Board Game

The Financial Page in the New Yorker is not a section of the magazine that typically covers issues that closely relate to the field of educational psychology. In the Oct 9th, 2006 section, however, James Surowiecki responds to the recent news that private investigators had been hired to snoop around the Hewlett-Packard Board of Directors in an attempt to find out which members had been leaking info to the press. Rather than joining the chorus of those outraged by the privacy violation involved, Surowiecki focuses on the problems that leaky boards cause companies, and more importantly, the problems on the board that leaks reveal.

According to Surowiecki, leaks are generally power moves, attempts to use public or media pressure to spin a debate one way or another. The problem with leaks is that they betray the solidarity of the board.

While I am frequently dismayed by who seems to win the public debates surrounding education these days, what concerns me more is that the debates are not even about the right things. So much time and money and argument about assessment, and we are not even clear about what we are preparing students to do and be!

Surowiecki’s observations about leaky boards highlights an area where we are failing in education that really matters. Shouldn’t collaboration be a primary goal for education? Is this not a skill that will serve students no matter what career they choose? The ability to trust the competence of one’s peers, to engage in hard conversations to solve difficult problems, to compromise?

Maybe an epistemic game of the future will be a Board Game, where a group of players manage the fortunes of company…