Every Day's a Holiday - Data, Scope, and Perspective

A friend of mine, during a discussion recently, stated that "data does not lie," a statement that I agree with only with qualifications. Properly collected and accurate data that pertains to the object of a discussion, debate, or decision and that is of sufficient scope, indeed, does not lie. Facts are facts, however, when the data does not pertain to the subject or is of insufficient scope it is useless and leads to errors. When research is presented, one must know how it pertains to the current situation to even know if it is of any value and should be considered when making a decision. Diane O'Rourke Swift wrote her doctoral thesis, Effects of Student Population Density on Academic Achievement in Georgia Schools, 2000, http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED472381.pdf, and concluded that the square footage of a school building can be directly related to the student's scores in standardized testing, however, she plainly states that for her research there were nine limitations that were not considered including the level of parental involvement, that the quality of teaching staff was not a constant, and that interior spaces of the buildings were not investigated. She concluded that elementary schools having less than 100-square feet per student have lower test scores at the third-grade level. This is informative, but not conclusive data on which to base a decision because of the many other factors that affect education more than the number of students in an area of a given size, especially the "human" factors of parents and teachers. Actually, in the databases of the Indiana Department of Education there are records of several large overcapacity schools that consistently out-perform several smaller under-capacity schools that appear to refute Dr. Swift's conclusion and indicate that all factors must be considered in any situation.

A young person reminded me the other day of a saying that was used when I was in the Marines. What this first grade student said was "My school is the best school in the whole wide world" and the Marine Corps saying that the statement reminded me of is "Every day is a holiday and every meal is a feast." A person can look at those statements in several different lights. When what you have is all you know or have, it is the best in your scope or perspective. Then again, when you are eating your breakfast of MRE's or C-Rats sitting in a foxhole with water halfway up your shins in a monsoon, at least, you are not parched under a desert sun or freezing somewhere in the Arctic without any food at all.

It does not matter what you are comparing, you always measure it against your perspective, your knowledge, and your measurement, barring a mathematical calculation or measurement against a known standard, is your opinion. Indeed, the student's statement would be just as true, in the student's opinion, if the school in question was a mud hut with one book to read out of for the entire class and a dirt floor to write upon with a stick if that school was the only one that the student knew. The statement that the Clay Community Schools Corporation operates eleven of the best public schools in Clay County is just as factual. Of course, in that limited scope you could also say that they are the worst with the same accuracy.

It is when you expand the scope and open up your perspective that the opportunity for improvement is revealed. Humanity thrives on competition and human knowledge expands as a result. I have heard runners in foot races given the advice of "When you can see someone's back concentrate on passing them and, when you cannot, do not worry about how close they are behind you. Your ears will tell you if anyone is close to passing you and you should not be worrying about that anyway because you should be leaving everything you have in you, mind, body, and soul, on the track." After all, in any competition, isn't the idea to do the very best that can be done even if someone can do better?

Humanity compares everything. It is human nature. To do so, standards of comparison are set, i.e. is that tomato red enough to call "ripe." This leads to a "pass" or "fail" decision, an item either meets the criteria or it does not. When two items are compared to each other, one of them is used as the standard and the other is weighed against it.

Indeed, every day is a holiday and every meal is a feast!