How to have a nuanced conversation | A conversation with Drew Perkins

I really want to figure out what the quote unquote other side is thinking and where they might be right, where they might be wrong, and where I might be wrong. So we want to understand and be understood more than we want to or should want to be right. Hey everyone, I'm Shane Leaning. Welcome to Education Leaders, the chart-topping leadership podcast for school leaders just like you. As an organizational coach,

I've helped thousands of leaders across the world lead with greater confidence, make better decisions and create winning teams. And on this show, we explore some of the strategies that are going to help you achieve your goals and transform your leadership. And my guest today is Drew Perkins. He is the president director at Thought Stretches Education. And you may recognize

his name because he's host of the brilliant Thought Stretches Education podcast. He is based in the US and has become known as something of a professional thought stretcher himself. And you'll hear why, because he has got a really great emphasis on leading with inquiry and questioning. I really like his commitment to nuanced conversation in a world that seems increasingly binary. And that's why I wanted to talk to him. Today we explore a little bit about how

online education debates affect school leaders and why we need a little bit more disinterested thinking maybe, and how inquiry can help us build reality-based communities. Let's dive in. Most of the school leaders that we're working with are really all that tuned into the sort of online kinds of discussions and debates that you and I are probably paying more attention to than maybe we perhaps should. Occasionally you'll get some. I do think they're

probably getting some pressure from their community and parents of their students and maybe board members who might be online a bit here or there, but watching cable news or hearing those kinds of pressure points, usually here in the States at least, a lot of them are cultural war kinds of things. And then those pressures, I think, are probably what school leaders are being subject to a little bit more than Twitter fights. It's funny, isn't it? Because you and I have been on Twitter for a while. I'm not on there

really much anymore, but on other platforms, but you can get lulled into a sense that the conversation online is the conversation that's playing out. And yet you've just alluded to it. And I think that's my experience with the principles that I've worked with as well is most of just totally unaware of these debates that are going on online. Yeah. And probably that's much more healthy. The things that manifest from online back and

forth, I think, is generally unhealthy. It tends to, I think, unfortunately, I don't know if radicalize is quite the right word, but in some ways, I think there's some element of that. There's people who are persuaded or convinced that they should entrench themselves into one side or the other, and that the fight is really important as opposed to, how do I figure out what this person is saying? How do I understand what they're saying, what they're thinking?

Maybe consider they might be right about something. What are they right about? What might they be right about? Online discourse, quote, unquote, discourse doesn't exactly foster that particularly well.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. Although I also feel a little bit let down sometimes, if that's the way to put it, because I feel like as educators, shouldn't we be more immune to that kind of thing? But yeah, it seems that the binary arguments do come up quite a lot. But why would we as educators be more immune to it? Because we're ostensibly more into thinking

and learning. Because we do that for our students is because we encourage that for the children we serve, maybe. Maybe. Well, you know, I think we should. I think teachers should be, as we talk about our work,

you know, we do work in lots of inquiry based work and project based learning. But we also are trying to work with schools on helping them establish or reinforce a reality based community using what we call objective pluralism, enlightened liberal principles, the sort of things that do get us to that space where we're considering other opinions and perspectives and seeing that those are valuable, even if we may disagree with them. But there's a lot of K-12 school that that's not particularly relevant, or at least it shouldn't be, right? There's not much of that that should be happening in the teaching of multiplication facts, right? Although some folks online can find ways to do that. So I do think that there are,

I mean, I was a social studies teacher, history and government and psychology, and those kinds of things, humanities courses, those I think are ripe with topics and concepts that are rich for really having some debate about really maybe arguing about that perspective or the ways to think about it. But then there are other things that are, I think, less so, and certainly we shouldn't be debating whether two plus two is four in our schools. So you mentioned there about your work and your work a lot of the time, a lot of discussion I see like about inquiry, for example. And yet I know recently, for example, on your brilliant podcast, which I'm a real fan of, and you hosted a bit of a panel discussion. I think you're trying to do a

few more panels on you at the minute, like, which is great. And you purposely had some quite big thinkers and kind of direct instruction approach there. But that's a perfect example of a divide that seems to have two sides that have set out their stalls. Where did you kind of get involved in that kind of debate? And have you grown through it?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I don't know if there's anything to point to specifically, but that's just been my disposition, I think, from growing up in a family that sort of valued that kind of thing. I do remember friends coming over to dinner and remarking that, boy, you talk about all kinds of things at dinner, which apparently was pretty unique. And as I've grown professionally and

worked more professionally, I've come to value it more, partly because I think it's important for figuring out what's true and what's accurate and what's right, especially if we're thinking about teaching and best approaches, to sort of be dispassionate about what you are thinking is right and trying to be wrong for as short a time as possible. But there's also, I think it seems more important every day here in the States, at least, and I think probably around the world, in terms of the polarization and the poor conversation that people are having, really sort of feeling like they should be arguing about things, that things are so existential. So I really want to find it valuable to figure out what the, quote, unquote, other side is thinking. And again, where they might be right, where they might be wrong, and where I might be wrong. So we want to understand and be understood more than we want to or should want to be right.

