Jerry Taylor used to be paid to dispute people who said that the climate was changing. He was a skeptic. He did battle on television with those who believed in climate change. But he changed his mind.
When I read this interview with Jerry Taylor in The Intercept, I was very struck by the amazing similarity to my own change of view. I was once certain that common standards and tests were necessary to improve education and give everyone equal opportunity to succeed. I changed my mind as I watched the evidence unfold during the implementation of No Child Left Behind.
In this age, it is very difficult for people to admit they were wrong. But it happens.
I think we have to spend more time thinking about how to persuade people who don’t agree with us.
To change education policy to one that recognizes that each child is a unique human being, to change the goal of education to be the cultivation of each person as a citizen who can take charge of his or her own life, we must work to change hearts and minds of policymakers.
How do we change minds? I changed minds, and I can explain why. But I am still groping for answers when it comes to convincing others, especially when they don’t seem to care about evidence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Evidence is deemed irrelevant to the entire discussion. The lived professional experience of teachers inhabits the lowest rank. Yesterday, an administrator questioned me as to why I was teaching my students the names of so many animals. Why didn’t I limit myself to the two animals in the story I was reading? My meek response was that I was teaching a unit on animals. I do not have books about all the animals so I want to teach them the names of others. The next question was about where I had gotten the animal chart I was using. When I responded that it was part of the series, she was less than enthused. I am now in trouble for utilizing district mandated ESL materials in addition to all of my other egregious pedagogical missteps.
OMG, how ridiculous. It is obvious that your administrator has been common cored.
Nah, not common cored unless you mean that as a description of their inner being. That’s just pure 100% adminimalism at its finest.
Are you kidding me?! You are teaching ESL students a unit on animals and the administrator wants you to only teach the two names in a story? God forbid that your students might want to know more than the generic terms “cat” and “dog.” Let’s hope they never see a bird or a cow or perhaps a horse and heaven forbid that they ever go to a zoo. Of course they will never be up to taking a biology course where they might run into more esoteric terms. Do these people have nothing else to do but strut around looking important as they instruct their underlings in how they should teach? Excuse the snark. I have no patience left for puffed up, self important “powers that be.”
“I have no patience left for puffed up, self important “powers that be.””
Those “powers that be” are just being all the adminimal that they know how to be.
Fascinating. You hit the nail on the head with your post’s final observation about “convincing others, especially when they don’t seem to care about evidence.” I’ve come to the conclusion that it is mostly a matter of, as economist Robert Heilbronner asked in a seminal essay decades ago, “What has posterity ever done for me?” Those who don’t care about evidence are focused on short-term, immediate payoffs, especially for themselves and their fellow-travelers. Everything not in that orbit—like future generations or people whose experiences do not impact their lives—does not matter. They hide behind contrived or willfully ignorant ideologies and run away from evidence-based pragmatism.
It also applies to the current cycle of health care politics. Citizens with health needs are categorized as consumers. Choice, whether it is informed or not, is more important than competence and effectiveness. And being informed is taken for granted, regardless of the complexity of the issue and the expertise needed to understand it. Block grants and expenditure caps (annual and lifetime) cannot anticipate real life needs. The same with tax credits, which benefit those who build artificial bureaucratic barriers, not the people who have to use them. High risk pools create new categories of consumers who can be more easily identified and exploited.
There’s an equivalent for every one of these in education and, as Taylor found, climate change politics.
Greed in it’s worst form.
There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.
Mahatma Gandhi
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
Erich Fromm
William Burroughs from “The Western Lands”:
“I got mine, f@%# you. Every crumb for himself.”
Humans in general are impervious to evidence when it comes to deeply held beliefs – left and right (as I have discovered repeatedly simply by asking for evidence that Russia hacked the U.S. election and showing evidence that the DNC emails were most likely leaked, not hacked): http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
In most if not all life changing events for individuals, the individual must want to change. This is true for alcoholics, chronic gamblers, drug addiction, shoplifters, and any other destructive addictive behavior. Refusing to change, these individuals will manufacturer alternative facts to support their continued destructive addiction.
