Teachers Need to be Foxy

Wait, that title might not come out right. Let's try this again...

Teachers Need to be More Like Foxes and Less Like Hedgehogs!

Amazon.com

Okay forget the title.

I am currently reading "The Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver, the now famed economist/blogger that correctly called 50/50 states in the 2012 presidential election. The book discusses how predictions are often incorrect but sometimes can be correct (or something like that). The part that led me to write this post however is based around a chapter that asks the question "Are You Smarter Than A Television Pundit?". Silver discusses research by Philip Tetlock, a professor of psychology and political science. Tetlock was examining predictions made by "experts" and found that while they overall were about as accurate as a coin flip there was a slight differences in two subgroup he labeled "foxes" and "hedgehogs".

The names of the groups was based on a passage from greek poet Archilochus:

"The fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

 Here is a more in depth description from Silvers book:

• Hedgehogs are type A personalities who believe in Big Ideas- in governing principles about the world that behave as though they were physical laws and undergrid virtually every interaction in society.



Photo Credit: XWiz

• Foxes are scrappy creatures who believe in a plethora of little ideas and in taking a multitude of approaches toward a problem.

Photo Credit: DigitalPrimate

In case you haven't realized it by now teachers need to be more like foxes. They are like "Renaissance Men", studying as much as possible so that they can apply those ideas to whatever it is they are doing. Silver characterizes them as multidisciplinary, adaptable, self-critical, tolerant of complexity, cautious (when it comes to opinions) and empirical. Now try and tell me that doesn't sound like an ideal teacher! Teachers need these qualities for their classroom. Foxes understand, and can draw from multiple disciplines when speaking on a subject. We always talk about being interdisciplinary, threading lessons through as many different subject as we can so that we highlight that subjects are not compartmentalized. We need teachers that can do that in their own classroom.

We probably all know a hedgehog-ish teacher. A teacher that knows their subject inside and out but is completely unable to speak with any credibility on anything else the students may have questions about.

We need foxes in schools. We need teachers that are willing to learn. We need teachers that branch out. Most of all though, we need teachers that model the type of multidisciplinary learning that we expect from our students.