WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.679 I want you to picture something for a second. 00:00:02.359 --> 00:00:04.960 You're sitting at a desk, it's a Tuesday morning, 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:07.660 and your teacher hands back a math test you took 00:00:07.660 --> 00:00:10.580 the week before. Oh, yeah. The moment of truth. 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:13.740 Right. You flip that paper over, and right there 00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:17.539 at the top, circled in bright red ink, is a percentage. 00:00:18.039 --> 00:00:22.140 Say it's an 85%. A very specific permanent feeling 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:25.500 number. Exactly. In that single sleeting moment, 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:28.879 Your entire understanding of this really complex 00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:31.899 subject your effort your capability I mean it 00:00:31.899 --> 00:00:34.020 all gets boiled down to that one specific number 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:36.179 Yeah, it feels like a foundational law of the 00:00:36.179 --> 00:00:38.359 universe or something it really does But the 00:00:38.359 --> 00:00:41.420 wild thing is that specific way of reducing human 00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:44.759 learning to a percentage. It isn't some ancient 00:00:45.299 --> 00:00:47.640 fundamental pillar of education. No, not at all. 00:00:47.719 --> 00:00:49.380 It's actually a relatively recent invention. 00:00:49.420 --> 00:00:51.840 It was only developed in the late 19th century. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:53.979 Which is pretty crazy when you think about how 00:00:53.979 --> 00:00:57.240 heavily we rely on it now. So today, for our 00:00:57.240 --> 00:00:59.280 deep dive, we're unpacking a fascinating article 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:02.060 by Gary Ackerman. It's from Hack Science Education, 00:01:02.299 --> 00:01:04.620 and it's titled Essence and Variation. It's a 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:07.659 great read. Yeah. The mission today is to figure 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:11.540 out why we force messy human brains into rigid 00:01:11.540 --> 00:01:15.829 mathematical boxes. more importantly, why modern 00:01:15.829 --> 00:01:18.650 biology says we desperately need to stop. It 00:01:18.650 --> 00:01:21.230 is entirely wild when you realize that something 00:01:21.230 --> 00:01:24.409 so ubiquitous, something that literally shapes 00:01:24.409 --> 00:01:27.269 our entire trajectory in school, in college, 00:01:27.590 --> 00:01:30.030 and our careers is actually just a constructed 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:32.310 metric. Right. It's completely made up. Completely. 00:01:32.469 --> 00:01:35.890 We treat that 85 % like it's a law of physics. 00:01:36.230 --> 00:01:38.250 But to really understand why we grade the way 00:01:38.250 --> 00:01:40.709 we do, we have to dig into the philosophical 00:01:40.709 --> 00:01:43.170 bedrock of that 19th century system. Which is? 00:01:43.189 --> 00:01:45.189 It's a concept called essentialism. OK, let's 00:01:45.189 --> 00:01:47.870 unpack this because I hear a word like essentialism 00:01:47.870 --> 00:01:51.390 and I immediately picture like a dense thousand 00:01:51.390 --> 00:01:54.930 page philosophy textbook. Oh for sure. But Akron 00:01:54.930 --> 00:01:56.750 argues this concept governs almost everything 00:01:56.750 --> 00:01:59.450 we do on a daily basis. So how does it work? 00:01:59.629 --> 00:02:01.450 Like a cookie cutter approach. That's actually 00:02:01.450 --> 00:02:03.689 a great way to put it. To grasp it we have to 00:02:03.689 --> 00:02:06.390 go way back. Like all the way back to ancient 00:02:06.390 --> 00:02:09.219 Greece. Okay we're going way back. Yeah, specifically 00:02:09.219 --> 00:02:12.340 to Plato. He had this theory of forms. Plato 00:02:12.340 --> 00:02:15.719 proposed that somewhere out there, in some non 00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:18.939 -physical realm, there is a perfect, idealized 00:02:18.939 --> 00:02:21.379 version of everything. Like a perfect blueprint. 