On nature
The naturalistic fallacy in education
I came across the is/ought fallacy recently and its close cousin, the naturalistic fallacy. It is basically the fallacy that anything which happens in nature is inherently good. It really rang true to me because it’s such a perfect fit for the kind of Rousseauian thinking that often accompanies arguments for inquiry learning. Here’s a quick and dirty summary of the naturalistic fallacy in education:
Under Rousseau’s philosophy, man begins as a blank slate, corrupted only by city living. Children are proxies for this innocence and the blank slate theory. Under Rousseau, a noble aim would be to preserve this natural state in children for as long as possible, staving off corruption.
That which is natural is inherently good, so allowing children to develop freely and in their natural state is considered a morally superior way to conduct teaching and learning. Like little children, students should explore and discover.
The so-called industrial model is anathema to Rousseauian thinkers because of its rigidity. Rote learning (and the adult way of study, thinking and knowing) is considered inorganic, therefore bad.
It sounds like a nice way to experience preschool, through play, modelling and experiential learning. A bit Montessori. Cute. Nice.
But there are three problems with this approach:
Children learn biologically primary skills like speaking and means-end problem solving in a very natural way. Biologically secondary tasks require an expert to step in and teach.
Direct instruction for the teaching of new biologically secondary skills has been proven time and again to be far superior to inquiry learning, possibly due to Problem 1.
Feelings and philosophies of learning are not a strong basis on which to make decisions about how to teach.
There’s a real danger in associating the warm fuzzy feelings that arise for us, such as when a baby speaks their first word or a toddler learns to butter their own toast, with our professional role in the classroom. Our job is complex and we are experts, so asking students to simply think like a scientist or just write could be playing a dangerous game. Would those ‘guides on the side’ elect to be operated upon by a graduate of the Macquarie University of Discovery Learning Hospital, or fly with the Sydney Inquiry-Based Aviation College? We seem to make decisions about the teaching of literacy and numeracy comparatively lightly and our students deserve more than pedagogy that makes us feel nice inside.
Rebecca, I really liked your post on luxury beliefs in education, which is what brought me here. I believe you have misunderstood the naturalistic fallacy. You come across as a supporter of an evidence-based approach, meaning that peer-reviewed research into what works will point us in the right pedagogical direction and tell us what we ought to do. The naturalistic fallacy isn’t doing the job you think it is here. It is not attacking the belief that “things that are natural are good”. Science can attack that belief, for example by showing that our inclination to eat sugar comes from genes that evolved when we lived in caves and had to store energy for long winters. The naturalistic fallacy is about what is morally right, supporting the idea that you can’t get to an ethical ‘ought’ from an empirical ‘is’. This means you can’t say it’s (morally) wrong to over-emphasise enquiry-based learning just because it’s ineffective. This is because it makes a value-judgment along the lines of ‘children ought to get a good education’. This moral ought can’t be scientifically established. Just to be clear, you can get round this by saying ‘If you want your child to be able to study complex concepts, then you need a decent amount of teacher input rather than enquiry-based learning’. What you’re saying about enquiry-based learning isn’t wrong, you should just avoid citing the naturalistic fallacy as it’s about whether you can use observation/empirical evidence to verify ethical propositions..