There will always be some who refuse to change and they will continue on their often blind, deaf, and mute path of destructive behaviors to their last breath.
“Drink Tanks”
Can lead a horse to water
But can not make it drink
Especially when you’ve bought ‘er
And paid the horse to “think”
Except when you have bought ‘er
You’ve gotta get the Spoede corollary about “not drinking on the back end to make them” into that one, SDP!
I would say that people may not change because what they believe may be serving their purpose from making money to just feeling comfortable. Changing one’s mind often involves having to take actions that are new and difficult and may go against what one feels is his or her best interest. So, if this is the case, no amount of evidence or persuasive talk is going to matter.
The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest. (Edward L. Bernays, “The Engineering of Consent,” 1947)
I have a well-worn copy of PR! A SOCIAL HISTORY OF SPIN by Stuart Ewen. It is a wonderful complement to the work of George Lakoff. Here is an excerpt from Ewen’s book.
Edward Bernays: Born 1891 in Vienna, nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays is credited as the “farsighted architect” of modern propaganda techniques. From the early 1920’s onward, he helped consolidate a marriage between theories of mass psychology and schemes of corporate and political persuasion.
During the First World War, Bernays worked for the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI)–the vast American propaganda apparatus mobilized in 1917 to promote the war as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the mold in which marketing strategies for subsequent wars would be shaped.
In the twenties, Bernays authored the link between corporate sales campaigns and popular causes, when–while working for the American Tobacco Company–he persuaded women’s rights marchers in New York City to hold up Lucky Strike cigarettes as symbolic “Torches of Freedom.”
Read about 1000 words more here and get the book for summer reading and thinking.
The hard part of winning hearts and minds is this: Evidence plays a minor role in the arts of persuasion.
http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/pr.htm
Unfortunately, I believe our “deniers” won’t change their minds until they personally feel the pain delivered by inadequate and ineffective commercialized schools. Let’s hope its before the profiteers manage to cause so much damage that we can’t come back from it.
Have to say that I agree with you for the most part on this, Linda. Personal experience has a way of changing people’s minds when it stares them straight in the face.
“How do we change minds? I changed minds, and I can explain why. But I am still groping for answers when it comes to convincing others, especially when they don’t seem to care about evidence.”
Although I’m not an official “expert”, I have training in conflict resolution and communication techniques. Both inside and outside of the field of education.
Nothing is foolproof, but in my experience, the first and foremost rule in any discussion where you’re trying to persuade someone of a view they oppose is to show respect for that person. If he/she is sincere, it doesn’t matter how much you hate their position. There’s a reason for the stance and without that first step, you’ve already lost because people want to think they’re being treated as an equal. Or as superior in some cases…but even then, it’s important to establish rapport.
Second step is to ask the person if he or she is willing to tell you why they believe what they believe and, when they’re through, allow you to express your slant, with the same respect. Establish an agreement for civil discourse.
Third is to actually REALLY listen to the other’s argument without thinking of what you’re going to say next (wish I could underline that). Indicate that you’re listening by nodding you’re head and maybe repeating something just said. Even match their breathing pattern. Even experienced negotiators can blow this step. It lets the person know that you really ARE respecting them, which will, hopefully, open them up to hearing your side.
This next step is pertinent to this particular issue and others that pit progressives against conservatives:
When it’s “your turn”, do all you can to leave out the words “feel” and “feelings” or anything of that ilk. Coleman’s infamous, “Nobody gives a s*&t about what you feel” remark rings very true with the mindset of today’s conservative, whose main concerns are with “the facts”. So stick to the facts. Quote data. Carry a listing of links to pertinent articles on the Notes app on your phone so you can refer to them. Cite personal experience and conversations you’ve had with experts.
Last: thank the person for the opportunity to share your opposing ideas and say you’ll give thought to what you’ve just heard. Never try to hammer it in. That’s a sure fire way to turn off your audience. Hopefully the person will come back for further discussion.
Just my 3 cents. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not.