00:02:21.620 --> 00:02:23.719 Exactly. There's the perfect chair, the perfect 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:26.400 dog, the perfect circle. And according to this 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:28.979 theory, everything we see in our physical, messy 00:02:28.979 --> 00:02:33.340 world is just a flawed, degraded shadow of that 00:02:33.340 --> 00:02:37.050 perfection. So the core, unchangeable identity 00:02:37.050 --> 00:02:40.849 of a thing, the absolute minimum required to 00:02:40.849 --> 00:02:43.389 make it what it is that is its essence. Right. 00:02:43.490 --> 00:02:45.150 So if I strip away the paint color, the type 00:02:45.150 --> 00:02:47.650 of wood and the cushions, the fundamental structural 00:02:47.650 --> 00:02:50.229 concept of something to sit on, that's the essence 00:02:50.229 --> 00:02:52.349 of a chair. Exactly. And anything else is just 00:02:52.349 --> 00:02:56.159 superficial or degraded. If we connect this to 00:02:56.159 --> 00:02:58.740 the bigger picture, this essentialism isn't just 00:02:58.740 --> 00:03:01.240 a school policy. It deeply influences all fields 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:03.460 of human thought. For thousands of years, this 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:05.620 became the default way humans organized the world. 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:07.780 We actively look for the essence of them. Put 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:11.379 them in science. Oh, especially in science. Historically, 00:03:11.699 --> 00:03:13.639 essentialist biologists would define the strict 00:03:13.639 --> 00:03:17.159 essence of a species. They'd create this perfect 00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:20.300 idealized version of a finch or a fern in their 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:22.180 mind. Right, like the ultimate prototype of a 00:03:22.180 --> 00:03:25.860 finch. Yes. And any difference from that idealized 00:03:25.860 --> 00:03:28.699 essence out in the real physical world, it was 00:03:28.699 --> 00:03:32.199 viewed as a mistake, a lesser degraded version 00:03:32.199 --> 00:03:36.360 of the species. Wow. OK, I can see exactly how 00:03:36.360 --> 00:03:39.039 this maps onto the education system in that red 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:42.539 85%. It maps perfectly. Because if we're operating 00:03:42.539 --> 00:03:46.139 under essentialism, then the standard or the 00:03:46.139 --> 00:03:49.569 curriculum we create is the Platonic ideal. It's 00:03:49.569 --> 00:03:52.870 the perfect shiny essence of what, say, a 10th 00:03:52.870 --> 00:03:55.469 grader should know. Which means the student is 00:03:55.469 --> 00:03:57.909 just the flawed physical manifestation trying 00:03:57.909 --> 00:04:00.150 to live up to that perfect essence. And failing. 00:04:00.550 --> 00:04:02.650 I mean, if we are essentially treating students 00:04:02.650 --> 00:04:04.650 like degraded versions of a perfect standard, 00:04:05.069 --> 00:04:07.810 isn't that incredibly limiting? It's beyond limiting. 00:04:07.930 --> 00:04:10.530 It's destructive. And we see it failing constantly. 00:04:10.810 --> 00:04:12.990 Ackerman brings up the work of Todd Rose to highlight 00:04:12.990 --> 00:04:15.500 this. Oh, from the book The End of Average? Yes, 00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:18.339 brilliantly deconstructs the idea that a perfect 00:04:18.339 --> 00:04:21.519 essence or an average actually exists in nature. 00:04:22.120 --> 00:04:24.420 The most famous example from Rose's work is about 00:04:24.420 --> 00:04:26.759 the US Air Force in the 1950s. Right, I've heard 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:28.360 a bit about this. They were having a ton of crashes, 00:04:28.399 --> 00:04:30.939 right? A massive number of crashes and they couldn't 00:04:30.939 --> 00:04:33.800 figure out why. It turned out the cockpits were 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:37.459 designed for the average pilot based on thousands 00:04:37.459 --> 00:04:39.620 of bodily measurements they had taken in the 00:04:39.620 --> 00:04:42.360 1920s. Because they believed there was an essential 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:46.399 pilot body type. Exactly. So researchers finally 00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:50.560 decided to measure over 4 ,000 actual living 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:53.560 pilots on 10 different dimensions of size. Okay. 00:04:53.980 --> 00:04:56.160 Do you know how many of those 4 ,000 pilots fit 00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:59.279 the average profile on all 10 