The Will-o’-the-Wisp of evidence
To be interested in research is not to demand research-based evidence for every pedagogical breath we take. If we want evidence, we can find evidence: correlation hides behind every data point if you are willing to squint hard enough. But causation? That is another thing entirely. It is the will-o’-the-wisp of our profession: glimpsed but rarely grasped.
Take, for instance, medication. I swallow, inject, apply – daily, hourly – dozens of substances designed to mitigate the symptoms of my own chronic, complex ill health and disability. And behind each capsule and each vial is an industry which purports to have evidenced its positive impact. A problem is spotted, a solution proposed, tested, trialled, peer-reviewed, approved, and prescribed. On paper, this is rigorous.
But even then – even with all the apparatus of evidence – we know that questions remain unanswered. Is the problem actually the problem, or is it a symptom of a deeper, entangled system? Whose bodies were part of the trials? Were they like mine? Were they like yours? Whose side-effects are considered acceptable collateral, and by whom? Positive impact for whom, and for how long? And at what cost?
If medicine, with all its controlled conditions, cannot promise certainty, how then can schools – alive with complexity and unpredictability?