'It's just crap, bullshit'
The 'mythbuster' of the education sector, that's Professor Paul Kirschner. Known for his continuous insistence on nonsensical research, stupid assumptions and other nonsense that gets in the way of decent learning. The Education Magazine followed Kirschner for part of the day and saw a still belligerent man at work.
Image: Frits Widdershoven
We walk towards Amersfoort station when I ask Paul Kirschner if I can take over his trolley. “I might be 66, but not an invalid,” he grumbles. Kirschner will later say that he occasionally walks from home to work. It is a fifty-minute walk from the Limburg village of Hoensbroek to Heerlen, where the Open University's head office is located. Moreover, he has just spent a full week with his wife looking after two grandchildren: one of over three years old and one of eight months old. Including the nighttime adventures. So indeed: the politeness question is superfluous. We are dealing here with a very strong XNUMX+.
American
And a pietje-exactly. He mentions time indications in numbers. “Yesterday at five thirty we went to pick up the parents from the airport.” His sentence structure and accent are often still American, where he was born and raised, and now mixed with a slightly soft 'g'. Names of fellow scientists, titles of publications and years: they fly around your head. Just like professional terms from the world of professors: epitome, redundancy, orthogonal interaction. When the journalist - me - shows up four minutes late for our appointment, I don't find Kirschner in the lobby of the hotel, but I do find an email in my inbox: 'It's past 9 o'clock - I have to leave, Paul.' … ouch.
Fifteen minutes later I still meet him in the attic of the Observant conference location. Kirschner is short in stature, wearing black trousers and a corduroy jacket with sleeves. He is arguing with the beamer, which does not display its slides in the same proportion as the laptop. A technician is called. "That was the deal," Kirschner says, slightly irritated to the organizer. "I would like to come and talk, but someone has to be here for the technology."
Talk
He can now dream his story. He does about thirty such talks a year and takes his audience, this time a room full of educational authors, along persistent educational myths at a brisk pace. Stinging blue eyes look over the glasses at his audience. Kirschner: “We cannot multitask. People cannot do two things at the same time that they need to think about. Mobile phones, laptops, tablets: they attract your attention. ” The public obediently puts the devices away.
The 'strict teacher' is still there. Long ago in the Bronx, the New York neighborhood where Kirschner grew up, he taught himself. On a middle school. He taught biology and mathematics. He lasted one year. “There were always a few children that I couldn't get through. However I tried, I couldn't get them to understand what to understand. That could be the Pythagorean principle, or the citric acid cycle. Failure to do so frustrated me enormously. Then I thought: No, this teaching is not for me. ” He gave up and left for Europe to find out what he wanted with his life.
Guest of Honor
During his work as a cook at the Amsterdam hippie center De Kosmos, he met his Dutch wife Catharine. She fell for its very tasty apple crumble. His career in educational research started shortly afterwards. A successful, and as befits a good American, he is not too shy to point this out to you. “I was guest of honor this year and last year keynote speaker at the conference Making Shift Happen. ” And later: “I have more than 350 scientific articles to my name, which appear in top magazines such as Educational Psychologist. And I am the lead author of about the most cited article in the field of educational psychology. ”
In the 2005s, Kirschner was one of the first to study the profession in the Netherlands, at the time a combination of developmental psychology and function theory. "An educational psychologist studies what goes on in a person's head when he is learning." For years he mainly researched what worked and why. In XNUMX the turning point came. Discovery learning was fashionable at the time. Kirschner suspected a weak scientific basis for this form of education and together with international colleagues he made mincemeat of the phenomenon. “What we said then is: 'unguided discovery, Or inquiry based learning 'doesn't work. If you look closely at our cognitive architecture, it is doomed to failure, ”says Kirschner. “It expanded from there. I thought, What are the most malicious, harmful myths? We thereby ruin the future of our children. This is a lot of area that needs to be mined. ”
Anger
During his presentation in Amersfoort, Kirschner regularly sounds angry. He then speaks louder and uses expletives. It is by no means boring. About the learning pyramid he exclaims, “Some retarded guppy has Edgar Dale's one afternoon cone of experience raped and transformed into a pyramid of learning that I still encounter at the ministry and among teachers. While: it's pure nonsense! ”
Is it anger played, I ask him afterwards. "No. The anger is real. The nonsense that is being sung about is almost inexhaustible. They say that the Netherlands has 17 million national coaches, but the Netherlands also has 17 million people who think they understand education. See, you have things that a teacher can do of which you say, If it doesn't help, it doesn't hurt. It's not conducive to learning, but good. But there are other ideas that are really malicious and detrimental to learning. ”
Such as?