And I think that's a much more healthy place, the sort of ongoing forever debate between traditional instruction or direct instruction or whatever that might be, and inquiry and progressive education. It's not an either or, it's a yes and. And I really love being able to talk with people who may agree with that or disagree with that. And I've encountered both. I've recently talked

with several folks who like, yeah, I see that. And we might disagree about the exact specifics of where and when certain approaches might need to be better employed, that kind of thing. But most folks, I think, are more inclined to, especially in a real conversation, not an online back and forth, to say, oh, I see what you're saying. Yes. Or, you know, ask some questions

about that. I just don't think it's helpful at all to make that thinking more dichotomous. And you asked, have I grown through that? I certainly, as somebody who works with educators and works in professional learning, we do, again, a lot of inquiry-based, a lot of project-based learning work. And one of the things that I certainly have thought more about, and when I

talk with school leaders who are interested in working with us, I try to make sure that they understand that we want to make sure that we're not falling into that trap of what I think progressive educators can fall into, which is, oh, knowledge isn't important, or teachers aren't really supposed to teach. And, you know, sort of eschewing that sort of direct instruction, explicit instruction, more traditional side, because somehow they think that that's not good for or not a part of project-based learning. So we want to make sure that we're presenting and sharing with them the things that are important from cognitive science or science of learning or whatever you want to call it. I like how you said that when you're in a real conversation, someone might be able to say, oh, okay, I see what you're saying. And maybe

actually in the online arena or over text chat, which is like the Twitter X world or wherever it is, that's very difficult to get context across. And so these big arguments can end up erupting or it can make people more binary in their approach. It's got me thinking now, if you're online and you've got, you know, a decent following online, then isn't there a responsibility as those people who are talking online to be careful of what they're saying? Because I'm thinking that school leaders who might tune in to these conversations to try and get ideas or advice might just find that just totally overwhelming or confusing in that you've got all these strong messages and where do you get the good quality information from?

Or do you think it's just the online arena is just a debating place and that shouldn't be where people are going to try and find good information? I think if you approach the online space as an opportunity to learn and to listen to people in their best arguments and perhaps their worst arguments, I think that can be really powerful for school leaders. I don't think that would be the number one place or perhaps certainly not the only place, right? But to find voices who are, I think, interested and communicating nuance and complexity of ideas. And, you know, when I hear somebody online, whether it's a conversation

podcast or whether they're sending out messages and they're speaking in absolutist sort of terms with a sort of smug certainty sometimes, that to me makes me wonder about the quality of their ideas overall. It doesn't necessarily disqualify them, but does at least sort of discredit them, at least in some way. Which isn't to say that their ideas aren't good, but they're also, you say, well, what's the thinking of this person that is valuable, but what are the limits in what they might be sharing? Because when they talk about these ideas, they're very narrow in the scope. They're not recognizing or acknowledging that complexity and nuance.

And so take that for what it's worth, right? You look at it and say, well, maybe they have some really good ideas about this part of the sort of spectrum, but they're overlooking all of these things. But at least maybe we can take some things from here. And I think that's definitely true of some of the science of learning folks, and I'm sure very true of some of the more progressive educators too. You've got to almost have an open stance when you're engaging in these to think,

you know, there's value here. Where might they be coming from? Where might that value be that I want to take? Yeah, I think sometimes people will wonder if they see me, for example, online in my behavior, they'll think I'm arguing with people. And I'm rarely doing that, or at least

not trying to. Once in a while, it may go into that space. But generally, what I'm trying to do and what I find valuable about online discourse back and forth is that it's an opportunity for me to learn how people are thinking about any particular topic. And the way that they respond to things that I might say tells me more about what they're thinking. And just like

in a classroom, what we want to know is, do students understand the things that we want them to understand? And that's more than just knowing something, right? Just reciting things. But how do students respond to questions or to prompts or to information? And that's, I think, the same similar,

