The term "Paradigm" is perhaps the
most poorly understood word in the English language. It is often times
used to describe a change in the structure of an organization or perhaps to
describe when an organization changes its model. The other day I heard it
used to describe the changing style of NBA resulting from the success of the
Golden State Warriors. While not completely off as a way to describe a
new model or approach, paradigm is often, as my old Chinese professor Lin Yu
Sheng used to say, reduced in significance as a way to describe change.
For Professor Lin, as well as the father of the concept, the famous
philosopher Thomas Kuhn argued, the paradigm results not from physical
structures, but rather from the very ideas that generate social action and
behavior. Paradigmatic--or revolutionary--change only occurs when the very
foundational ideas are changed.
To use the word paradigm to describe any
small-scale change, then, is to engage in reductionist thinking about just what
the nature of change is. I find myself cringing when I hear someone
invoke the word paradigm to describe what can only be considered small scale
change, tinkering as it were. Professor Lin was known to spit and stutter
when we would talk about certain change events some viewed as revolutionary.
To intellectual historians, they could only be characterized as
revolutionary if the very ideas that produced behavior changed, perhaps if a
country overthrew an entire system in favor of a radically different one.
How would this happen? For Kuhn, a
paradigm’s continued value as a determinant of behavior is tied to its
continued ability to produce acceptable, reasonable, and relatively acceptable
results. For him, there were certain discoveries in the scientific
community to led scientists to rethink every previously held truth, but because
science is exact and can be empirically tested for validity, it is
perhaps a little easier to wipe the board clean of previously flawed thinking.
Is it truly possible to apply this kind of deep-seated, revolutionary
change to social behaviors?
The rise of an effective alternative school
paradigm is tied to the way new groups work to create and develop a different
set or ideas, values, and beliefs that then become the basis for paradigmatic
change. When Jean Anyon (2005) called for a new educational paradigm, an
important part of this new paradigm was her conception of the way we
traditionally comprehend community. For many school-community
theorists, community is largely limited to teachers, administrators, and
parents. Anyon saw community as not only parents, but surrounding
churches, businesses, social service agencies, non-profits, and politicians who
she thought needed to be mobilized on behalf of a large-scale plan for social,
cultural, educational, and economic change. Because these groups
also shared an interest in student performance, they, too, had a stake in
education. However, their involvement—and potential power—was
largely overlooked or undervalued. When adequately prepared for
mobilization, these groups could bring
In his terrific work on the May 4th Movement in
China, Professor Lin (1979) argued a group of intellectuals in China, so
dismayed with the failure of Confucianism to produce action in a more modern
world, were attempting to use education to teach the Chinese new ideas, values,
and beliefs. However, the deep seated historical hold of Confucian beliefs
created what Professor Lin called an intellectual straitjacket” in China,
In conclusion, when thinking about using the
term paradigm to describe change, you need to ask yourself, is the change so
deep-seated, so revolutionary, it warrants invoking the term paradigm to
describe it. If it is, use some other term to describe the new structure. No
one wants to see Professor Lin spitting in intellectual outrage.
