When Can You Trust the Experts?: How to Tell Good Science from Bad in Education

by Daniel T. Willingham

When Persuaders target teachers, they more often use emotional appeals centering on hope, not fear. Most teachers you meet are optimists. They believe that all children can learn and that all children have something to offer the classroom. Teachers are also optimistic about the possibility that they can help children fulfill their potential. An unpublished survey I conducted of several hundred teachers showed that the most frequent response to the question “Why did you become a teacher?” was “I wanted to make a difference in the world.” But teachers are not optimists to the point that they are out of touch with reality. A teacher knows when there is a child with whom she is not connecting. She knows if some aspect of her teaching has become grooved, familiar, and a little stale. When they talk to teachers, Persuaders offer a Change as a way finally to reach that unreachable child or to put the passion back into the teaching. Administrators often try to sell teachers on an idea by dangling hope before them. Administrators know that “buy-in” is vital—if teachers don’t believe that a Change is a good idea, they won’t implement it in their classroom. Thus administrators see a need not merely to persuade teachers but also to inculcate zeal for the Change. Fear does not encourage zeal. It encourages grudging compliance. Hope breeds zeal. That is why professional development sessions sometimes feel like evangelical revival meetings. But hope, like fear, is not a reason to believe...