dimensions? I'm 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:02.579 guessing a very small number. Zero. Zero out 00:05:02.579 --> 00:05:06.259 of 4 ,000. Not a single pilot was average. By 00:05:06.259 --> 00:05:08.620 designing the cockpit for the perfect essence 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:11.360 of a pilot, they had literally designed a cockpit 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.759 that fit nobody. The essentialist approach nearly 00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:17.800 destroyed their air fleet, and Rose argues that 00:05:17.800 --> 00:05:22.379 this exact same reductionist practice, you know... 00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:25.199 Boiling complex human beings down to a single 00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:28.339 mathematical essence, like a grade, is just as 00:05:28.339 --> 00:05:30.839 disastrous in education. When you design a classroom 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:33.379 for the essential student, you're teaching a 00:05:33.379 --> 00:05:36.300 student who literally does not exist. Exactly. 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:38.860 Okay, but if humans are so terribly prone to 00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:41.560 creating these rigid categories that don't actually 00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:44.750 fit reality... How does nature handle it? Because 00:05:44.750 --> 00:05:47.470 if the Platonic ideal is a total myth, we need 00:05:47.470 --> 00:05:49.769 a better model for reality. We have to look at 00:05:49.769 --> 00:05:52.170 modern biology. And this is where Ackerman points 00:05:52.170 --> 00:05:54.769 to the revolutionary work of evolutionary biologist 00:05:54.769 --> 00:05:57.970 Stephen J. Gold. Oh, Gold. He's huge in evolutionary 00:05:57.970 --> 00:06:00.610 theory. Massive. He championed a paradigm shift 00:06:00.610 --> 00:06:02.910 that fundamentally broke the back of biological 00:06:02.910 --> 00:06:04.850 essentialism. He pointed out one of the most 00:06:04.850 --> 00:06:06.529 important discoveries in the history of science, 00:06:07.029 --> 00:06:09.769 that variation is not a mistake. Variation is 00:06:09.769 --> 00:06:12.360 the true nature of life. So how does that shift 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:15.519 the way we see the world? Because to the essentialist, 00:06:16.060 --> 00:06:18.699 variation is an error, right? Like the mutant 00:06:18.699 --> 00:06:21.639 finch with a slightly longer beak is a corrupted 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:24.480 version of the perfect finch. Exactly. But evolutionary 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:27.639 biology proves the exact opposite. Without that 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:30.759 variation, a species cannot adapt and survive. 00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:33.319 Right. Natural selection. Yeah. That longer beak 00:06:33.319 --> 00:06:36.319 isn't a degradation. It's an adaptation to a 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:39.569 changing food source. The variety we observe 00:06:39.569 --> 00:06:42.290 out in the world isn't a deviation from reality. 00:06:42.670 --> 00:06:45.569 It is the reality. There's no hidden perfect 00:06:45.569 --> 00:06:48.250 blueprint. No hidden perfect essence floating 00:06:48.250 --> 00:06:51.629 out in the ether. There is only endless, constant, 00:06:52.009 --> 00:06:55.050 blurry variation. It's the engine that drives 00:06:55.050 --> 00:06:57.829 the entire natural world. I have to play devil's 00:06:57.829 --> 00:06:59.769 advocate here, though, on behalf of you listening. 00:06:59.930 --> 00:07:02.050 Sure, go for it. I mean, I'm fully on board with 00:07:02.050 --> 00:07:04.329 embracing variety and complexity, but wait a 00:07:04.329 --> 00:07:07.259 minute. How does science even work if there are 00:07:07.259 --> 00:07:10.000 no lines and no definitions? That's the big question. 00:07:10.100 --> 00:07:11.600 Yeah, if there's no line between what makes a 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:13.319 passing grade and a failing grade or what makes 00:07:13.319 --> 00:07:15.519 a bird a bird, doesn't everything just dissolve 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:18.759 into complete chaos? It is a totally valid fiction 00:07:18.759 --> 00:07:21.459 point. And Ackerman directly addresses it in 00:07:21.459 --> 00:07:24.040 the text. Because he's a researcher himself, 00:07:24.180 --> 00:07:26.699 he knows that to run an experiment or study a 00:07:26.699 --> 00:07:29.699 problem, scientists absolutely must define their 00:07:29.699 --> 00:07:31.160 constructs. They have to draw a line somewhere. 