Monday, June 11, 2012

A flaw in my elementary school education

As I've blogged about many times before, the reason why I'm so incredibly frustrated about attempts to ban plastic bags (first from the LCBO and then from Toronto) is that I already came up with a better solution to the stated problem. I solved the problem, I communicated the solution to the appropriate people, but, because the influential people aren't listening to me, I still have to suffer the inconvenience of their suboptimal "solution".

This reminds me of elementary school.

In elementary school we did a lot of group work, for the ostensible reason that it would teach us how to work with others in the workplace. I was one of the top students, but I was also one of the least popular students. And it would often happen in our group work that I would know the correct answer or the correct approach, but my group wouldn't listen to me because I'm not cool. (When I say "the correct answer", I'm referring to cases where there is a single objectively-correct answer or approach. How to calculate the area of a polygon. How to spell a word. What a French sentence says.) So then the work we turned in would have mistakes in it, and I'd get a worse mark than I would have gotten if I'd done the work myself. Apart from gym class, all the worst marks I got in elementary school and middle school were for group work, where the rest of my group would drag me down by disregarding my correct answers.

I always maintained that this doesn't actually prepare us for working with others in the workplace, because in the workplace there's a boss. The boss makes the final decision, and has the ultimate responsibility for the outcome. If I think I have a better idea than my boss, I speak my piece and then she decides. If she decides against my idea and I end up being right, she's the one who faces the consequences and I have better credibility for next time. I don't face negative consequences when my good ideas are not accepted.

But this plastic bag thing is just like elementary school group work. I'm looking at nuances and natural user behaviour patterns and non-intrusive approaches to optimizing the usage cycle, but the popular kids just want to blindly barrel through like a bulldozer shouting "BAN IT!", just like my classmates in elementary school who disregarded my explanations of order of operations and insisted on blindly barrelling through our math questions in the order the numbers appeared. And, like in elementary school, I still have to suffer the consequences of their poor decisions even though I know a better way to do it.

This made me realize there was a flaw in my elementary school education. Our group work was supposed to teach us how to get work done as part of a group. This should include how to convince others that your better ideas are actually better than the popular ideas. But they never actually taught us how to do this. They just threw us in groups and assumed we'd learn. No teacher ever actually explained to us how to get around this blind devotion to popularity. They just operated under the assumption that we'd automatically figure out how to solve these problems from working in groups, but that never happened. And now I'm 31 years old and unable to convince my governments to take a nuanced approach to an issue that will affect everyone every day.

At this point, you might be thinking "Maybe you're just generally unconvincing and don't have good ideas." But I do have good ideas and am able to present them convincingly in many contexts. In the workplace and in group projects in university, my ideas have been used quite often, either based on their clear value or based on the credibility I've developed by demonstrating my skill and expertise. Family and friends most often at least give my ideas serious consideration. Mnemonics I created in high school language classes are still used to this day, and my teacher even gave them to other teachers to use in their classes. I've even been able to get my dentist to try out my ideas when working on me, and he now has a better way of taking impressions for patients with small mouths and strong gag reflexes.

But I've never figured out how to get past blind following of popularity. And I think my teachers did us all a disservice by assuming that just working in a group would teach us how to overcome these pitfalls.

5 comments:

laura k said...

Not exactly on-topic, but on the subject of your bag solution, I have a questions. You've probably addressed it before, and I apologize in advance for not remembering the answer.

Do biodegradable bags actually decompose in landfill? I am under the impression there isn't enough oxygen for the process to occur, so that biodegradable bags are only biodegradable in theory but not in practice. But I don't know for sure.

laura k said...

But on topic...

This should include how to convince others that your better ideas are actually better than the popular ideas.

You're right, lessons in this would be extremely useful.

Sometimes you can have great ideas and great powers of persuasion, and you still can't generate enough traction to convince a critical mass of others. But specific training in how to do this would be great.

I guess it's what marketing and advertising people do.

impudent strumpet said...

I don't actually know for certain if biodegradable bags actually decompose in the landfill. I've seen information saying they definitely do, they definitely don't, it depends on the kind of bag, and it depends on the kind of landfill.

But I haven't found any information saying they're in any way worse than conventional plastic. Worst case there's no change.

Personally, as a citizen, I don't care either way. I see garbage bags as hygienically necessary and comparatively negligible in environmental impact when properly contained in a landfill, even if they do stay there forever. (Things They Should Invent: a way to turn landfills full of plastic back into oil deposits!)

The reason why I propose this solution even though I'm uncertain about actual biodegradability and indifferent about their landfill impact is the stated target public behaviour of the anti-plastic-bag movement includes use of biodegradable garbage bags rather than conventional plastic. I think "Here's a way to make it effortless for the public to produce your target outcome" is more convincing and more likely to be taken seriously than "Don't do anything because I don't care." The desire for action exists, so I give then a more effective action to take.

impudent strumpet said...

That's another part of the reason I find this so frustrating too. I was never arguing with their premise. I was never saying "This isn't a significant enough problem to take disruptive action on" or "Don't inconvenience me with stuff I don't care about" or "Don't do anything until you've done some studies to make sure this actually is a problem." As soon as all this all started back in like 2006, I came right in with "I'm not going to argue with what you want to do, but here's a better way to do it."

Anonymous said...

If you haven't seen this talk, it's a good on group dynamics and introverts:

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html