It has been a long time since I’ve posted. Work and school have both kept me extremely busy, but now that I’m officially able to start collecting data for my dissertation, suddenly I’m motivated again to get my voice out there.
I wanted to share a TikTok from one of my favorite creators on the app, Jamelle Bouie. Jamelle is a writer for the New York Times opinion section, and I think that he often has some of the most clear-eyed perspectives to politics, history, and the systems that govern our world. Lately on TikTok, he has been pushing back against people who are trying to claim that the world is ending because the election did not turn out the way they had hoped. In part of that pushback, he released this video:
While he is discussing American politics in that video, particularly in the assessment of politician’s honesty, I think that his advice is applicable to the type of research that I hope to continue and the work that educators are trying to achieve.
It is very easy to become a cynic in education. There are so many different people who have agency within the world of education and all of them have slightly different goals and beliefs. From parents, administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, legislatures, city officials, to the students themselves, there are many different people who are trying to move the field of education in different ways. Each group has a different perspective on what makes education high quality and often those perspectives are in opposition to each other.
Falling into the trap of believing that everyone who has a different view than you do is somehow only doing it for their own personal gain, ego, or trying to rig the system leads only to dismissing every disagreement out of hand. It erodes trust between stakeholder groups and increases the resistance to change within our schools, even if that change will result in positive outcomes. Aslam et al. found that this cynicism (which they defined as “affectual resistance) to change causes people to opt out of of any activities that might lead to a positive change (2016).
Tran et al. (2022) found that cynicism from consumers can be a factor in the failure of service providers. In their study they discuss that consumers will often attempt to punish organizations or firms that they perceive as deserving it. This often results in a breakdown between the consumer and the firm which is bad for both. If we frame education as a service, then it is very easy to see how an influx in cynicism can result in the education provided to a student to break down. If the parents, teachers, other teachers, and student are questioning the motivation of the other parties to the point that trust completely breaks down, then it is only reasonable to expect that the eudcation provided to the student will suffer.
As educators it is important, therefore to take actions that will build trust between ourselves and those that disagree with us. Tran et. al (2022) found that this was important, even if the attempt to build trust was doomed to fail with a particular consumer (the authors desribe this as recovery). This can mitigate the impact of cynicism. If we engage in these kinds of actions, even if they do not work in the moment, the impact of cynicism can be lessened over time.
However, when building this trust we should not blindly trust the motivations of every person who has an opposing view point. In his video, Jamelle Bouie describes the importance of looking at the world through a realistic lens. In his view, we should be analyzing with a critical eye the motivations of others and not guilelessly assuming the worst. Simply put, we should strive to not be naive, and in that endeavor recognize that cynicism is naiveté dressed up in different colors.
References
Aslam, U., Ilyas, M., Muhammad, K. I., & Ubaid- Ur- Rahman. (2016). Detrimental effects of cynicism on organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 29(4), 580-598. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-12-2014-0231
Tran, H., Strizhakova, Y., Usrey, B., & Johnson, S. (2022). Consumer cynicism in service failures. Psychology & Marketing, 39(2), 346–359. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21599
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