Punctuated Equilibrium

Punctuated Equilibrium

One of the critiques of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection is the lack of transitional forms.  While plenty of previously missing links do exist, the fossil record shows that changes seem to happen all at once after long periods of stasis.  The forces that explain this punctuated equilibrium are at work not only at the grand scale of evolution, but play a key role in the stasis that we have seen in our educational system over the last century and will have an equally crucial role in overturning that stagnation, if my principal has his way.

The forces that cause stagnation run parallel.  Evolutionarily, it’s sexual selection and genes.  In education, it's resistance to change and previous experience.  If one human has a mutation to grow a third eye, is there anyone who would want to breed with that person?  Change, no matter how useful, is not often welcome.  I have heard the conversation in more than one teacher room:

School Initiative
by: jhhaley


The last comment embodies what a former boss referred to as the great pendulum of education.  In my short tenure as a teacher I have seen ideas come and go, or at least get watered down, so I empathize with the chorus, but why does it happen?  In evolution, even if the third eye becomes valued, it can’t last long.  Within a few generations it’s drowned out by all the normal genes.  In author Kim Sterelny’s words, “Lineages do change. But the change between generations does not accumulate. Instead, over time, the species wobbles about its phenotypic mean.”

These wobbles are the biological embodiment of our educational pendulum.  Change occurs, but there’s nothing worth posting to Twitter.  It’s in our genes.  Where you went to school, where you trained to teach and where you currently teach are more than likely institutions based on the status quo.  How does a new idea survive when everything around it says, “Foreigners Not Welcome”? 

The punctuation in a biological system has many stages, but first, a small group of organisms, isolated from their fellows, transcend barriers to change because there are fewer voices shouting for them to stay the same.  Stranded on a desert island, the third eye starts to make sense.  A small school, like mine, might be just this sort of paradise.  The genes seem to be in place.  The superintendent, the principal and many of the teachers have embraced student-centered, standards-based teaching.  Speciation, however, is not complete.  There is both subtle and overt resistance among some staff and the superintendent is about to retire.

In the last stage of punctuated equilibrium, the new species takes its show on the road.  Should we make it that far, the new form of education will have to compete with what has been in place for generations.  Let’s hope we’re up for the challenge.