at least dynamic in between people when I'm trying to interact online. One thing I try not to do is to persuade people online. That's not really what I'm after. I'm trying to understand what their position is and how they think about these things. And maybe if presented with something that seems

like a contradiction in their thinking, how do they respond? Some will block you and shut you down and say, I don't want to have this conversation, you're being rude. But the others that will continue that conversation, I think you can learn a lot about how people think, even if you think this person is totally wrong. I'm in back and forth with a friend of mine on Facebook about our current administration here in the States, Trump, and I'm not a fan. And I'm saying this

is chaos. I think the evidence is pretty clear. And he's saying, let him cook is what he says. So he said, well, let's let him cook, but what's the evidence? And when we're going back and forth,

I'm really trying to be careful, for example, to say, here's what I think, not saying you're completely wrong and here's why you're wrong. And I'm really trying to win this argument because I'm told him I'm not here to persuade you. If you get persuaded, fine. If not, we can agree to disagree and move on. You know, I really like how you just said that, Drew, like when you're engaging in

these conversations, if you want to do it right, it's almost you need to focus on I like this is what I'm thinking or this is not you. This is what I'm thinking about. I think that's quite nice. I am curious though. Like you said, sometimes it can fall into argument for argument's sake.

Or do you have any moments where you feel like you've crossed that line? Is it easy to identify when that line's being crossed? Well, I mean, I've certainly you mentioned podcasts that I've had and one of the podcasts that I've recently released was including Paul Kirchner and Paul and I have talked and as he said in this recent podcast, that we've locked horns, quote, unquote, inquiry versus direct instruction. And that certainly has moved into that space on occasion.

Although in some ways, it's sort of in good fun a little bit. You know, if anybody knows Paul, he's a bit prickly, maybe to put it mildly. But he would acknowledge that, I think. And moving into that space, politics and cultural war kinds of things can do that pretty easily.

Folks are familiar with Howard Gardner here in the States. And he's sort of a famously progressive educator who I spoke with recently on our podcast. And one of the things that he emphasizes and I think is really important is sort of the idea of disinterestedness. And we want to approach these things from a sort of disinterestedness kind of perspective. Not that we shouldn't be interested in things and be passionate about

things, but the conversation should be more disinterested. And when we start to feel the emotions rise and feel like we're in a tech mode, I think that's a sign that we're getting into argument space and getting away from the learning space, which is more disinterested and curious and saying, hmm, tell me more. What makes you say that? What's the evidence for that?

Those kinds of things. I love that word, to be disinterested. And I hear what you say, it's not like the opposite of passion, really. In fact, you can probably be passionately disinterested in disinterestedness, if you like, because it's a good thing to be passionate about nowadays, I would say, like in this binary world that we're in and where everyone's got an interest, which means a side. To be disinterested sounds like somewhere we should all be pretty passionate

about. Yeah, no doubt. I think it's really an opportunity for schools to, I guess, go back to, or I think we've lost touch with one way to describe it as the Enlightenment liberal principles, which is, again, a reality-based community, relies on things like fallibleism and objectivity and exclusivity and disconfirmation, civility, professionalism, those kinds of things. And when you're coming to trying to figure out what's true and what's real, the way to do that, if we lean into the sort of science testing and figuring out what's true, the way to do that is to be disinterested and is to be dispassionate about it, because when we're not, then the conclusions that we reach are generally overly subject to what we want to be true. And that's

not a good place, whether it's in learning, whether it's in cultural issues, whether it's school leaders trying to figure out what's right. What we want to be true may not be what's best. COVID and lockdowns, I think, is a good example. That was a hard thing for school leaders to navigate, partly because it was something that was important to be passionate about.

But where do you get your information and how do you make the decisions based on evidence? And when you have such polarization, at least here in the States, we had such polarization where you stood on whether schools should be open or closed or kids should be wearing masks or not masked. Basically, it was a signal to what tribe you're in. That's not a good recipe for good decision-making. And we saw some really poor decision-making, I think, because of that.

Yeah, I think you're totally right. And nowhere is this more important than in education as well. And I think it's understandable that people get particularly passionate about education because of its importance, right? But we've got to really take note of ourselves. So I'm interested

in some of the work you're doing in this space, and in particular, that you're creating spaces for more balanced conversations. That conversation with Paul Kirshner that you mentioned, I'll link in the show notes. I think it's a wonderful example of a space that's been created to have a balanced conversation. I wonder if you could talk me through a little bit about your ideas. What got you into doing that? And what are you thinking about in this kind of area?

