SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED

Social class dismissed: What is the root of academic success?

Cameron Michelle Godfrey

Bowling Green State University

EDTL 2010C
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Conceptual change takes place when an idea, or series of ideas, that is in some way

foundational to one’s thinking and learning is fundamentally altered. This notion, while studied

frequently in congruence with the field of science education, is applicable across all fields of

pedagogy, and can be identified in my own experience. While I maintain many of the

conceptions I brought into college, I can definitely say that I have experienced concept change to

a certain extent in the past semester.

According to Strike, “novice learners do not approach learning as blank slates, they

approach new ideas with prior conceptions,” (Strike and Posner, 1992, p.151) Strike refers to an

individual’s set of pre-conceived conceptions as their “conceptual ecology,” consisting of a range

of ideas and instincts that may be developed or not. In examining the extent to which I have

experienced conceptual change over the course of the past semester in Intro to Education, it is

pertinent to reflect on the conceptions I brought into the class, both those I had priorly

articulated, and those fragmented intuitions that were not fully formed in my mind.

My conceptual ecology is guided by my personal values. In assembling my

Individualized Professional Development Plan, I organized these values into four principal

categories: inclusivity, activism, conversation, and introspection. These fundamentals have

constituted the foundational backbone of my thinking and learning, and remain unaltered as I am

exposed to new conceptions. These values serve as the basis for my conceptual ecology, and

have not wavered, (Godfrey, 2017b).

One concept that has remained consistent throughout my education is the importance of

listening to a diverse range of voices. My advocacy for this issue extends back into my high

school career, as evidenced by my Ohio Scholastic Media Association award winning editorial
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for my school newspaper demanding a necessary emphasis on diversity in the English

curriculum. The article, “It’s Time For A More Diverse English Curriculum,” confronted the

English department at my school, particularly its male constituents, for a failure to incorporate

non-male and non-white authors into their curriculum. I contend in the editorial that “literature,

when immersive and diverse, allows us to expand our minds and our worldview. Our classes

should do the same,” (Godfrey, 2016). Similarly, in a paper for Introduction to Education

addressing my aspirations as a teacher, I provided:

I want to abandon the traditional ‘classic’ curriculum that erases the voices of women and

minorities in favor of a diverse array of literature that truly reflects the human condition

in a meaningful way. Through their own connection with literature, I want to help my

students develop their own points of view. More than anything, I want to show my

students that what they have to say deserves to be said. (Godfrey, 2017c, p. 3)

While my argument has been refined, the essential assertion that diversity in the classroom is

crucial for the development of an open-minded and empathic student body remains in tact. This

notion of actively confronting instances of inequality is basal in a large amount of my writing.

Even later in the semester, I wrote, in reference to my high school, “white privilege … is the root

of our racial divide … A sentiment of ‘coexistence’ and ‘tolerance’ is encouraged over inclusivity

and community, which, in practice, manifests itself in a refusal to acknowledge our differences

and the importance of these differences in favor of living together without conflict,” (Godfrey,

2017e, p. 7). These few examples reflect a mode of thinking that is steadfastly present in all of

my reflection. Choosing to be an active participant in promoting inclusivity, community, and

diversity in school and out is a conception of mine that is not subject to change.
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The absence of conceptual change in respect to my own personal values reaffirms Strike’s

assertion that “people do not alter concepts that play a central role in their thinking unless and

until they see them as having become dysfunctional,” (Strike and Posner, 1992, p. 149). As is

true for many, I am incredibly protective of my own values, and without reason to re-evaluate

them, I scarcely do. For those conceptions that align with my values and my “epistemological

commitments,” (Posner, 1982), I can say that I have not experienced any concept change.

However, there are some concepts that I have held that, when tested in this class, have

proven faulty. In attempting to weigh whether or not I’ve experience concept change, I have

uncovered a dramatic shift in my thinking with regards to the fundamental basis of academic

success. Principally, I came into this semester under the impression that our school system has

utterly failed, and that the only way to fix it was to pump more money into it. When analyzing

this assertion in attempt to fully understand its origin, I encountered the disturbing realization

that I had come to intrinsically link money and educational success. This is, perhaps, a product of

my upper-class suburban upbringing. Equipped with near-excessive technology, small class

sizes, overwhelming support from an educated, affluent community, and many concrete

resources that can be bought and sold, I had come to associate my high school’s academic

success with its money.

It was not until the first Community and Context night in Seminar that I was confronted

with a competing conception that led me to be somewhat dissatisfied with my existing mindset.

