Shifting the Burden of Education

The failed interventions

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

I owe most of my understanding about systems to Donella (Dana) Meadows.

After downing two of her books, my perspective shifted. I took my mental models and ensured they always factor in the systems perspective, including education.

Perhaps her most incisive contribution was leverage points. These are access areas in a system where interventions can change the system’s projection. Levers are known to shift efforts and burdens in different spaces, hence the wisdom of identifying key leverage points.

When opening or closing a door, you can either use the handle or push the door at a point close to the hinge. Both will have the same effect on the door, but the effort will be different. This is why knowing the leverage points can be useful.

We want minimum effort for maximum outcome.

In education, the results have been bleak. The system is huge. Drawing a map of it is like constantly trying to make sense of macroeconomics. Too many factors interact. Nevertheless, there are some points that, like macroeconomics, hold significant weight.

The biggest weight is the losses. But before diving into these, a primer understanding of a classical archetype.

Shifting the burden to the intervener

In systems dynamics, archetypes are common patterns that result in common behaviours or outcomes. They have a reputation for resulting in system failures more than successes, although successes, too, are a part of their persistence.

Success to the successful is an example of a system archetype. It implies that it will take a huge load of effort to move anyone from their totem pole. It creates an advantage to one group over the others.

The early clinchers in social media benefit from this archetype. If you already have a best-selling book, the initial fans would want to get a copy of the second book. Legacy writers remain at the top thanks to this archetype.

On the flip side, the fantastic writers whose works don’t take off disappear into oblivion. Too many diamonds in the rough have gone unacknowledged because of the success of the successful archetype.

Shifting the burden of the intervener is another archetype. It works when the system misreads its problem and resorts to a quick-fix solution.

Seeking a solution implies the existence of a problem. This is the burden. The solution is the intervention. The one who executes such solutions is the intervener. Thus, shifting the burden to the intervener means a system has resorted to placing the entire solution on a single intervention.

A good example is losing weight. One may have goals of shedding excess body fat, but weekly visits to the gym are demanding. An alternative could be taking weight-reducing medication, like the recently virally discussed Ozempic.

Losing weight was the burden. The solution could have been visiting the gym and getting a fitness instructor, but the burden was shifted to Ozempic. It takes the whole load.

The issue with this archetype is that the quick-fix options do not strengthen the system. Going to the gym could have improved resolve, enhanced resilience, and created a system to keep fit.

This is what several educational interventions have done. They have taken the load of the problem, but their intentions were somewhat ‘quick-fix’ in their approach. A little rhetoric by some elites and they are embraced with the potential to revolutionize education.

But as Dana reminds us, archetypes do little service to anyone by acknowledging their existence. They simply have to be rid of.

From apprenticeship to division of labour

Eusocial or near-eusocial communities are known for division of labour. Royalty, leaders, warriors, workers.

Parents could not take up the complete role of raising their children. It takes a village to raise a child. Therefore, those gifted in hunting would occasionally hang around the hunting teams.

The same is true for humans as it is for wild animals. Before wild cats release their young, they teach them to hunt. Apprenticeship knows no species lines.

It was not as burdensome as education is today. A single person would be responsible for one person, ideally. It was a form of one-on-one tutoring. There was always ready feedback and no set curriculum to follow.

Tutoring is widely considered the best teaching intervention across the ages. It is, however, frowned upon by various forces.

In contrast, the embraced alternative, education, has watered down the effects of apprenticeship. A single person should now be responsible for a huge number.

In my first high school class, we were 66. A single teacher was responsible for 66 young adolescents. In medical school, we were over 500 in the first year. How would they begin to tutor one at the expense of the other? What tool would they use to measure the effectiveness of their teaching? How would they ensure improvement?

Exams were an example of a poor, quick-fix solution. Exams are the first instance where we get to see the system archetype of shifting the burden to the intervenor.