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:33.660 They have to categorize. But, and this is the 00:07:33.660 --> 00:07:35.800 crucial distinction, the mechanism of how they 00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:38.540 do it is fundamentally different from the essentialist. 00:07:39.100 --> 00:07:41.420 Good researchers recognize that they are actively 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:44.370 imposing these characteristics on nature. They 00:07:44.370 --> 00:07:46.769 know they're making the lines up. Exactly. They 00:07:46.769 --> 00:07:50.170 know the lines are artificial. They are a temporary 00:07:50.170 --> 00:07:53.550 grid placed over a messy reality. Think of it 00:07:53.550 --> 00:07:56.050 like drawing a map of a mountain range. OK. The 00:07:56.050 --> 00:07:58.670 map is incredibly useful. It has grid lines, 00:07:58.910 --> 00:08:02.209 elevation markers, borders. But a good cartographer 00:08:02.209 --> 00:08:05.389 never mistakes the map for the actual physical 00:08:05.389 --> 00:08:07.509 mountain. They know it's just a representation. 00:08:07.730 --> 00:08:10.310 Right. They interpret their observations strictly 00:08:10.310 --> 00:08:12.589 through the lens of those specific definitions, 00:08:12.589 --> 00:08:15.329 and they actually identify the limitations those 00:08:15.329 --> 00:08:17.610 definitions create. The essentialist, on the 00:08:17.610 --> 00:08:20.110 other hand, mistakes the map for the territory. 00:08:20.490 --> 00:08:23.509 Oh, wow. So the education system mistakes the 00:08:23.509 --> 00:08:26.149 85 % for the actual intellect of the child. That 00:08:26.149 --> 00:08:30.930 is a staggering distinction. The researcher knows 00:08:30.930 --> 00:08:34.389 the metric is a flawed tool, while the essentialist 00:08:34.389 --> 00:08:37.490 thinks the metric is the absolute truth. So what 00:08:37.490 --> 00:08:39.919 does this whole mean? Like on a practical level, 00:08:40.299 --> 00:08:42.600 if we take this map knowing it's flawed and we 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:45.600 look at a classroom of 30 distinct human beings, 00:08:46.259 --> 00:08:48.340 what happens when we replace the essentialist 00:08:48.340 --> 00:08:51.779 view with this variation view? What's fascinating 00:08:51.779 --> 00:08:53.820 here is that it completely opens up the domain 00:08:53.820 --> 00:08:57.220 of education. Under the essentialist model, the 00:08:57.220 --> 00:08:59.919 curriculum is this narrow pipeline. Anything 00:08:59.919 --> 00:09:02.379 that distracts from the standard is a degradation. 00:09:02.620 --> 00:09:05.340 Right. But if variation is the actual reality 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:07.860 of a biological system, which a classroom of 00:09:07.860 --> 00:09:12.139 30 humans absolutely is, then a far wider range 00:09:12.139 --> 00:09:15.519 of knowledge, skills, and problems suddenly become 00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:17.299 valid. Because the environment is part of this 00:09:17.299 --> 00:09:20.590 system now. Precisely. local circumstances, individual 00:09:20.590 --> 00:09:22.730 student interests, brand new emerging technologies, 00:09:23.029 --> 00:09:24.730 a random historical event that happened that 00:09:24.730 --> 00:09:26.409 morning. These are no longer distractions. They're 00:09:26.409 --> 00:09:28.470 part of the curriculum. In a variation model, 00:09:28.830 --> 00:09:31.570 this variety is not a deviation from what the 00:09:31.570 --> 00:09:33.850 curriculum should be. It is a reflection of what 00:09:33.850 --> 00:09:36.110 the curriculum actually is, whether we want it 00:09:36.110 --> 00:09:38.169 to be or not. That completely flips the script. 00:09:38.389 --> 00:09:41.669 It does. And Ackerman argues that accepting this 00:09:41.669 --> 00:09:44.429 biological reality allows us to kill off some 00:09:44.429 --> 00:09:48.049 seriously outdated educational baggage. Specifically, 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:51.600 the concept of learning styles. Bo, really? Because 00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:53.039 I think that might surprise a lot of people. 