Substantially True: Paul Messier

CREATING THE FUTURE
Perspectives on Educational Change
Compiled and Edited by Dee Dickinson

SUBSTANTIALLY TRUE
Paul R. Messier

For much of my research career, I sought "objective" data so as to be on firm ground and avoided "subjective" influences on my observations. The more "objective" the observation, the more solidly it approached the real truth. This is such a fundamental "given" in research that the assumption is held without question and tacitly guides inquiry. Of course, being "objective" makes the observation verifiable by another observer. This is the strength of the scientific method. When Isaac Newton ushered in the age of science, he gave us a new paradigm; a new way of exploring. But to become scientific, we had to prevent our views from intruding on facts. The wonders of science became ours only as we became uninvolved observers. We then set about finding the truths in nature and exposed them for others to witness.

This is all very understandable to me and represents progress in knowing facts ever more clearly. Moreover, it simply feels right-an "objective" fact is more real than a "subjective" one. The biases inherent in a "subjective" fact obviously distort the truth.
To refine our facts further E. L. Thorndike observed that (1) if something exists, it exists in some amount, and (2) to know something well involves knowing its quantity. These straightforward pronouncements lay down a credo for research. The better you can measure it, the more real it is! Put another way, if it can't be measured, it probably doesn't exist. With measurements, the verification of a fact can become very precise. When your measurements match mine, then we know we are observing the same objective reality.
Measuring subjective judgments is an annoyingly inaccurate, if not an impossible, job. To share a subjective observation with some degree of precision is virtually unattainable. It does appear that subjective observations lack something necessary to make them tangible. You can't confirm that you're seeing the same thing that I am. At the very least, subjective observations should be relegated to a lesser realm of reality-and that feels all right. It fits the way things are. For example, we have the "hard" physical sciences and the "soft" social sciences. We know that physics is the stalwart of the exact sciences, while psychology is still trying to measure things accurately.
This all seems to be natural and proper. It is how reality has been worked out. Moreover, it agrees very well with the world as we know it. Or could it be something about us that would have us see the world this way? If so, how did we get "this way" of seeing? Is it in our genetic design? Or, perhaps, it comes from the common way we have of viewing things-our way of viewing the world-our world view?
The answer literally came home to me as I was helping my six-year-old daughter, Rachel, prepare balloons for her birthday party. I tied a string on a balloon, held the string out taut and asked her to cut it with the scissors. As she picked up the scissors she asked me where she should cut the string. I told her that anywhere would do the job. She held the scissors over the string and asked if where she had placed the scissors would do. As I attended to other things, I replied that anywhere around the middle would be fine. Then my attention focused on her as she moved the scissors back and forth across the middle of the string. With anxious concentration, she brought the scissors to rest in one position and asked if that were the center. I told her it was and she proceeded to cut the string.
I was concerned with what I had just observed. Rachel is in the first grade and is identified as gifted. She had always exhibited a great deal of confidence in herself. But it became clear to me that she was becoming doubtful about her own judgment. Assurance as to where the "center" was had to come from me. Certainly, if Rachel had been in school she would have asked the teacher to specify the "center." The teacher, in turn, would have seen this as very appropriate and Rachel would be rewarded for being careful and thoughtful about following directions.
Rachel had just begun her schooling and was already becoming aware about the fundamental "nature-of-things." She was beginning to understand that the truth-the exact location of the "center"-resided outside of herself. The truth was to be found in persons of authority or out there somewhere in the reality of things. If she asked and searched hard enough and long enough she would know the "center" of things. The world that she knew, the one that resided within herself, the one she put together from her own sense of things was to be set aside. The world wherein her own "center" resides was becoming suspect. The quest for the remainder of her life was being clearly set before her: to seek out the truths that reside "out there."
The rules of the quest will soon come to feel natural. And as she conducts her research in graduate school, she will intrinsically know that "objective" data are more solid than "subjective" data. She will know what the researcher of today knows, that "subjective" biases are to be avoided if the real truth is to be known. And this will all be understandable and feel right!
On the other hand, this scenario should perhaps be reconsidered. These are times of change, and it appears our reality is changing. At least, our view of reality is changing and "our view" apparently has something to do with the changes. The tenets of Newtonian physics, where the firmest of "objective" facts have been found over these many years, may not stand on solid ground as it turns out. The new physics is convinced that separating the "observer" from the "observed" is quite impossible. How then can we step back and observe "objectively"? Perhaps unbiased observation is a sham, for the act of observing itself alters what we are observing.
Moreover, according to the new physics, how you set about measuring something determines what you will measure. Whatever you set out to measure is what you'll get. So, even measurements can't firm up "objective" reality for us, for the act of measuring itself delimits what is being measured. Our "subjective" world impinges on the "objective" world.
The goal of grasping "objective" reality is further removed as the complex wonders of chaos are unfolded. Chaos, nonlinear dynamics, is now recognized as being the rule rather than the exception throughout nature and the universe. The old rules that gave us an orderly, repeating "reality" were comfortable, but unfortunately inaccurate. To gain this appealing regularity, we unwittingly shape reality to our liking. We allow our need for neat, straightforward patterns to govern what facts we accept as important. These straight-line, linear patterns enable us to make predictions.
Comforting, yes, but what of the facts that do not fit the patterns we wanted? To keep things tidy, they are declared inconsequential and are dismissed as insignificant. Not fitting our paradigm, we're sometimes not even aware of them, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out. They do not disappear, however. The studies of chaos have taken another look at them. These discarded or overlooked facts now reveal themselves as key to producing chaotic, nonlinear patterns-nature's preeminent design-beautiful, irregular patterns, but not comfortably predictable.
So, it turns out, we've been tailoring our discoveries of "objective" realities to suit our predilections-to fit our composite "subjective" reality-to conform to our paradigm. Perhaps, in fact, reality is neither "objective" nor "subjective." Together they comprise the reality we know and both are equally important in its composition. What we subjectively put in is as important as the objective component-subjective and objective are equally important.
Maybe Rachel and her teacher shouldn't try to replace her world with an "objective" one. Maybe it's time to render a new judgment on the primacy of the "objective" world. It comprises but part of our reality with our "subjective" view providing the remainder. Our socially agreed upon "subjective" view, our way of seeing things, our paradigm as it relates to our individual worlds is important to understand. In turn, it would seem important to know our individual worlds as they impact on our reality. Accordingly, Rachel should be encouraged to develop and understand her own world. Her unique world and that of all students should be cherished for the enrichment they offer our reality. These young worlds should be nurtured with care and dignity for they, in composite, will shape the reality of tomorrow.

