolerance.org even uses Black Lives Matter as a model for tolerance education. Martin Luther King Day is always chockful of admonitions against prejudice and intolerance.
But how do you teach it in the confines of a classroom? Another lesson plan? A movie about Mahatma Gandhi? Quotes like this from Helen Keller:
The highest result of education is tolerance.
These have all been done and by many measures, America and the world are more intolerant than ever. So what do you do in your classroom to get this important attitude across? Here are some fresh ideas that you may not have tried:
Model tolerant behavior
Words don’t stem the tide of intolerance. No matter how many times we say, “See the other’s perspective,” or “Be kind,” these words are meaningless to a dedicated zealot who feels the end justifies the means. Sometimes, the best way is simply to model tolerance. In writing, this is a powerful storytelling device called “show don’t tell”. It means instead of talking about tolerance, be tolerant. When a student gets angry over a grade, explain where they fell short or how to improve a grade.
Admittedly, in the current social media world, words are today’s doing. People join hashtag campaigns like #Nevergiveup or #Bringhomeourgirls. While these may raise public awareness, they don’t deliver the tolerance necessary to change the outcome. Don’t hashtag a sentiment; find an action for the words.
Defend yourself, but kindly
When a child is attacked, it’s instinct to counterpunch but that isn’t the most effective strategy. Usually, intolerant behavior is rooted in either 1) mimicking others the student respects,  or 2) having a lack of knowledge. On the second grade playground, kids throw insults back and forth but as they grow up, they learn to show respect even to an attacker by asking questions, starting a conversation, and digging deeper into the cause.
Reject intolerant behavior.
No matter how well-intentioned it is, the ends rarely justify the means. Always push back on intolerance. The ugly truth is that little intolerances grow into big ones. When you let minor stuff get by, you provide precedence for major stuff. Don’t do that. Stop it — kindly — before that action becomes habit.
There is more than one right answer.
Little in life has one right answer. Even 3+3 is 6 if you’re talking about Base 10 or 10 if you’re in Base 6. Don’t assume your answer is the only answer and don’t assume everyone agrees with you. In the face of disagreement, ask questions that start a conversation.
Chat — don’t lecture.
Lecturing is conflated with pontificating. Don’t do that. Instead, have a discussion. Because conversations are more relevant when supported by evidence, include the facts that support your lesson plan’s essential questions and big ideas. Welcome what students say to either support or contradict your points. In the end, students feel like they reach the right conclusions on their own and everyone feels valued for their contributions.
Every story has two sides.
Every one of them. No matter how obvious you believe something is, there’s someone who believes the opposite. Accept this other side even while asking that students support it with facts and evidence.
Teach respect.
Always respect students. They aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled. They are learners ready to evolve their thinking. They all have experiences, based on their own background, that you don’t. These will affect the way they learn. Accept that. If you don’t, they won’t respect you either.
By the way, bullying and cyberbullying have no place in a tolerant ecosystem. Expunge them. If it happens, address it immediately. Tolerance isn’t allowing these sorts of destructive actions to continue. It’s caring enough for the (cyber)bully to find out why he acts this way and reach out to help him fix it.
See other perspectives
Instead of trying to convince a child their view is wrong — using kind, non-judgmental words — look through their eyes. Why are they saying this? It’s unlikely they’re a horrible person so is it learned behavior? Or part of their culture? Many of our actions are based on our upbringing and accepted norms in our culture. If these are different than someone else’s, it doesn’t make them right or wrong. Just different. In my classroom, that’s a learning opportunity.
Review your school climate for tolerance
The conclusion of the CSEEE and NCLC’s White Paper, The School Climate Challenge, will not surprise most teachers, administrators, or parents:
…a safe and supportive school environment, in which students have positive social relationships and are respected, engaged in their work and feel competent, matters.
Assume students are innocent until proven guilty. Assume their perceived intolerance is not about attitude but lack of understanding. For example, many label recent politically-charged Supreme Court decisions as intolerant but when you dig into the facts behind it, you find closely-held beliefs on both sides to this story. They’re different perspectives that give you two sides to the story. Whether you agree or not with one side, being tolerant means accepting everyone doesn’t agree with you — and that’s a good thing.
In reviewing your school tolerance climate, start by establishing an accepted definition of the terms “school climate” and “tolerance”. That done, assess school climate in the cold eye of reality using one of the many procedures available (like this one from the National Center for Community Schools). The final step is to act on the results.
***
This is not an easy topic. It is fraught with danger, hurt feelings, angry retorts, and not at all for the faint of heart. Still, the repercussions of intolerance make the effort worth it. I’d love if you would share how you address intolerance in your school.
— published first on TeachHUB
More on teaching tolerance in schools
5 Lesson Plans to Teach Tolerance (from Education World)
Empatico-Build Global Awareness in Students
Positive focus; Positive behaviors
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a weekly contributor to TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
9 Ways to Teach Tolerance published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse
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statrano · 5 years
Text
9 Ways to Teach Tolerance
If you watch the news, tolerance seems to be a lost art. College kids shout down speakers. Mobs throw chairs through windows. Hordes of hooligans loot stores. It’s not that we don’t try. The Kindness Movement is more popular than ever. TeachingTolerance.org even uses Black Lives Matter as a model for tolerance education. Martin Luther King Day is always chockful of admonitions against prejudice and intolerance.