In an email before the class, we were confronted with the prompt, “come prepared to discuss

what you think we should be spending our money on in education. What if money were not an

issue? What would you spend the money on?” (P. Vrooman, personal communication,
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September 11th, 2017). Because I have long been an advocate for the integration of technology

into the classroom, as evidenced by a 2013 blog post where I wrote, “I, myself, believe that the

internet is bringing about a revolution, in education, in communities, and in life itself,” (Godfrey,

2013), and continuously asserted the incredible importance of educational technology, I vouched

for the expansion of technological programs in schools. I have since altered my stance in this

regard, arguing instead that technology must be understood and integrated responsibly and only

when justifiable, instead of regarded as the end-all be-all in an effective classroom. I addressed

this issue in a tweet, explaining that “[Education] in the 21st century requires an ongoing

understanding of students (like always). [Technology] is a tool for 21st century [education], not

the definition” (Godfreycameronm, 2017). This shift in mentality demonstrates an important step

in my journey toward concept change as I come to understand that physical resources such as

technology are simply elements that support an effective 21st century school, but they alone do

not create one. At the seminar following this email, we were introduced to an educational study

that presented a series of variables related to education and the effect they had on school

outcomes. Contrary to my initial understanding, economic variables such as expenditures per

pupil and teacher salary, which I had associated with my school’s academic success, had

relatively low “coefficients of variation.” The variables with the highest impact on school

outcomes included parental involvement, mother’s education, parental aspirations, and dropout-

oriented peers. Being exposed to this empirical data was eye-opening, and I believe it was the

impetus of my concept change, (Personal communication, September 13th, 2017).

Before this night, I was in a stage referred to by Compton as pre-dissatisfaction. That is to

say that I was satisfied, or saw no reason to be dissatisfied, with my existing conception that the
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perceived failure of public education has an economical cause and therefore an economical

solution, (Compton, 2010). Posner and Strike contend that an individual will remain in this pre-

dissatisfied stage unless a series of conditions for conceptual change are met. The article

provides that “there must be dissatisfaction with existing conceptions,” and in order to be

replaced, the new conception must be “intelligible,” “plausible,” and “fruitful,” (Posner and

Strike, 1982, p. 214). The introduction to this study moved me toward dissatisfaction, but, for a

long time, I still clung to my original beliefs. This demonstrates the “tenacity” of one’s existing

conceptions as explained by Ruhf in his unpublished document as he describes, “ideas held by

learners are rooted within a lifetime of experiences, perceptions, cultural influences, and

language use, and cannot be easily overthrown,” (Ruhf, 2003, p. 5). My background of entirely

affluent schooling, between my private Jewish day school education in elementary school and

my upper-class white suburban public school in secondary school, had created in me what is

referred to by Posner as an “epistemological commitment,” meaning that these aforementioned

experiences and perceptions have made my conception incredibly persistent. This tenacious

belief did not, at this stage, meet the conditions for concept change as defined by Posner. It was

still intelligible and plausible to me that money can fix schools, at least to a certain extent, given

that schools in wealthy communities generally have more access to both concrete resources

(technology, school supplies, class sizes, etc.) and abstract resources (parental involvement,

success-oriented parents and peers, employed and educated community, etc.). Such belief was

fortified by my experiences in high school, as Beachwood is often ranked as one of the best

schools in Cuyahoga County, if not all of Ohio. Toward the end of this stage, my satisfaction was

being disrupted by the new conceptions being introduced to me, and I felt the resolve of my old
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conceptions slipping, but I had not yet been confronted with any anomaly or concrete reason to

alter my solid conception that was, at the time, the only intelligible, plausible, and fruitful

explanation for how to improve upon our school system.

The next phase, according to Posner and Strike, “occurs when these central commitments

require modification,” (Posner and Strike, 1982). This “dissatisfaction” stage refers to the

position during which one’s perception of the truth does not align with their existing conceptual

ecology, (Compton, 2010). The beginning of my dissatisfaction phase began in the very next

Commie night, this time confronted with a graph that showed no correlation between the amount

of money spent per pupil and high test scores. Though the transition between satisfaction and

dissatisfaction wasn’t exactly distinct— Strike and Posner provide that “conceptions and

misconceptions can exist in …different degrees of articulateness,” (Strike and Posner, 1992, p,

148) meaning oftentimes conceptions are indistinct notions or intuitions and therefore the change

between them is not always clearly defined)— this is the most concrete citation I can provide as

the turning point in my journey toward concept change. It was later in a small group discussion

that I was able to expatiate on this conception. Three other students and myself all agreed with

the conclusions of the study that the abstract resources had the most influence on school

outcomes, but in general, we were not ready to throw the influence of money out the window. In

this conversation, I was challenged to reevaluate the role of money in education. There is no

denying that money plays a huge role in schools, both solving and causing problems, but in this

stage I began to understand that the belief that money will solve school problems is shortsighted

and narrow-minded. In this conversation and after, I started to examine how the role of money

interacts with the role of the community. This was the birthplace of a candidate to replace my
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old, faulty conception with a new one— that school outcomes are influenced by the community

and related societal structures which are often influenced by factors including but not limited to

economics and class.