The problem was assessing growth and giving feedback. The teacher could not do that on a one-to-one basis. Exams offered a way out. The result is students are incentivized to be better at passing exams, not learning.

Stealing is an offshoot of this intervention, from school principals to individual students. Those who can memorize how best an answer can get you the most marks are rewarded while creative solutions are overlooked.

It is assumed that getting the cheaters and publicly embarrassing them would be a lesson to the rest, but that doesn’t solve it. Many escape the clutches of the authority. Once they know they can get away with it, that’s all that’s needed. The ones who got caught were just not smart enough.

It’s, however, getting worse. Teachers are lamenting, and the biggest reason is distraction.

From teachers to influencers

Free is when nobody else can tell us what to be

— Meek Mill

When the human population crossed the billion threshold, morbid news began to circulate about the collapse of civilizations.

Indeed, civilizations do collapse, with one of the reasons being the outstripping of the territory’s carrying capacity. It’s how infections wax and wane.

But a collapse that has been building up, unbeknownst to the common eye, is that of distraction. The biggest companies in the world benefit from distraction.

Google would rather have you distracted by sending you emails with the subject only, so you can open them. You cannot read the contents from the notification bar. And of course, email subjects are written to make them clickable.

TikTok will send you morning and night messages, then suggest people who may be on the platform from your contact list.

Instagram will tell you about some of the people who have recently shared a post or a reel, usually those with whom you interact the most. They wouldn’t, however, tell you what reel from the notification pop-up.

Nowadays, WhatsApp will tell you that the group you’re in has been mentioned. That creates a curiosity hook, and when done enough times, keeps you constantly distracted on your mobile device.

Teachers are now the ones lamenting over the concentration of their students. If the classes are not broken down into bite-sized or creative sessions, then they are not at all interested. They don’t have the drive to learn.

You know the situation is bad when Google, perhaps one of the largest corporations with individual data, has given up and created a ‘short videos’ tab. The same goes for YouTube, which now has shorts.

In the past, a cane could do the trick. In other establishments, detention was embarrassing enough. Today, they hardly have the same effect.

Most want to become influencers. Influencers have now taken over the role of teachers. More often than not, students will be online, ‘engaging’ with the influencers, fearing they may miss out on the latest viral post or reel.

Who wants to miss out on exciting stuff? So the notifications will change to give you a hint of what someone else in your contact list has done on Instagram. You’d want to know what it is. A simple distraction. For now.

The burden of teaching a massive group of students by teachers, has failed. The interventions hardly make a dent.

Influencers have no curriculum, which is a good thing. Nothing rigid to guide their audience. It also has its flipside — nothing to guide the audience.

It's a game of what is trending and making sure their audience gets entertained while at it, but the roles are reversed. While teachers fixed a timetable for their students, audiences now fix the persona for influencers.

When a massive group controls you, there is hardly any teaching going on. It’s a demand game. They want another impression of X or Y from you. No meaningful learning goes on. And once the audience feels you’re no longer refreshing, they move on to the next one.

Like the Red Queen said, you either run fast enough or rapidly evaporate into irrelevance. The attention can be addictive to the point that several influencers struggle with knowing who they are.

When they try to escape, they are reminded of who they ‘are’ by their audience. Doing something different will take away the focus from you.

No education going on there.

Only distraction and a canceling culture built from publicly shaming anyone who doesn’t follow the unwritten rules every other person ought to know.

And you may be wondering if AI could solve this problem. Well, as long as there is no effort from the student, the AI is just like the many heavy objects in our world with the potential to make everyone ripped, but only a few get to lift them.

What I’m trying to say is…

I think they want me silenced

— Meek Mill

Education was a quick fix to the rising population.

It didn’t end well. End? Yes, because what we currently have is a paltry mimic of education in its heyday. What’s left is distraction.

Can education happen when everyone else is distracted?

Wait, where are you going? Don’t answer that notification. Answer me! Can it happen?

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This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube