False Comfort

I love numbers. I have done all my life. This means I am often excited to look at data, compare percentages and look for patterns. There is a certain comfort there. A solidity of fact. I take this same solidity from research. Both data and research give me security in an often messy and confusing job.

There are 26 children in my class. If 1 child has done something that means nearly 4% of the class have done it. Thus as a way of looking at a class percentages are extremely volatile. This isn’t to say the data is useless but rather that for small samples collecting an aggregate is seldom useful, much more useful is to consider trends in individual children’s performance.

There is a natural human need to make meaning. I enjoy numbers so I often start looking at data in the whole before withdrawing to individual cases. What I need to constantly remind myself of is the need to interrogate the validity and scope of this data. Far from being something that makes me feel comfortable data is something that should make me question and investigate. What does it show? Did it come from asking the right questions? Why did I get the results I did? Am I measuring the right things? What might the causal factors be? How confident am I in my conclusions? And many many more.

I mentioned research as another source of comfort. The issues here are different although the motivation is not, in our busy working lives it can be easy to grasp for easily applicable truths, but many mistakes can be made by using research at face value without deeper interrogation. The methodology, the caveats, the context in which something was introduced. Mary Myatt said that “Growth Mindsets need to be lived not laminated.” The same is true for research, we need to explore the intricacies and depths of research not just brandish it out of context as justification or cling to it for certainty. This is something I hope the Chartered Collage of Teaching will aid.

On my best days I put aside this attraction to certainty and think of teaching with the curiosity and joy of discovery. Often it seems easier or safer to be drawn to solidity and comfort but wonderful conversations with friends remind me that simplicity is a false comfort and that the true comfort is the solidarity of shared uncertainty.