Teach Effectively!

Orac, whom regular readers will recognize from a few earlier posts, has a lengthy-but-informative piece about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) that I read a day or so ago. In “The infiltration of woo into mainstream academic medicine: The media notices,” Orac explains that he is glad that some news media are recognizing the fluffy nature of some popular medical treatments.

Along with Dr. R.W. and few others, I’ve made a bit of a name for myself in the medical blogosphere by bemoaning the infiltration of non-science- and non-evidence-based medicine into academia. It’s not a particularly popular viewpoint. The prevailing attitude seems to be: Why be so negative? It’s all good. Moreover, with a credulous media eager to publish stories of “healing” and “humanistic” medicine, those of us who remain skeptical of applying unproven and/or untested remedies in an academic setting, thus giving them the imprimatur of academic medicine and the respect associated with it, are easily painted as dinosaurs, unable to get with the plan, unaccepting of the new order of medicine.

Well, if it’s bad in medicine, consider education. In education, bologna isn’t just the gnat that it is in medicine, it’s the dominant. Whereas in medicine, some patients get better regardless of whether a treatment or therapy works, in education virtually all of our students grow older and more competent regardless of whether a teaching procedure works. So, essentially, bologna (or “woo”) rules in education. Despite all the attention devoted to scientifically based research (as redundant as that may seem), educators need to ask tough questions about the effects of favored practices.

As Orac has noted previously, there shouldn’t be a need to investigate CAM separately from other therapies; any therapy—complementary, alternative, Eastern, stodgy traditional, etc.—should be subject to the same rigorous testing. The same should be true in education.

I have to work out the similarities and differences more completely, so that I can draw the analogy clearly. I’ll work on it. But in the meantime, I encourage readers to read LinkOrac’s post.