My transition into post-dissatisfaction, or return to satisfaction with my new conception

(Compton, 2010), was impeded by my experience in my internship at an alternative school.

Because the entirety of my own education was in traditional public and private schools in the

affluent suburbs of the Greater Cleveland area, observing such a school for students of the lower-

middle and lower-class who attended alternative school because they could not keep up with the

pressure or pace of traditional school was a very stark contrast. The interaction that firmly

cemented my new conception— that it is not economic status that makes or breaks a school, but

rather the societal constructs that surround economic status, or that the fundamental root of

educational success is not money but community— was a conversation with the students in the

school about attending university. These students, all at different levels of academic ability, have

but one identifiable commonality between them: they have a reason to be in an alternative

school. This may be it history of misbehavior or truancy, an inability to keep up with the pressure

or pace of traditional school, an extenuating family circumstance, or any justification for why

their traditional “home school” would transfer them to such a school. Many of them saw college

as unrealistic for them, and when I suggested solutions such as scholarships, loans, or cheaper

options like community college, they often cited non-economic factors, particularly parental

influence. Even knowing that attending college may be possible financially (though definitely

more difficult than for those of the middle to upper classes) did not convince them that it was

actually plausible. This interaction led me to conclude that, though academic success (including
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but not limited to college attendance) is possible for students in lower and lower-middle class

schools, “what makes it impossible is the belief that they can not go to college, which comes

from factors such as dropout-oriented peers and parents, peers and parents with low expectations,

parents who didn’t graduate high school or attend college, etc, all factors which are significantly

more present in the lower classes [than the upper-middle and upper classes]” (Godfrey, 2017f).

All of these are problems that cannot be fixed by giving money to the school, because the school

does not fix them. The issues that most need to be addressed are the community issues that

perpetuate the abstract factors that keep these students from academic success. This is a

fundamental change in my conceptual ecology, as it demonstrates that my epistemological

commitment has transitioned from one that regards money as the core of education to one that

sees its core as something more communal and social.

In alignment with the theories of Strike and Posner, this new concept is “intelligible”,

“plausible”, and “fruitful,” making it an perfect candidate to replace my old conception. The

idea that community is at the root of education fits seamlessly into my conceptual ecology

alongside many similar conceptions. Strike and Posner explain that “concepts are not isolated

cognitive artifacts … they are interdependent for their meaning,” (Strike and Posner, 1992, p.

153). While the view of money as the center of education was somewhat of an anomaly,

community and relationships as the center of education interacts with my values of inclusivity,

activism, conversation, and introspection flawlessly, making it “intelligible” and “plausible” to

me. Also in reference to the work of Strike and Posner, this new conception is much more

“fruitful” to me, as it encourages me to continue to pursue a career in teaching, rather than

discouraging me as did my old, pessimistic conception.

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The conclusion I’ve drawn from the thorough examination of my own conceptual

ecology and how it’s evolved over the last semester is that I am currently in a state of post-

dissatisfaction, meaning that I have met the conditions, gone through the three stages, and fully

experienced concept change with regards to what I perceive it the root of academic success. This

conceptual change is fruitful in my journey to becoming a teacher as it will help fortify the

interpersonal relationships I create in my career, and will allow me to spread my values of

inclusivity, activism, conversation, and introspectiveness, rather than resigning to the perception

of a failed education system.

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REFERENCES

Compton, L., Davis, N., & Correia, A. (2010). Pre-service teachers’ preconceptions,

misconceptions, and concerns about virtual schooling. Distance Education, 31(1),

37-54

Godfrey, C. (2013). [Learning through social media and this “Technological Revolution.”]

Web log post.

Godfrey, C. (2016). It’s time for a more diverse English curriculum. The Beachcomber.

Godfrey, C. (2017a). [Journal #2: Independent thinking] Web log post.

Godfrey, C. (2017b). [IPDP] Unpublished manuscript.

Godfrey, C. (2017c). [Let’s give ‘em something to talk about] Unpublished manuscript.

Godfrey, C. (2017d). [Redefining “21st century education”] Web log post.

Godfrey, C. (2017e). [Whitewashing your district (and other ways to keep parents happy)]

Unpublished manuscript.

Godfrey, C. (2017f). [What’s keeping alternative school students from going to college?]

Unpublished manuscript.

godfreycameronm. (2017, September 8). Ed in the 21st century requires an ongoing

understanding of students (like always) Tech is a tool for 21st century ed, not the

definition [Twitter post] Retrieved from https://twitter.com/godfreycameronm/status/

906053981029453826

Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W., & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a

scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science Education, 66(2),

211-227.
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Strike, K. A., & Posner, G. J. (1992). Revisionist Theory of Conceptual Change. Philosophy

of Science, Cognitive Psychology, and Educational Theory and Practice, 148-176.

Ruhf, R. J. (2003) [A general overview of conceptual change research] Unpublished

manuscript.