Gawande's Take on Data

Thoughts on Educating

Please contact the author, Jennifer Morrison (j.morrison@artofeducating.com), with questions, comments, or requests to reproduce this material.

2/21/2008 - Atul Gwande's Take on Data

Another of the suggestions Gawande gives in Better to those who wish to remain "positive deviants" in their work is to "count something."

"Regardless of what one ultimately does...one should be a scientist in this world. In the simplest terms, this means one should count something. The laboratory researcher may count the number of tumor cells in a petri dish that have a particular gene defect. Likewise, the clinician might count the number of patients who develop a particular complication from treatment - or just how many are actually seen on time and how many are made to wait. It doesn't really matter what you count. You don't need a research grant. The only requirement is that what you count should be interesting to you. If you count something you find interesting, you will learn something interesting." (254-5)

I am a proponent of teachers collecting and using data, but not as defined by NCLB or one's district office. The only data that matter are data that answer questions we actually have about our students, their learning, and the way we teach. Data have to start with our questions, what we find interesting. And Gawande's right; what we count doesn't always matter. The counting - the collection and analysis of data - is the act of a teacher who reflects and has a desire to grow and improve. That's why it doesn't do any good to impose data collection on teachers who aren't asking questions about their practice. In that all too common scenario, the data gets organized (or not) into a binder that sits on the shelf and collects dust. It was just another mandate, another thing to do. We're so busy doing that we stop thinking, and that's where data can get in the way. If we're too busy doing, we can't think, and the only way for data to make a positive difference is for us to think about it.

Gawande makes the point that counting does not have to be formal or standardized. Obstetrics does not generally follow other fields' model of evidence-based medicine, but its results outstrip theirs. "Obstetrics went about improving the same way Toyota and General Electric went about improving: on the fly, but always paying attention to the results and trying to better them." (189)

When people in a profession count, comparisons can be made and that can be uncomfortable. In medicine, you then know that there are difference among care centers and doctors - some are good, some are average, and some are bad. The same bell curve exists with teachers and schools, but we don't like to make a point of it because it means stating clearly that some students are getting a poorer education than others. The question is - are we using a good measure to make these comparisons? What are the results that demonstrate learning and growth? I am not convinced that it is standardized test scores. But I do think that if I measured the right thing and I have a feeling that measure is and should be simple - like lung capacity in CF patients - I just might have the key both to assess myself effectively and pinpoint the one thing I need to focus on in students to help them learn. It suspect that measure might have something to do with students' independent reading volume and skill. The independent reading assessment I designed this year might be a way of counting reading.

Data is not the entire answer. "Even doctors with great knowledge and technical skill can have mediocre results; more nebulous factors like aggressiveness and diligence and ingenuity can matter enormously. What the best may have, above all, is a capacity to learn and change - and to do so faster than everyone else." (226-7)

Gawande, A. (2007). Better: A surgeon's notes on performance. New York: Picador.

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