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.600 The idea of being a visual learner or an auditory 00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:59.720 learner feels so ingrained in how we talk about 00:09:59.720 --> 00:10:02.419 school. It's incredibly ingrained, but it is 00:10:02.419 --> 00:10:04.679 fundamentally just a new form of essentialism 00:10:04.679 --> 00:10:07.679 in disguise. Wait, how is a learning style essentialist? 00:10:07.740 --> 00:10:09.740 Isn't acknowledging that someone learns visually 00:10:09.740 --> 00:10:13.159 a way of honoring variation? It seems like it 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:15.220 on the surface, but look at the mechanism. When 00:10:15.220 --> 00:10:18.370 we label a student a visual learner, we are just 00:10:18.370 --> 00:10:21.070 creating a new slightly smaller box to trap them 00:10:21.070 --> 00:10:24.429 in. We're saying your absolute core essence is 00:10:24.429 --> 00:10:27.009 visual therefore if you fail an auditory lesson 00:10:27.009 --> 00:10:29.710 it's because your essence was violated. It's 00:10:29.710 --> 00:10:32.730 still an attempt to find a clean perfect category 00:10:32.730 --> 00:10:35.529 to explain a messy human brain. So we're just 00:10:35.529 --> 00:10:38.470 making more tiny cookie cutters. Exactly. But 00:10:38.470 --> 00:10:41.090 human cognition is highly variable and deeply 00:10:41.090 --> 00:10:43.870 context dependent. You might process geometry 00:10:43.870 --> 00:10:46.690 highly visually, but you might process poetry 00:10:46.690 --> 00:10:49.509 auditorily and physics through kinetic movement. 00:10:49.799 --> 00:10:53.659 When we accept true natural variation, the rigid 00:10:53.659 --> 00:10:57.299 boxes of learning styles and their shadow learning 00:10:57.299 --> 00:10:59.700 preferences, they just become entirely unnecessary. 00:10:59.860 --> 00:11:02.019 But this sounds like a terrifying prospect for 00:11:02.019 --> 00:11:04.179 a teacher on the ground. I mean, if I'm teaching 00:11:04.179 --> 00:11:06.820 a lesson and it completely bombs and I can't 00:11:06.820 --> 00:11:08.700 rely on the crutch of saying, well, the kids 00:11:08.700 --> 00:11:11.019 are visual learners and I taught it auditorily, 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:13.700 how do I explain the failure? That brings us 00:11:13.700 --> 00:11:16.139 down to the micro level of how a classroom actually 00:11:16.139 --> 00:11:19.220 operates. Ackerman provides a fantastic example. 00:11:19.210 --> 00:11:21.629 of a teacher delivering a lesson on the quadratic 00:11:21.629 --> 00:11:24.389 equation. Ah, a rite of passage for every high 00:11:24.389 --> 00:11:26.690 schooler. Exactly. So imagine a teacher who has 00:11:26.690 --> 00:11:29.649 a highly polished, meticulously designed lesson 00:11:29.649 --> 00:11:31.990 for teaching the quadratic equation. They've 00:11:31.990 --> 00:11:34.389 used it for five years. It has always, quote 00:11:34.389 --> 00:11:37.129 unquote, worked. OK, the golden lesson plan. 00:11:37.350 --> 00:11:40.929 Right. But then, on one specific Tuesday morning 00:11:40.929 --> 00:11:44.590 with a specific group of students, it just catastrophically 00:11:44.590 --> 00:11:47.690 fails. Just totally bombs. Under an essentialist 00:11:47.690 --> 00:11:51.190 mindset, This is a crisis of essence. The standard 00:11:51.190 --> 00:11:53.690 wasn't met. So the teacher will likely blame 00:11:53.690 --> 00:11:55.789 the students for not paying attention, or blame 00:11:55.789 --> 00:11:58.549 themselves for a corrupted delivery, or try to 00:11:58.549 --> 00:12:00.769 diagnose the students with incompatible learning 00:12:00.769 --> 00:12:03.669 styles. They're looking for the one single broken 00:12:03.669 --> 00:12:06.509 variable. Right. But if we view that classroom 00:12:06.509 --> 00:12:09.809 through the biological lens of variation, the 00:12:09.809 --> 00:12:12.389 failure of that lesson makes prefix sense. It 00:12:12.389 --> 00:12:15.129 didn't fail because of a corrupted essence. Why 00:12:15.129 --> 00:12:17.389 did it fail? It failed because a classroom is 00:12:17.389 --> 00:12:20.399 an eco - system. And that ecosystem experienced 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:22.539 an infinite variety of interacting variables 00:12:22.539 --> 00:12:24.700 that morning. Walk us through what those variables 00:12:24.700 --> 00:12:27.080 actually look like in real time. Because it's 00:12:27.080 --> 00:12:29.500 not just the kids were tired. Oh, it's everything. 