1. THE ENTREPRENEUR EFFECT: Education innovations are often due to the initiative of one person or a very few individuals. As long as that individual or group keeps working on it, the innovation survives. When they stop, it dies.
2. THE ISOLATION-OF-INFECTION EFFECT: Related to the entrepreneur effect, this reflects the view of the people in the community about the innovation. By calling it Joe's new program, one is excused from becoming involved and may go about one's regular business without seriously considering the innovation.
3. THE "STANDARDS" STANDARD: An innovation encounters opposition at exactly that level of the hierarchy (whether traveling upward or downward) at which mention is first made of maintaining standards. Blessed are the formula pietists, for they are untroubled by questions of goodness, virtue, or worth.
4. THE NIH (NOT INVENTED HERE) SYNDROME: If we have not invented the innovation we cannot claim credit for it and thus fail to gain the prestige that accompanies something new. This pride is a terribly effective block to change, since, as most observers agree, "in most cases the initiation for change in an educational system appears to come from outside." 2
5. THE THREATENED-DEPARTMENT EFFECT: Many changes possible within a department are suddenly not possible if cooperation with other departments is necessary or if partial surrender of autonomy, certification power, or professionalization is implied.
6. THE OTHER-DISCIPLINE EFFECT: Again and again those proposing change hear, "That would be fine in department X, but not in ours."
7. THE NARROWER THE NEEDLE THE MORE AQUILINE THE NOSE: The more specialized and abstract my discipline, the more I look down my nose at others:
In such a structure, how can a simple change be made simply for the good of humanity?
8. THE TYRANNY OF THE RUBRIC: Any discussion of education must take place in the education department; psychologists are more interested in implanting electrodes than in examining the results of education change; mathematicians own mathematics; and no nonphysicist (defined in terms of degrees earned) may teach physics.
9. THE PRIMA FACIE AFFRONT: Whereas I have spent a significant fraction of my professional life perfecting my lectures and otherwise investing conscientiously in the status quo, therefore to suggest an alternative is, by definition, to attack me.
10. THE PRIMA DONNA AFFECT (SIC): The crucial features of a new format of teaching, necessary for its success, must be modified for my use because my methods and viewpoint are unique, my students are special, and, generally, no one can tell me how to teach my course.
11. THE EVIL-OTHER DISTEMPER: "Personally I'm all for what you propose, but they will never allow it. The department/ the faculty/ the accrediting association/ the professional society/ the legislature/ the alumni will not stand for it."
12. "WE TRIED IT AND IT DIDN'T WORK": Ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, when the world was different, somebody tried something not really the same. The confusion between "we didn't do it" and "it can't be done" has deep Freudian significance. Let no man admit to impotence; it is un-American.
13. "WE ARE ALREADY DOING IT": Our present program has features to which one can apply terms similar to those describing the proposed innovation. (On closer inspection our present program has none of the key attributes of the proposal.)
14. "IT COSTS TOO MUCH IN FACULTY TIME": Any change must cross a threshold of planning and initial dislocation. A happy later life is not visible because attention is riveted on the trauma of birth.
15. "IT'S FINE BUT IT ISN'T ACADEMIC": Some changes alter the meaning of intellectuality, so are excluded by definition.
16. "LOOK WHAT IT WILL COST US IF WE ARE SUCCESSFUL!": The students may be able to leave in three years instead of four--possibly even in two and a half--alive and well and living in Paris. Then what happens to the justification for my full-time equivalent faculty that allowed the incise n department size?
17. THE MISSIONARY SYNDROME: Every innovation is justified in part by saying that it will be an example for others to follow. In fact, change rarely occurs merely because of the presence of an example.
18. THE PRESUMPTION OF GUILT: "All who raise objection to or suggest modification of my proposal are thereby proved to be against all change and have betrayed my goodwill and that of the Almighty." This is only one of many ways that an innovator can be offensive; here is another:
19. IF YOU CAN SPEAK ENGLISH LOUDLY ENOUGH, ANY FOREIGNER CAN UNDERSTAND: Professionals talk jargon to one another, and meaning is carried in a wealth of specialized terms. When colleagues do not understand my proposal, I take it as an objection and state my case again in the same way, only louder.
20. THE FLOOR-AND-CEILING EFFECT: In an institution that sees itself as among the best, all faculty members are assumed to meet minimum standards of competence (the floor). In these cases it is possible to allow considerable individual freedom to experiment, leading occasionally to outstanding results (the high ceiling). In less confident institutions where the floor is kept high by regulation or prescription of procedures, the ceiling for possible individual experiment is often kept confiningly low, even for persons who are outstanding.
21. NOTHING CAN BE DONE FOR THE FIRST TIME: The uncertainties of change are too scary for some institutions, leading to a demand for proof of the excellence of a proposed innovation before installation. "What are the (exhaustively detailed, please) statistics on the experiment at other schools?" (What, pray, would such professors say if it were suggested that their own research output should be guaranteed by prior confirmation of other workers? Can ultimate danger really reside in 30 students and some competent, attentive faculty members organizing themselves in a new way in which they are deeply engrossed?)
22. THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY GAUNTLET: The proposal must pass exhaustingly through six levels of committees and boards, successfully at each stage, before the innovators can turn attention to the real job they have set themselves.
23. THE MUSCLE-BOUND FACULTY: The faculty as a whole has all of the brakes and none of the engines. There will be a clear majority against anything you can mention.
24. THE TALL TREE ATTRACTS LIGHTNING: Influential professors often feel an obligation to have doubts for the rest of the faculty. /a resulting fire that spreads to the underbrush may prove impossible to smother.
25. THE OVERLOADED BANDWAGON: "Since it is good, let's all do it together." The opposition rides the brakes while the innovators goad the horses.
26. THE SPECIAL COMMISSION PLOY: Really a variation of the isolation-of-infection effect in which all those desiring change are segregated into a group to "Study the entire situation thoroughly," thus ridding the institution temporarily of change-desiring misfits, placing a misfit label on the proposed programs, reducing the number of proposals due to in-fighting in the commission, and packaging the result for the back end of the file.
27. THE CONQUEROR-OF-CHINA EFFECT: For centuries China was able to assimilate one set of invaders after another. Academic institutions can swallow innovations, particularly textbooks and curricular materials, without a trace. Innovations that survive do so by taking on the rigidities of the host institution.
28. THE ANTI-LOGIC EFFECT: "...educational innovations are almost never installed on their merits."
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David A. Smith <das@math.duke.edu>Last modified: July 3, 1997