Hungry caterpillars and ed book critiques

Dean Shareski posed a question on Twitter about the lack of critical reviews of education books. The tweet generated an interesting discussion which you can probably still read if you search Twitter for Shareski soon after this post appears.

Just to offer a criticism so at least one will exist I will provide the following. Last evening my wife was reading “The hungry caterpillar” to our two youngest grandkids and happened to notice what seemed an error in the book. The author, Eric Carle, ends the book by describing the emergence of a beautiful butterfly from a cocoon. We have reared and released monarchs for several years with these same preschool kids and even they know that butterflies emerge from a chrysalis and not a cocoon. Whatever happened to promoting  STEM across the curriculum, etc.?

Just because I wanted to know I did a search on “The hungry caterpillar” and cocoon and found that others had spotted the same issue. Carle even offers a defense. He claims that there are some special butterflies that emerge from a cocoon. I doubt he took this position until after the statement in his popular book was challenged. He also claims the book claims this is a special caterpillar and if you want to be concerned about anything you should be bothered by the claim the caterpillar eats lollipops and ice cream. OK – in fiction, you are allowed to make whatever claim you want. Not sure I would try to explain this distinction to my grandkids. 

Back to the question of commenting on education books within Twitter. As I thought about the question, I decided Shareski probably was correct. While one can find all kinds of critical evaluations elsewhere, you don’t see this on Twitter. No one suggests that they bought xxxx because educators kept recommending it, but you thought it was mostly fluff. 

I have certain standards I adhere to when I suggest a book on educational practice for educators. I look for concrete suggestions for practice, but I also want to be informed of the science the author argues to justify a specific practices. It bothers me when authors are willing to make specific suggestions, but I feel that there is no credible basis for such classroom activities. Even if I end up disagreeing with the justification offered, I want to know that the author has struggled with the issue of evidence and has something specific to propose. Else and especially if I think the evidence says otherwise, I am inclined to regard the book as potentially dangerous fluff.

Why don’t I just say this? Perhaps, something like “interesting and creative idea, but based on flawed logic and a lack of sound evidence”. I think if you say things like this you end up being labeled an elitist who lacks real classroom experience. You might note that this claim seems now to be quite commonly used by politicians who want the arguments against their positions to be dismissed. This position seems to appeal to true believers and seems to work better than actual evidence. It seems to play well with groups who feel underappreciated and fits with the self-perception that they understand things others who are not in their position do not. Blog posts or other “long form” refutations offer the opportunity to challenge such positions with more detail that cannot be provided in a tweet. Of course, there is always the problem of others being willing to read something that is more than 280 characters in order to consider the evidence provided. 

Can I offer examples of education books and articles that offer specific suggestions backed by quality data? Sure. For example, search for the books and articles of Deanna Kuhn on the topics of problem based learning and on argumentation. In both cases, the suggestions and examples for the classroom are specific and replicated. The evidence is carefully collected and demonstrates significant advantages over both traditional strategies and shoddy applications of similar sounding approaches. I think I have written about these examples here and in another blog. Just search for Kuhn.

Maybe, it is just easier to write for those with similar values and similar preferences for how positions taken are justified. This would seem a version of the filter bubble, but there are reasons filter bubbles exist.