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:31.799 It's the teacher's specific choices that day. 00:12:31.940 --> 00:12:34.320 Maybe they only slept four hours and subconsciously 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:36.539 rushed a critical transition. It's the students' 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:38.799 attention levels, which are fluctuating second 00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:41.700 by second based on their own biology. Maybe three 00:12:41.700 --> 00:12:43.879 kids skipped breakfast and their blood sugar 00:12:43.879 --> 00:12:46.159 is crashing. Right. Totally out of the teacher's 00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:49.059 control. Exactly. It's the social interactions 00:12:49.059 --> 00:12:52.159 in the room. Maybe two students just broke up 00:12:52.159 --> 00:12:54.639 and the silent tension is distracting the whole 00:12:54.639 --> 00:12:57.500 row. It's environmental details like the room 00:12:57.500 --> 00:13:00.639 being three degrees too hot or a lawnmower running 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:02.659 right outside the window during the most crucial 00:13:02.659 --> 00:13:05.139 part of the equation. It's the weather metaphor 00:13:05.139 --> 00:13:07.139 all over again. You can't blame a hurricane on 00:13:07.139 --> 00:13:09.620 just the humidity. Exactly. It's the interaction 00:13:09.620 --> 00:13:11.860 of all these microscopic elements together that 00:13:11.860 --> 00:13:14.580 is entirely sufficient to explain the outcome. 00:13:15.019 --> 00:13:17.700 It isn't one broken essential part. It is the 00:13:17.700 --> 00:13:20.820 natural variation of a complex biological system 00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:23.340 constantly reacting to itself. Here's where it 00:13:23.340 --> 00:13:25.340 gets really interesting though. You're telling 00:13:25.340 --> 00:13:28.740 me that learning at its absolute core is inherently 00:13:28.740 --> 00:13:32.799 random, blurry, and highly unpredictable. That's 00:13:32.799 --> 00:13:35.039 the reality of it. I hear that and I completely 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:38.299 agree biologically, but systematically. That 00:13:38.299 --> 00:13:40.440 sounds like an absolute nightmare for a school 00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:43.679 administrator. You can't put random ecosystem 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:47.039 variables on an Excel spreadsheet to justify 00:13:47.039 --> 00:13:49.279 a budget. This raises an important question, 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:51.379 and it's the massive friction point Ackerman 00:13:51.379 --> 00:13:54.220 highlights. Validating this natural variation 00:13:54.220 --> 00:13:57.100 is incredibly difficult for our modern systems 00:13:57.100 --> 00:13:59.899 to digest. I can imagine. It is a hard, uncomfortable 00:13:59.899 --> 00:14:02.779 truth. Accepting variety means fully accepting 00:14:02.779 --> 00:14:05.820 that randomness and blurriness inherently dictate 00:14:05.820 --> 00:14:08.879 outcomes. Administrators, parents, politicians, 00:14:09.220 --> 00:14:11.600 taxpayers, they desperately do not want to hear 00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:13.379 that. They want the factory model. They want 00:14:13.379 --> 00:14:15.679 the 19th century certainty. They want an industrial 00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:18.649 pipeline where input A always identically equals 00:14:18.649 --> 00:14:20.809 output B. They want to know that if they pay 00:14:20.809 --> 00:14:23.590 a specific amount in property taxes, the school 00:14:23.590 --> 00:14:25.970 will produce a guaranteed standardized amount 00:14:25.970 --> 00:14:29.809 of learning perfectly captured in an 85%. The 00:14:29.809 --> 00:14:33.450 messy, beautiful, unpredictable reality of biological 00:14:33.450 --> 00:14:36.509 variation just destroys that entire comfort zone. 00:14:36.690 --> 00:14:39.250 Because it's so much easier to point to that 00:14:39.250 --> 00:14:42.289 red 85 on a piece of paper and say, there, that 00:14:42.289 --> 00:14:45.190 is the truth. That is the essence of this child 00:14:45.190 --> 00:14:47.879 intellect. It's comforting. Right. Acknowledging 00:14:47.879 --> 00:14:51.279 that the 85 % is actually just the blurry temporary 00:14:51.279 --> 00:14:54.820 result of a thousand tiny interacting variables 00:14:54.820 --> 00:14:57.460 from the curriculum design down to the lawnmower 