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Showing posts from January, 2016

Does a duck's quack echo?

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In psychology, there is an effect known as  "the false consensus bias" . This a cognitive inclination that leads us to believe that everyone is like us. You see this bias at work when we see the top 10 movies for the week (“Who the hell are all these people that watch Minions?”) or in politics (“Everyone I know thinks Trump is an clown! Who are these idiots that disagree?!”) or even in socioscientific issues like global warming ("Even scientists can't decide whether it is happening or not!") The advent of the internet and social media has allowed us access to a wide range of sources for our information. However this does mean we as educators can be blinkered by the information that we choose to follow. Given time, this can create a subconscious belief that we and our fellow educators are the "lone nuts" battling against an educational system that needs changing and that the “Other Side” are crazy — an Other Side that just doesn’t “get it,” and