“Learning styles. That's 'crap', 'bullshit'. Yes, of course people have learning preferences. But people also have eating preferences, for fat, salty or sweet. Then you don't just give them fat, salt or sweet. Left-brain, right-brain... as if you have two heads: of course not. You just have one set of brains. The learning pyramid: that the best and only way to learn would be to do it yourself. Everything must hands-on making,. Instruction is out of the question. While there is nothing wrong with that. ”
Maurice de Hond, Sugata Mitra, Ken Robinson, Jo Boaler. I call them eduquacks: quacks in education
Education innovators are generally not very happy with you.
Maurice de Hond, Sugata Mitra, Ken Robinson, Jo Boaler. I call them 'eduquacks': quacks in education. Adepts in the field of inquiry based en discovery based learning, those are not my greatest friends indeed. ”
What do you notice about that?
"They think I'm an old-fashioned dinosaur based on instruction, rather than the modern and post-modern do-it-yourself constructivism that they adhere to."
Are they right?
"Not at all. To learn something well you have to have a good instructor. That does not mean that all teaching should be classroom frontal. But someone has to explain, for example, whether you should connect a power meter in parallel or in series and especially why. Otherwise you will get the wrong measurements and it will take a long time before you discover rules and reasons, if you succeed at all. ”
Can't you find that on Youtube?
“Yes, and then you meet people, such as van The green happiness. These ladies tell you that eggs give you horrible disease. That an egg is a chicken's menstrual period. So that is on Youtube. "
It makes no sense for me to start a conversation with someone who does not know what he is talking about.
Do you ever fight it out directly with your opponents? Do you come across them at conferences, for example?
“Very simple when it comes to eduquacks: I don't want to waste my time on that. It makes no sense for me to start a conversation with someone who does not know what he is talking about. Then I am only correcting and I come across as haughty, apodictic too. Put me in front of Robert-Jan Simons (emeritus professor of didactics in a digital context, ed.) And we can have a nuanced conversation. We sometimes differ strongly in opinion, but can say to each other: 'You know this' and 'That is so and so'. Eduquacks are believers. You try to convince a believing Christian that god does not exist. I don't talk to people like that. ”
Plausible
Kirschner is quietly eating his lunch (a smoked salmon sandwich and a glass of Viognier, ed.) When he continues: “The problem is: a lot of what is being proclaimed sounds logical and therefore plausible. Like that learning styles exist, that women are alphas and men are betas, that there are left and right brained people are, that brain training works, that you remember something better when you underline it. I can explain it all in such a way that it sounds very plausible, but plausible is not the touchstone. ”
Education must be effective, efficient and satisfying, my holy triangle
Thorough research is. At least, as solid as exists in the field of education. Kirschner mentions reliable information from educational research evidence-informedbecause the circumstances are never the same and investigations cannot be repeated exactly. "Bee evidence based do you know it works. Bee evidence-informed you know that when you do it right, it has a very high chance of success. That's my term. Like effective, efficient and enjoyable. Education must be effective, efficient and satisfying, my holy triangle. ”
Unthinkingly
The professor tapped a vessel that is far from empty. In fact, with the plans for a new curriculum, Onderwijs2032 / Curriculum.nu, and a new cabinet, you can again wait for innovative ideas that do more harm than good, he thinks. “Take the study house, for example, that was a nice constructivist idea from Nell Ginjaar-Maas and Clan Visser 't Hooft. I was on the Education Council with Nell in the late nineties. Sweetheart, fond of nougat. And the most social and left-wing VVD member you will ever meet. But she and Visser 't Hooft had an idea. And without doing any research at all, the study house was indiscriminately introduced to all HAVO and VWO. That turned out to be a major disaster that led to the Dijsselbloem parliamentary committee of inquiry. ”
Which mechanisms do you see recurring?
“That a State Secretary or Minister wants something named after him or her. That people who suffer from the 'expertise-generalization syndrome' like Paul Schnabel are hired to do Education2032. ”
Paul Schnabel is a sociologist who apparently also knows everything about euthanasia and the future of education
What is that, the expertise generalization syndrome?
That a person who has expertise in area a believes that he also has expertise in areas b, c and d. As soon as someone puts on a white coat, he can say anything and others think that that is correct. There are many examples. Paul Schnabel is one. He is a sociologist who apparently also knows everything about euthanasia and the future of education. Maurice de Hond: a social geographer and opinion pollster who believes he is also an expert in criminology and education. ”
Beer quay
Sometimes it seems as if Kirschner is fighting a losing battle. In addition, his retirement is approaching. “The Open University has announced that I can continue as a professor until my 67th birthday. But this subject does not rest on my shoulders. ” Kirschner mentions a whole list of colleagues. "Casper Hulshof, Pedro de Bruyckere, Marcel Schmeier, Karin den Heijer when it comes to realistic calculations: there are plenty of colleagues who continue on this path." He himself does not think much about the future. “I assume serendipity, things that happen to come your way and that you are open to. Ever since I came to Europe to get my head together I stopped focusing on fixed goals. My motto is: follow your heart, but use your head. I will continue to do so as long as it goes. ”
(this interview was published in the Education Journal of January 2018)
Image: Frits Widdershoven
