Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

We've gotta confront the fact that a lot of people want the thing they call Science (popular narrative convergence on academic work, actually) to tell them how to do life, and for the prescription to be roughly what they expected all along, while also fully relevant to the moment

Endeavors in science can give us an iteratively clearer idea of what we're working with. That's it. If you put any greater pressure on science to tell you what to *do,* you'll be prone to desiring that it tell you certain things *are* or *are not.*

To avoid this trap, it's *absolutely* necessary to take an attitude of policy neutrality. Pursue the outcomes you want, but try to avoid attaching your ego/identity/status to your current strategy for getting there. Make moves based on what you know, but expect to have to pivot

ex: I really like the idea of teaching reading through less-directed immersion. It fits very neatly into my broader ideas about children and learning. But there's a pretty substantial body of evidence suggesting that in classroom environments, it just doesn't work well.