Viewpoint

Evolution, Teachers, and Standards of Excellence

Ian G. McLean

Most of us will never run a marathon, fly a plane, or ride a horse.

Hang on a minute. I, personally, have run half a marathon, I once sat beside the pilot and held the controls of a plane, and I have fallen off at least three horses. Most of us have similar stories to tell -- we have done all of these things. We just didn't do them very well. Surely the statement is false?

In reality, I can claim half-hearted attempts, but I cannot claim to do any of the above. Which is not to say that I couldn't. Probably I could. I just need the appropriate training.

Put another way, due to lack of effort, interest, opportunity, or whatever, I have not achieved an appropriate standard of skill in marathon-running, plane-piloting, or horse-riding, to claim competence in those abilities.

Others can. There are people who run sub-2.5 hour marathons, who pilot jets at twice the speed of sound, or who stand on the backs of galloping horses. I sincerely doubt that I could ever do any of these things no matter how much training I received.

A recent report told of an English woman who had just failed her first driving test -- after 1500 hours of lessons! Just as there are things that most of us will never achieve, there are things that most of us do competently that a few cannot achieve.

The bottom line is, each of us has limits, and individual ability to do particular things will vary.

So what's the point? First, a disclaimer and an apology. We have all just experienced a curious argument, much of it conducted through the media, about excellence in teaching. The government wanted to reward excellent teachers. The union insisted that it was inappropriate to do so because "all teachers are excellent -- you will have to reward all of them".

The disclaimer is that I am not taking sides here. The apology is to teachers for using them to make a point.

The problem is that the phrase "all teachers are excellent" does not mean the same as "all teachers are well-trained and achieve a minimum standard". It would be utterly ridiculous to argue that all teachers teach in the same way, or do the same things, or have the same impact on students. We have all been in a classroom and we know its not true. Nor would we want it to be true even if it was possible to train teachers to be identical.

Presumably, then, the union is not suggesting that all teachers are the same. What they are suggesting is that the minimum standard that all teachers achieve is one that should be considered "excellent". Perhaps so.

Evolutionary biologists have a similar disagreement, which I will simplify into two arguments.

Argument 1: natural selection functions as a filter. If 100 individuals are available, but the environment can only support 50, then 50 will win (survive) and 50 will lose (die). On average, the 50 that survive will be the best adapted to that environment, hence the notion of a filter. Selection lets the good ones through -- it rewards excellence. And it does so by making comparisons among the original 100 contenders.

Argument 2: organisms do "what works". They are the product of a lengthy history which has designed them to function effectively in particular environments. Thus all 100 in the above example have the capacity to survive. Because there is only room for 50, there will be deaths. But those deaths will be a random selection of the available 100 individuals. Fundamentally, the organisms are too similar for the notion of selection operating as a filter to allow the "best" 50 through.

The first argument is a statement of evolution as conceived by Darwin. The second is not an outright rejection of Darwinian processes, but it insists that selection does not operate in such a fine-grained way. In essence, the first argument focusses on between-individual differences and ignores gross similarity; the second focusses on between-individual similarity and ignores subtle differences.

The analogy with the teachers' industrial problem is clear. The union insists that all teachers are of a high standard (argument 2). The government insists that the best teachers should be rewarded (argument 1). The stance of both is based on a realistic assessment of the facts, but they are talking at cross purposes. An important corollary is that nobody is suggesting that some teachers are no good, but sometimes we are led to believe that this conclusion is part of the government's agenda.

Is there a lesson here? In principle (especially in this year of the Olympics), we generally agree that it is appropriate to strive for excellence, and I have no doubt that all teachers do so. Yet it is a simple truth that we can all be competent at some things, but we cannot all be truly excellent at anything. Competency is judged by absolute standards (argument 2). Excellence is judged relatively (argument 1).

Our training colleges have high standards and ensure that all teachers are competent. Call them excellent if you want, but you debase the notion of excellence by doing so. It is indisputable that some teachers will be better than others. Whether the best teachers should be rewarded at the cost of the competent teachers is a moral issue. It is not a question of standards.

lan G. McLean is a lecturer in the University of Canterbury's Department of Zoology.