Well, I mean, I've been doing the podcast for a number of years. I don't even know how many episodes were at this point. And a lot of the conversations I think are great. And as you and I have talked not on recording, one of the reasons I do it is because I really enjoy the conversations in almost all cases. And I'm very fortunate to be able to have those conversations

and have people reach out and say, can you make some time for John Hattie? I'm like, let's see if I can clear some calendar or Howard Gardner or something, right? Yeah, let me think about it. It amazes me that I get these requests because we're certainly not the biggest podcast and not necessarily trying to be the biggest podcast. But I do think it's really valuable for educators to

hear other educators and some teachers and some non teachers, but people in the space who are serious thinkers about education issues, to talk with one another and bounce ideas off of each other in a good faith space. And that's hard to find time to do that. It's hard to find space to do that. And it's also, you know, it's a little bit of a challenge, as you well know, to get people to engage as a listener of long form conversations. I mean, honestly, I enjoy the conversations.

And perhaps I'm just being very selfish in that I enjoy the conversations and hope others find it valuable. So yeah, as you mentioned, we've done a few, we've got some others coming up. One, we're going to talk about the science of dialogue and dichotomous thinking. If you're familiar with Andrew Watson, he and I were going back and forth about some project based learning research. He just written a blog piece about one study that he

thought, well, this is pretty credible. And he was in this blog piece in good faith, really trying to challenge his priors and maybe change his mind. So that's the kind of thinker and person I want to have more conversation with. So we're trying to set that up with some other voices that might bring other perspectives, right? One of the

things of a reality based community is that it respects and actually seeks out pluralism. And that I think is just really, really valuable if you're looking to get to the nuance and complexity to come back to my favorite terms of any particular issue. So I love those conversations. I hope others enjoy them. It to me is just really interesting to hear,

not interviews. Those are fine, you know, but a conversation like you and I are having here where it might be more conversational, more organic than sort of scripted. And I'm going to ask these 10 questions and then we'll get out of here. Yeah, that's a real turn off for me when I tune into one of those kind of conversations.

And I guess on that point, you've mentioned this twice and I should have asked you the first time. Reality based community, Drew, tell me about that. I haven't heard that term used in that way before. So in the States here at least, there's such polarization. And one of the things that I

think people have lost touch with, but actually inherently and implicitly understand and think is true, is that enlightenment, liberal principles that really are things that support democracy and support what Jonathan Rauch, if you're familiar with his work, I'm a really big fan of his work. Handling Quisitors, which is a book that he released in the early 90s and then The Constitution of Knowledge, I think in 2020. Don't quote me on that. But really setting out the ways in which we understand what is true and what is not true. And I think that's obviously

a real challenge in today's world because we have such segmented media, we have such partisan tribalism. And so how do we get away from that? And I think schools have an opportunity and should be really teaching this and modeling this and teachers should be modeling it. Those are the things that some of those things that I mentioned, right? The fallible ism objectivity, pluralism,

disconfirmation, fallible ism that no one person has the truth or can tell you this is the truth. And that's a problem. And so fundamentally, it's an inquiry project, right? So this is one of the arguments that I make for the use of inquiry in schools, not just for sort of deeper learning and to get to more conceptual playing with ideas and interconnectedness. But I mean,

it's really instilling that mindset of how might I be wrong? And how can I change my mind more quickly to not be wrong? And how can I understand what the other person is saying, even if I disagree with them, and make sure that they understand what I'm thinking. And to me, that is something that is fundamental to sort of getting us out of this sort of polarization that's about rolled out worrying. This conversation with Drew really got me thinking about how we

engage with different perspectives. There's something super powerful about approaching disagreement from a place of genuine curiosity, rather than just trying to win arguments. I really liked his concept of disinterestedness, not being passionate, but being passionate about finding truth rather than being right. And I feel gosh, in our polarized world, that feels really revolutionary. For school leaders, I think there's a few practical

takeaways. First, can you model intellectual humility in your leadership? Second, how do you create spaces for genuine dialogue rather than just debate? And third, just that reminder, that seeking to understand doesn't mean you have to agree. This conversation really reminded me that

as educators, we're modeling how to think, how to question, and how to engage with ideas that challenge us. And this has never been more important than it is today. You can find out a little bit more about Drew and his work using the links in the show notes. Education Leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leaning. Big thanks to the show editor, Pete McGill, and for the original

music by Guillermo Silva. And thank you so, so much for tuning in today. If we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week.