This blog has addressed the challenge of trying to change
curriculum, especially if the change is transformative. This seemed appropriate since what the basic
message of this blog is: civics
education needs to make such a change.
It needs to shift from a curriculum that counts on the natural rights
construct to guide its content to one that counts on federation theory.
The postings
that are dedicated to this topic of change, transcend the civics education
angle and attempt to look at change and change theory for their own sake. A recurring message of those postings is to
point out how difficult it is to institute change that sticks.
One of the insights that those
postings share is how people in general, as they interact with their
environment, develop theories concerning what that environment is and what it
should be. That is, people develop
theories-in-use and espoused theories.
This blog has reported on
this distinction; and as way of a reminder, the difference between these two
mental representations is that what is espoused corresponds with the ideals a
person holds to be proper and preferable.
It is those values and goals one holds as desirable at a time removed
from the actual implementation of those values and goals.
In distinction to that is a
theory-in-use. This other theory is the
dominant beliefs one holds when it comes time to act. That is, it consists of one’s view of reality
and one’s, including oftentimes unaccounted for, emotions.[1] Chris
Argyris and Donald A. Shon present a model for
organizational planning and action. In that model, they distinguish between
“espoused theory” and “theory-in-use.”
For example, let us say an
organization decides to perform an activity that will be held initially with
some disfavor by the pupil, client, or customer population the organization
serves. Those promoting the activity believe that in the long run this action
will be best for their charges despite the short-term annoyances or even engendered
hatred for what is going to be implemented. The staff commits to it and each
person knows that there will be a negative response. Yet, as soon as the
negativity springs up, the staff caves-in and gives up on the plan.
This surrender does not
necessarily mean the staff now thinks the plan is deficient or offending their
espoused theories. It might just be that
the realities bring to the fore parts of their theories-in-use they were not
aware they had – how much they perceive themselves as likable people. They didn’t initially lie to their bosses or
even to themselves. They were, at the
time of the planning, simply unaware of what was going to be psychologically at
stake.
Consequently, the change does not take
place. This is but one source or type of
challenge a planned change effort can face.
It is one that in its character has to do with dealing with individuals
as opposed to a group or collective. Each
participant has his/her own theories. A
social scientist who provides a helpful bit of theory and research in this area
is Timothy D. Wilson.[2]
He, with Dick Nisbett, have conducted a
series of experiments concerning how people opt to make stuff up when
confronted with someone asking them why they behaved the way they did,
especially if the behavior is generally considered unsavory and/or
disappointing. And the thing is, they
believe what they say. One might
determine that this phenomenon demonstrates people who are disengaged from
reality. But it is something else. It is that these people are tapping into
their unconscious thoughts and feelings and, as such, into something of which
they are unaware.
Wilson has hit upon how people do not
react to their objective environment, but instead to the mental constructs they
create. Wilson describes these
constructs as narratives or stories.
This is taking theories-in-use and espoused theories a step further. Not only are people formulating a theory, but
they have a whole story to back it up, to it give context, and its own sense of
logic. When confronted with an incongruent
bit of information, the information is apt to being mentally changed or massaged
to fit the story.
While skirting reality can lead to an
array of problems – especially if the person is unaware of how what is believed
is at variance with the truth. For
example, the contextual story can be dysfunctional in how it matches up to
reality. If a person harbors a set of
such stories, life can be a succession of dysfunctional choices and these can
be topped off with rationalizations that further leads the person to even more
hurtful environments as others react negatively.
Of course, people vary to the degree
this is applicable. In the extreme, these
environments will likely include social settings that simply become
antagonistic as others sense both the dysfunction and the perceived duplicity the person seems to be practicing. Often what results are interactions where the
person is somewhat bewildered why he/she is so disliked or not fitting in or
not being able to arrive at satisfying results.
Again, that is the extreme, but in
general, one seems to run into this kind of reaction every so often. In less exaggerated cases, Wilson points out
a person can “edit” the story so that the story can survive, albeit changed –
to at least the degree that allows the person to get over the immediate, obvious
disconnect and be able to meet the demands of the moment.
But – and this is this writer’s concern
– there is nothing to prevent the person, once the challenge passes, to
reestablish the original story.
Generally, it seems, stories have a reason for their existence and it
could be those reasons reassert themselves in a person’s life. And as in the original case, in an
unconscious fashion.
What a change agent can derive from
this research is, one, that such stories exist in people minds and, two, that
they can be addressed and acted upon. In
terms of the first point, change agents need, early on, to become aware of the
stories with which he/she will deal.
There are ways to draw them out. And
for the second point, there are strategies that a change agent can conduct that
will help the subject become aware of what lurks in his/her mind and is
problematic in this fashion.
Wilson provides an example. In dealing with freshman students in college,
he devised a strategy that had them reflect on the story they held as to what
it meant to be an effective student – a story that was not accurate and leading
not only to less success in their transition to college, but affecting the
students’ self-esteem. Wilson’s group
devised a 30-minute intervention that disrupted their theory-in-use.
Here is Wilson’s description:
[W]e
gave [students] some facts and some testimonials from other students that
suggested that their problems might have a different cause: namely that it’s hard to learn the ropes in
college at first, but that people do better as the college years go on, when
they learn to adjust and to study differently than they did in high school and
so on.
This little message that maybe it’s
not me, it’s the situation I’m in, and that that can change, seemed to alter
people’s stories in ways that had dramatic effects down the road. Namely, people who got this message, as
compared to a control group that did not, got better grades over the next
couple of years and were less likely to drop out of college.[3]
This is a very, very hopeful
development in terms of implementing change, especially if one considers there
has been many subsequent findings to further support this possible approach to
implementing change. It, for one thing,
suggests how a change agent should come to know their subjects even before any
change plan is drawn up.
[1]
Chris Argyris and Donald A. Shon, “Evaluating Theories
in Action,” in The Planning of Change,
Fourth Edition, eds. Warren G. Bennis, Kenneth D. Benne, and Robert Chin
(New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985), 108-117.
[2] Timothy D. Wilson, “The Social Psychology Narrative –
Or – What Is Social Psychology, Anyway?” in
Thinking: The New Science of
Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction, ed. John
Brockman (New York, NY: Harper
Perennial, 2013), 99-114.
[3] Ibid., 102.
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