So Much Data!
Attending a baseball game can have everything from lip-biting excitement to numbing boredom. There are many who have no use for its pace or its controversies. And baseball seems to lag behind football and basketball in apparent appeal. Yet baseball absolutely dominates in the way that it generates data. Damn!
I am late in coming to the sabermetric party so none of this is news to anyone paying attention. Yet being a science teacher and a baseball fan converges two passions that find common ground in data collection.
The sheer volume of data is staggering. Every pitch, every pitch speed, every swing, every location of ball in play – every everything is observed and catalogued for analysis. What I enjoy about data is the objective look it brings to the observed.
As written by my favorite writer, among others, the goal of this data is to make sense of large groups of data and not to draw conclusions based upon small sample sizes. This brings me to my focus here: coaching students on the importance of more data as a way of getting at answers. “Is one trial enough?”
I think my response should be, “Only if you think the first at bat is predictive of the next.”
Whiff
We only learn when we fail. I believe this to my marrow so I will state this again for emphasis. We only learn when we fail. It is therefore unfortunate that my job is wholly centered on grades at times when it could be directed towards learning. I find deep irony in the fact that for many students the purest of learning moments occurs during and immediately after an exam or test. Take test – see answer key – Doh!
The trick is to structure the class so that they aren’t afraid to make mistakes. So how do I do this without crushing the very spirit of the student? Failure means lower grades – lower grades means lower GP – lower GPA means less chance to go to college – less chance to go to college means that I am less of a person and should feel deep shame? Regardless of what I think of this cycle it does exist and rules the lives of so many.
I guess that’s one of the reasons why I love baseball so much. Success is predicated on how a player rebounds from failure and not the failure itself. Most at bats result in running to first base followed by running back to the dugout. Let’s repeat that: the default condition in baseball is running back to the dugout after swinging a bat. I am not sure it’s possible to create the same environment in the classroom but that’s what I want. I want students who aren’t afraid to fail because they aren’t afraid to try.
Heck, I have students in class right now who are afraid to write down notes during class because they might have to make alterations as I develop a concept during class. They wait for the packaged answer so that they can memorize and move on. No, I don’t want to hear that I should accept the reality that grades are important and I should contribute to the already rampant grade inflation pervasive everywhere. No, I refuse to buy into the notion that my primary job is to help students get into college. I’ll live in my little bubble because accepting that truth is too brutal to bear.
So, I want a classroom that feels more like a baseball game than a checklist to memorize. Batter up!
