The Big “O”: Occupying Against Reductionism in Education Using Small and Sustained Actions

• In Event: Effective or Wise? Teaching and Assessing Professional Dispositions in Education

Abstract

The lessons of the worldwide occupy movement, and the consequent applications to a variety of injustices, are relevant and applicable to educational issues. In this portion of the panel discussion, a conceptual framework of reductionism is presented. Reductionism—reducing complex issues to simple solutions—can be used to identify and analyze reductive educational policies and practices that are driven by forces that bypass critical thinking, individual experience and judgment, and transparency in favor of derivative solutions that lack validity. Four examples from teacher education are included in the discussion—the widespread and unexamined use of the Educational Testing Service Praxis I in admission processes, institutional choices in how accreditation standards are operationalized, interpretations of state standards, and insufficient attention to political forces in teacher preparation. For each, strategies are suggested to disrupt reductionism and create change, using small and sustained actions to question policies and practices and demand valid data and transparency in the answers. The presentation also includes a call to include an important constituency—students—in identifying issues and strategies for change.

Author

• Barbara J. Rose, Roberts Wesleyan College