Educational Methods in the 21st century = Medicine in the 19th

by Andrew Gillen

Perhaps I’ve been reading too much Caplan lately, but I had my signaling theory glasses on when I read this story about health care by David Leonhardt

from the time of Hippocrates into the 19th century, medicine made scant progress. “The amount of death and disease would be less,” Jacob Bigelow, a prominent doctor, said in 1835, “if all disease were left to itself.”

Yet patients continued to go to doctors, and many continued to put great in faith in medicine. They did so in part because they had no good alternative and in part because… There was a strong intuitive logic behind those old treatments; they seemed to be ridding the body of its ills. They made a lot more sense on their face than the abstract theories about germs and viruses that began to appear in the late 19th century.

And this is signaling theory version applied to education:

Yet students continued to go to colleges (racking up astonishing levels of debt in the process), and many continued to put great in faith in higher education. They did so in part because they had no good alternative (employers like to use college as a screening device, hiring a college graduate regardless of their major, a practice that was encouraged by Griggs v. Duke Power) and in part because… There was a strong intuitive logic behind those old treatments; they seemed to be ridding the body of its ills (how could listening to smart people talk for 3 hours a week for 15 weeks not make you smarter). They made a lot more sense on their face than the abstract theories about active learning and standards paired with evaluations that began to appear in the late 20th century.