Week Two Post one TTWWADI

This story is taken from Ian Jukes (Understanding the Digital Generation-keynote perspective). Read through it first and then I’ll add my comments. Think about school today.
“Let’s start with a cage at a zoo containing five apes. Inside the cage, a bunch of bananas are hanging on a string and a set of stairs is placed under the bananas. Before long, one of the apes will see the bananas and start to climb the stairs to get to them.
As soon as they touch the stairs, you take a fire hose and spray all of the apes in the cage with ice cold water until you knock them down and drive them away from the bananas. Sooner or later another ape makes an attempt and, again, all the apes are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, whenever another ape tries to climb the stairs, all the other apes will attack that ape to try to prevent it from going for the bananas because they don’t want to get sprayed by the ice cold water—another attempt, another attack, another attempt, another attack. Before too long, all of the apes know what will happen to them if they make a move.”

“Now, put away the fire hose and the cold water, remove one of the original five apes from the cage, and replace it with a new one. Of course, the new ape will see the bananas and attempt to climb the stairs. To it’s surprise and horror, all of the other apes will attack that ape to prevent it from climbing the stairs because they don’t want to get sprayed with ice cold water. Another attempt, another attack, another attempt, another attack. Pretty soon the newest ape knows that if it climbs the stairs, it will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with new one. As Yogi Berra says, this become déjà vu all over again—the scene will repeat itself—and the first ape we replaced will actually take part in the punishment of the newcomer with the greatest enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original ape with a new one, then a fourth and fifth. Every time a new ape tries to climb the stairs, it gets attacked. Interestingly enough, the apes who are beating him have NO IDEA why they are not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape. After replacing all the original apes, none of the remaining apes have
ever even been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no ape will ever again approach the stairs to try for those bananas. The question we need to ask is why not? And the answer is because as far as the apes in the cage know . . . well, that’s just the way we do things around here.”
TTWWADI Everywhere!
“The story of the five apes is an example of what we call TTWWADI—That’s The Way We’ve Always Done It. And TTWWADI is everywhere!”

As I look around my school and observe the way things are done I see this exact same story. The assumptions we make about what always worked when it comes to the classroom amazes me. No one wants to talk about pedagogy. I hear the term best practice, but I never see anyone changing the way they do things.

I know I’m unusual because I’m willing to take the time and work to make changes when I see something doesn’t work. Teaching is an art and takes time to perfect. It’s also important that we teach our students how to learn. There’s also an art to learning. This is what we need to be talking about, instead of just looking at the data. The research is out there to guide us in what works and what doesn’t. We need to be willing to look at it and make the adjustments.

Another problem is that it’s not just the teachers that keep doing the same things. The educational leadership (administration) needs to improve their understanding of pedagogy and expect more from the teachers, design training for the teachers, and support for them. No longer should we have principals that think gaming is not for school, or lock up all the dangerous cell phones.

Instead, let’s integrate these tools and make education interesting and exciting for everyone. That’s when we’ll see a change in our students. No more TTWWADI.