But how do you teach it in the confines of a classroom? Another lesson plan? A movie about Mahatma Gandhi? Quotes like this from Helen Keller:
The highest result of education is tolerance.
These have all been done and by many measures, America and the world are more intolerant than ever. So what do you do in your classroom to get this important attitude across? Here are some fresh ideas that you may not have tried:
Model tolerant behavior
Words don’t stem the tide of intolerance. No matter how many times we say, “See the other’s perspective,” or “Be kind,” these words are meaningless to a dedicated zealot who feels the end justifies the means. Sometimes, the best way is simply to model tolerance. In writing, this is a powerful storytelling device called “show don’t tell”. It means instead of talking about tolerance, be tolerant. When a student gets angry over a grade, explain where they fell short or how to improve a grade.
Admittedly, in the current social media world, words are today’s doing. People join hashtag campaigns like #Nevergiveup or #Bringhomeourgirls. While these may raise public awareness, they don’t deliver the tolerance necessary to change the outcome. Don’t hashtag a sentiment; find an action for the words.
Defend yourself, but kindly
When a child is attacked, it’s instinct to counterpunch but that isn’t the most effective strategy. Usually, intolerant behavior is rooted in either 1) mimicking others the student respects,  or 2) having a lack of knowledge. On the second grade playground, kids throw insults back and forth but as they grow up, they learn to show respect even to an attacker by asking questions, starting a conversation, and digging deeper into the cause.
Reject intolerant behavior.
No matter how well-intentioned it is, the ends rarely justify the means. Always push back on intolerance. The ugly truth is that little intolerances grow into big ones. When you let minor stuff get by, you provide precedence for major stuff. Don’t do that. Stop it — kindly — before that action becomes habit.
There is more than one right answer.
Little in life has one right answer. Even 3+3 is 6 if you’re talking about Base 10 or 10 if you’re in Base 6. Don’t assume your answer is the only answer and don’t assume everyone agrees with you. In the face of disagreement, ask questions that start a conversation.
Chat — don’t lecture.
Lecturing is conflated with pontificating. Don’t do that. Instead, have a discussion. Because conversations are more relevant when supported by evidence, include the facts that support your lesson plan’s essential questions and big ideas. Welcome what students say to either support or contradict your points. In the end, students feel like they reach the right conclusions on their own and everyone feels valued for their contributions.
Every story has two sides.
Every one of them. No matter how obvious you believe something is, there’s someone who believes the opposite. Accept this other side even while asking that students support it with facts and evidence.
Teach respect.
Always respect students. They aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled. They are learners ready to evolve their thinking. They all have experiences, based on their own background, that you don’t. These will affect the way they learn. Accept that. If you don’t, they won’t respect you either.
By the way, bullying and cyberbullying have no place in a tolerant ecosystem. Expunge them. If it happens, address it immediately. Tolerance isn’t allowing these sorts of destructive actions to continue. It’s caring enough for the (cyber)bully to find out why he acts this way and reach out to help him fix it.
See other perspectives
Instead of trying to convince a child their view is wrong — using kind, non-judgmental words — look through their eyes. Why are they saying this? It’s unlikely they’re a horrible person so is it learned behavior? Or part of their culture? Many of our actions are based on our upbringing and accepted norms in our culture. If these are different than someone else’s, it doesn’t make them right or wrong. Just different. In my classroom, that’s a learning opportunity.
Review your school climate for tolerance
The conclusion of the CSEEE and NCLC’s White Paper, The School Climate Challenge, will not surprise most teachers, administrators, or parents:
…a safe and supportive school environment, in which students have positive social relationships and are respected, engaged in their work and feel competent, matters.
Assume students are innocent until proven guilty. Assume their perceived intolerance is not about attitude but lack of understanding. For example, many label recent politically-charged Supreme Court decisions as intolerant but when you dig into the facts behind it, you find closely-held beliefs on both sides to this story. They’re different perspectives that give you two sides to the story. Whether you agree or not with one side, being tolerant means accepting everyone doesn’t agree with you — and that’s a good thing.
In reviewing your school tolerance climate, start by establishing an accepted definition of the terms “school climate” and “tolerance”. That done, assess school climate in the cold eye of reality using one of the many procedures available (like this one from the National Center for Community Schools). The final step is to act on the results.
***
This is not an easy topic. It is fraught with danger, hurt feelings, angry retorts, and not at all for the faint of heart. Still, the repercussions of intolerance make the effort worth it. I’d love if you would share how you address intolerance in your school.
— published first on TeachHUB
More on teaching tolerance in schools
5 Lesson Plans to Teach Tolerance (from Education World)
Empatico-Build Global Awareness in Students
Positive focus; Positive behaviors
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a weekly contributor to TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
9 Ways to Teach Tolerance published first on https://seminarsacademy.tumblr.com/
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