The third idea I want to write about from When Children Don't Learn: Understanding the Biology and Psychology of Sex Differences comes from what McGuinness writes about educational psychologists vs. teachers. She says that teachers made certain observations about children's learning, but educational psychologists did not believe them because they could not explain the claims scientifically. Regarding discoveries made by teachers and the few scientists who took those discoveries seriously, she writes "Often their work did not appeal to the general educational community because what they claimed was counterintuitive, as, for example, their unanimous insistence that reading is more related to hearing than seeing. Similarly, all these talented teachers discovered that effective remediation techniques require the integration of multiple sensory and motor tasks. It is only in the past two years that research on the brain has revealed the neural basis for this insight" (p. 56).
This parallels a gripe I have long held about the medical profession not believing in ailments suffered by patients until they can explain the physical cause. Too many doctors seem to think that if they can't explain it, it doesn't exist.
Whether it's education or medicine, these examples point to the fact that at times there is a gap between scientific understanding and experience. I'm not saying that experience is always right. Sometimes conclusions arrived at through experience are erroneous. I think that when there is a gap between experience and scientific understanding, we should not conclude that the experience is wrong, nor should we conclude that scientific understanding is wrong. The existence of a gap is simply a pointer to the need for further inquiry. Until the question is resolved, I think both sides need to keep an open mind.