About the Author:

Dr. Paul Messier is director of the National Learning Foundation in Washington, DC. He was a Senior Research Analyst for the United States Department of Education and Director of the Quality Mentoring Project for the One to One Program. His commitment to education has been of long standing as a teacher on all levels, Fulbright Scholar, researcher, and, with his current interests in gathering the most effective and innovative strategies for teaching and learning, as director of the White House Task Force on Innovative Learning.
During the Education Summit on Lifespan Learning, Dr. Messier presented his "Education Bill of Rights" for the 21st Century. In it he describes the need to "identify and applaud schools that work, methods that work, and models that work -- and work in ways that transcend traditional modes -- that work by doing more than disseminating knowledge and skills, that develop self-starting, self-confident, self-actualizing individuals who know how to learn and also how to thrive on learning.... Models are needed to engage broader human capabilities and achieve massive enhancements of education, enhancements that alter our fundamental perceptions of learning and learners."
After graduating from Lowell University, Dr. Messier attended Columbia University, where he received a master's degree in Counseling Psychology. He received his Education Certificate from San Diego University, and his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Michigan State University, followed by postdoctoral research as a Fulbright Scholar in Florence and at George Washington University.
Dr. Messier entered the United States Office of Education as a Research Specialist in 1963. He has served as Associate Director of Research and Development for Project Head Start. In the US Department of Education he has served as Director of Regional Research and Development, Associate Deputy Commissioner, Director of the Division of Development, Director of Special Studies, and Acting Director of the Education and Society Division, Office of Research, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

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