Contested Knowledge in an Information Age
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 10:14AM 
What were all those people talking to Moses about in this week’s Torah reading? The Torah portion, Yitro (Exodus 18:1 – 20:23) opens with a scene between Moshe and his father-in-law Yitro. Yitro notices that there is an endless line of people seeking advice from Moses. He takes his son-in-law aside and says “the thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well.” (Exodus 18: 17) Yitro counsels Moses to appoint trustworthy people to “share the burden...” (Exodus 18: 21) I always have thought of this passage as one that supports collaborative leadership; however, I now see something else in this passage that speaks authoritative knowledge in our current information age.
It wasn’t all that long ago when a doctor could assume that his/her counsel to patients would be respected, honored and followed precisely. In the late seventies, I remember when I was among those women who bucked tradition and told our obstetricians that we didn’t want anesthesia and we didn’t want IV’s – we wanted our children to be born “naturally”. I recall my physician’s comment when I challenged the traditional practice – “if you were my wife, I would order an IV and anesthesia.” My answer was probably seen as “chutzpadik” (arrogant) – “I’m not your wife, and I’ve read the literature – 95% of childbirth does not require an IV, why should I be made uncomfortable with this needle in my arm for that slight chance that I would need it?” At the time, this was considered radical. I now see this as the beginning of the eroding of the authoritative knowledge of physicians.
Fast forward to schools of today. Teachers are surprised, and even shocked, when a parent casually mentions during a parent conference that their child is taking a mathematics class after school – a class that has different methods and goals from the mathematics program used in the school. They are surprised by the parent that requests more homework, or by the request that their second grader write a five paragraph essay (when that is not introduced typically until individual paragraphing is well understood – but there are schools of thought that it can be introduced earlier). Like the my doctor years ago, the teacher is stunned by what appears to be arrogance?
Is it arrogance? From the professional’s side, it seems to undermine the years spent learning and perfecting technique. They know that they have information that goes well beyond a googled document explaining “best practices” for treating a particular disease or for teaching a given subject. From the patient or parent’s perspective, there is uncertainty about future outcomes in illness and in education. There is good data to support divergent methods, but there are ample exceptions. And let’s think about that data - human data is far less robust than other forms of scientific data, for the beauty of the human world is the quirkiness of individuals.
When there is uncertainty and discontent surrounding the area of concern, then knowledge is more likely to be contested. In the areas concerning humans – be it health outcomes or educational outcomes – there is uncertainty, anxiety (will my child ultimately be all that s/he can be?) and there is discontent.
This past week in the Teacher’s Monday Learning Circle, we started a dialogue about these questions. We looked at several statements about the changing relationship of parents and teachers in this information age. We considered how this affected our perceptions of our roles as teachers. We thought about how to embrace the changes and create a different, but a strong parent-teacher alliance.
As I looked at the Torah portion for the week, I realized that the scene between Yitro and his son-in-law are the paradigm for this transforming relationship. In the beginning, Moses was the sole authority. All came to him to seek his wisdom. His father pointed out to him the folly of this position. The message is that knowledge is to be shared with others – arrogance lies in either party claiming exclusive authoritative knowledge. That exclusivity and sense of omnipotence is what is to be avoided. There should be recognition that we all can claim pieces of knowledge in a very uncertain world, and that we should respect the different understandings and trainings that we have. But the very closed belief that any one of us holds all the “truth” is destructive to society.
Shabbat Shalom,
Dr.G.
