Mythical beasts

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Last week I posted a Twitter poll with the question: Which myth is the most damaging for learning? Before I reveal the results, here's the reasoning behind the poll:

I am constantly amazed at the persistence of 'mythical beasts' in education. I call them mythical beasts, because they are like unicorns. They seem very attractive in appearance, but they don't exist, and believing in them has no purpose other than to make you look foolish. They are the myths of education, and I want to know why they are so resilient.

Some educational myths are about the nature of learning, others concern the role of teachers, or technology, and of course, there are several questionable theories floating around about the human brain and how we learn. Some mythical beasts tend to become so well known they become entrenched in teacher talk. How many for example have heard teachers talking about 'digital natives'?

There are theories that are so persistent that despite being shown to be outdated or disproved, still continue to drive practice, both in the classroom and in everyday working lives. This is sometimes because teachers are ignorant of the latest research, or worse, because the theory fits into their expectations, confirming what they believe. To slay that kind of mythical beast would be unthinkable.

Take for example, the idea of learning styles. This attracted nearly a third of the poll votes at 31%. Categorising students as being predominantly 'audio' or as 'visual' learners, or deciding they are reflectors rather than activists, sounds intuitive and convenient. Teachers can pigeonhole their students, and thereby manage them more efficiently. But the fact is, learning styles don't exist. Psychologists say that there is absolutely no evidence for learning styles such as auditory or visual learning. People learn in many different modes, calling on their audio, visual, kinaesthetic, tactile, proprioceptive, olfactory and other sensory modalities, depending on context. We do students a disservice if we expect them to learn predominantly in one particular style, and yet the belief continues to persist in the teaching profession.

Another persistent untruth is the theory of left and right brain dominance, also referred to as hemisphericity. This received just 6% of votes. This theory argues that people are either left brain or right brain dominant, and that left brain dominant people are better at logical and mathematical reasoning, while right brain people are considered more creative and have better visual-spatial skills. The truth is that of the brain can be used for all these purposes equally well, as has been discovered through the study of brain damaged patients. Furthermore, there is no evidence to show any correlation (let alone a causal link), between right hemisphere activity and creativity.

Another damaging myth is that we only use ten percent of our brains. Again, this is false but only attracted 9% of the poll voting. If we did, ninety percent of our brains would be unused. And yet neuroscience research has shown that much of the brain lights up during specific tasks. It's completely variable and context related, and we often use all of our brains - even a simple act such as tying up shoes activates most of the brain's functionality.

According to the Twitter poll however, none of the above myths is considered to be the most damaging. By far the biggest mythical beast in education, according to the 668 people who voted, is the belief that people have fixed intelligence. More than half of all those who voted (54%), selected this myth as the most insidious. Research shows that intelligence is not fixed at birth, but fluctuates throughout a lifetime. We won't touch on psychometric testing here - which itself hosts a menagerie of mythical beasts.

The tension is between entity theory, where people believe that intelligence is a personal quality that is fixed; and incremental mindset theory, where people believe that intelligence can be increased through personal effort (see for example Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset theory - please note though that mindset theories are more about beliefs than actual intellectual ability). Which do you believe? And where is the evidence for either?

The reason why more than half the voters chose fixed intelligence as their most damaging myth in education are not clear. I'm opening up the comments section below so that everyone can have their say. What are your views?


Mythical beasts by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.