00:14:57.460 --> 00:15:00.649 outside the window. That's terrifying. It means 00:15:00.649 --> 00:15:03.230 we have significantly less control than we thought 00:15:03.230 --> 00:15:05.309 we did. It does mean giving up the illusion of 00:15:05.309 --> 00:15:08.149 control. But think about how incredibly liberating 00:15:08.149 --> 00:15:10.309 that is for the student and the teacher. Oh, 00:15:10.330 --> 00:15:12.649 absolutely. When we stop trying to force humans 00:15:12.649 --> 00:15:15.350 into an artificial, essentialist mold that literally 00:15:15.350 --> 00:15:17.750 fits nobody just like those Air Force cockpits, 00:15:18.090 --> 00:15:20.250 we can actually start engaging with the reality 00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:23.370 of who they are and how they learn. We stop treating 00:15:23.370 --> 00:15:26.269 deviations as degradations and start seeing them 00:15:26.269 --> 00:15:28.639 as the natural engine of growth. We've covered 00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:30.940 some serious philosophical ground today, so let's 00:15:30.940 --> 00:15:32.820 quickly retrace our steps for everyone listening. 00:15:33.299 --> 00:15:35.200 We started thousands of years ago with Plato 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:38.399 and this human obsession with finding the perfect 00:15:38.399 --> 00:15:41.360 essence of things. The perfect blueprint. Right. 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:45.080 We saw how that exact philosophy birthed the 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:48.059 rigid 19th century grading system that treats 00:15:48.059 --> 00:15:50.779 any deviation from the standard as a failure. 00:15:51.539 --> 00:15:53.799 Then, we learned from Todd Rose that designing 00:15:53.799 --> 00:15:56.740 for this perfect average essence actually means 00:15:56.740 --> 00:15:59.679 designing for absolutely nobody. A literal zero 00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:02.899 percent fit. Yeah. Then, we looked to evolutionary 00:16:02.899 --> 00:16:05.559 biology and Stephen Jay Gould to realize that 00:16:05.559 --> 00:16:08.019 variation isn't a mistake. It's the fundamental 00:16:08.019 --> 00:16:10.279 rule of reality. And finally, we brought that 00:16:10.279 --> 00:16:13.000 blurry ecosystem -level reality back into the 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.379 classroom, realizing that unpredictability in 00:16:15.379 --> 00:16:17.779 learning isn't a bug in the system. It's a feature. 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:20.029 It's a feature of the natural world. When you 00:16:20.029 --> 00:16:22.649 really absorb it, it is a complete reversal in 00:16:22.649 --> 00:16:25.490 how we view success, failure, and human potential. 00:16:26.090 --> 00:16:28.830 It forces us to respect the complexity of the 00:16:28.830 --> 00:16:31.029 people in front of us rather than judging them 00:16:31.029 --> 00:16:33.830 against a ghost. It really does. So I want to 00:16:33.830 --> 00:16:35.809 leave you with a final thought to mull over today, 00:16:35.950 --> 00:16:38.190 one that extends far beyond the walls of a classroom. 00:16:38.850 --> 00:16:41.289 Take a look at your own daily life. Where else 00:16:41.289 --> 00:16:43.049 are you holding yourself for the people around 00:16:43.049 --> 00:16:46.029 you to an artificial essentialist standard? That's 00:16:46.029 --> 00:16:48.509 a great point. Whether it's the perfect essence 00:16:48.509 --> 00:16:51.730 of an employee at work, the idealized essence 00:16:51.730 --> 00:16:54.490 of a partner in your relationship, or even the 00:16:54.490 --> 00:16:56.549 flawless version of your own personal goals, 00:16:56.929 --> 00:16:59.570 are you judging your messy reality against a 00:16:59.570 --> 00:17:02.690 perfect imaginary shadow? Probably. We all do. 00:17:02.870 --> 00:17:05.190 We really do. And what would happen if you stopped 00:17:05.190 --> 00:17:08.150 demanding that impossible perfection and started 00:17:08.150 --> 00:17:11.309 embracing the natural, unpredictable, blurry 00:17:11.309 --> 00:17:14.289 reality of variation instead? That is a question 00:17:14.289 --> 00:17:16.549 that could change a lot of lives. Thank you for 00:17:16.549 --> 00:17:18.930 joining us on this deep dive. As always, there 00:17:18.930 --> 00:17:20.990 is a whole lot more to learn when we start questioning 00:17:20.990 --> 00:17:23.109 the systems we just take for granted. Catch you 00:17:23.109 --> 00:17:23.410 next time.