Groupthink Is Out of Control in Education
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder identifies groupthink as a pervasive problem in education where dissenting voices are silenced and unproven ideas gain momentum through social pressure.
Key Takeaways
- Dissent is punished - Educators who question popular ideas risk professional consequences
- Popular doesn't mean effective - Many widely adopted practices in education gained traction through social pressure, not evidence
- We need more critical voices - Healthy debate and willingness to challenge consensus are essential for improving schools
Transcript
Groupthink is out of control in education.
And I'm not just talking about conformity and running after fads.
I'm talking about the obsession with having students work in groups.
And I've talked about this recently, and I've just learned that not only are students being asked to work in groups all the time, not only are teachers being dinged on their evaluations if they don't have students working in groups and sitting in groups all the time, students are actually being tested in groups.
Think about that for a second.
Giving students a test in a group setting, like I understand having students review for a test or prep for a test in groups, but on a test, don't we wanna know what each individual student knows and is able to do?
Doesn't it undermine the very purpose of a test to give it in a group?
And like, yes, it's less grading, but I don't wanna know if one fourth of my students know the material.
I wanna know if every single one of my students knows the material i want to know who knows the material and what specifically they know and if we do that in groups we just lose the whole point like am i missing something here let me know so i think we've got to get rid of this obsession this group think this idea that everything has to be done in groups like yes some group stuff is good sometimes it makes sense to have students work in groups often it's not a fit for what we're trying to accomplish and tests to me are the strongest example of that let me know if you're hearing anything about group tests in school