Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EDTL 2010C
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
2
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
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
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.
Individualized Professional Development Plan, I organized these values into four principal
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
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
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
3
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
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
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
diversity in school and out is a conception of mine that is not subject to change.
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
4
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
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
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,
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
5
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
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
say that I was satisfied, or saw no reason to be dissatisfied, with my existing conception that the
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
6
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
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
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
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
7
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
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
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
8
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
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
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
9
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
commitment has transitioned from one that regards money as the core of education to one that
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,
me. Also in reference to the work of Strike and Posner, this new conception is much more
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
inclusivity, activism, conversation, and introspectiveness, rather than resigning to the perception
REFERENCES
Compton, L., Davis, N., & Correia, A. (2010). Pre-service teachers’ preconceptions,
37-54
Godfrey, C. (2013). [Learning through social media and this “Technological Revolution.”]
Godfrey, C. (2016). It’s time for a more diverse English curriculum. The Beachcomber.
Godfrey, C. (2017c). [Let’s give ‘em something to talk about] Unpublished manuscript.
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.
understanding of students (like always) Tech is a tool for 21st century ed, not the
906053981029453826
Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W., & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a
211-227.
SOCIAL CLASS DISMISSED
12
Strike, K. A., & Posner, G. J. (1992). Revisionist Theory of Conceptual Change. Philosophy
manuscript.