Book Review: Black Box Thinking

 By Charlotte Nicholas

I recently finished reading ‘Black Box Thinking' by Matthew Syed and I cannot recommend it highly enough to everyone. If you have seen me anytime in the last few weeks you no doubt will have heard me jabbering about some of the ways that it has inspired me. 

WARNING! - The next part of this post will include some spoilers!

The premise of the book is to use ‘black box thinking’ a term used by Matthew Syed as an approach to failure. The first comparison that he draws upon is between the aviation and the medical industries. The book uses anecdotal evidence to give stark contrasts between different industries and their approach to failure. In the first examples of the book, Syed compares a routine operation that went wrong for several reasons; failure for a subordinate to challenge a superior, the surgeon's loss of the concept of time and inability to perform an emergency tracheostomy. The woman unfortunately died.

 In contrast to this, an aviation accident that occurred in the 1970s suffered a failure due to similar issues concerning hierarchy and the concept of time. Syed highlights the differences in the way both incidents were dealt with afterwards. In the medical example, euphemisms were used to cover up the mistakes, a selection of phrases we’ve all heard before -- ‘complication’, ‘accident’. It was only after the husband of the deceased called for an investigation into her death that avoidable mistakes were found. In contrast to this, in the aviation accident, the plane was fitted with a black box that recorded not only the mechanical issues with the plane but also the conversations of the crew members. Not only did this lead to changes in plane engineering but new processes and procedures that factored in the psychology of high-pressure situations, even a new process to get around the notion of challenging superiority. In the aviation industry, it is claimed that thousands of lives are saved due to this approach to error, that it is a way to progress and that crucial lessons can be learnt from mistakes. 

The book also includes sections that focus on the way in which closed feedback loops, fixed mindsets, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias have a negative impact on the way that we deal with failure, mistakes and innovation. One of the points that really resonated with me is that literally all innovations/ inventions in the world have been created as a response to something not going well or working properly and the only way to overcome this is through trial and error with trial just as essential as error. Put it simply, we have to fail in order to get better at something or find a solution. 

You’re probably thinking that this is all riveting stuff if you want to learn about how James Dyson invented the Dyson dual cyclone but how does it relate to our teaching? Andy McHugh from the ‘Teaching and Learning Guru’ discusses how he had read the book and how it has informed his teaching practice. I will summarise the crux of the article where McHugh discusses an example teacher named ‘Steve’ who had traditionally got excellent A-level results until one year he didn’t. Steve couldn’t explain the ‘failure’ (all kids still passed). The students were no weaker than the previous year. However, the students were different, the same data would not lead to the same results when Steve had assumed that they would. Steve had been using assessment data to monitor his students' progress but hadn’t considered how data might indicate progress but does not necessarily guarantee it. In his practice he had used rigorous assessment, assessment questions from exam boards and was a seasoned examiner so was a good judge of student responses. However, Steve had focused entirely on improving skills and techniques, what he found was that the kids simply didn’t know the content. He asked for some of the scripts back from the exam boards and found that each student had a very specific reason why they hadn’t done so well. 

Student A - had suffered a bereavement in the family. 

Student B -  had poor attendance and had plagiarised in-class assessments and homework.

Student C - had been consistently given detailed feedback from Steve. 

This shows us that as teachers we often use data to inform our judgement of what to plan and teach but where this falls down is that we sometimes don’t consider the specific and individual issues that students face, the story behind the data as it were. 

How could I apply this to teaching?

After the popularity of his book, Syed was asked how he might apply the lessons from his book to the teaching profession. He suggests the following three things: 

‘1 – get the language right in the classroom. Praise for effort, rather than for outcome or talent, but that doesn’t mean endlessly saying, ‘Well done, you worked hard’. To create a really great variety of interactions you need a rich language that will orient learners towards learning.

2 – foster more collaboration in the staff room, so that if particular teachers are struggling with an area of their work, they feel they can ask for help and feedback. Perhaps they can video one of their lessons and talk it through afterwards with a mentor.

3- adopt a motto in the school that articulates a growth mindset in some way that students will relate to. They’re just three of a whole array of things, but those would be a good start.’

What are the key takeaways?

From this my key takeaways that I am going to try and ingrain in my practice are:

• We don’t need to cover up our mistakes but face them head-on and work out how we can learn from them. Not only do we need to do this in our own practice but attempt to engrain this way of thinking into our students. This links nicely to Divisha’s mantra of ‘Improve not prove’ that she has introduced to the Humanities department this year. 
• We need to teach the students resilience, students need to see mistakes and failure as something that will benefit them in the long run even if it doesn’t feel so good at the time. 
• We need more balance between accountability and learning. Students need to be responsible for their own learning and deal with their own mistakes accordingly. 
• We need to consider the story and faces behind the data, data does not guarantee progress and results.
• We need to let the kids fail! With increased pressure on teachers to get good results, we are under pressure to get students to rote learn and run the risk of exam factory-esque teaching. Whilst this helps students pass their GCSEs, what are we really teaching them about the real world? They need to learn how to deal with mistakes so that in the big wide world they are resilient, resourceful and pragmatic. 

I hope this post has made you think a little bit about how you deal with mistakes and failure and how you might encourage students to become a ‘Black Box’ thinker. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from Syed to end on: 

 ‘Black Box Thinkers have a mindset directed at learning and always trying to improve their performance. In schools, they would be teachers and leaders who look for those marginal gains that can help them improve what they do so that students leave the school with all the skills and attributes they need to change the world.’  

Thanks for reading! 

If you’re interested in reading more about this, please see the links below: 

https://www.teachwire.net/news/black-box-thinking-matthew-syed-on-what-schools-can-learn-from-the-aviation  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r0avhWk-xk&feature=emb_imp_woyt 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmVCYqs3mko 

https://www.teachingandlearningguru.com/black-box-thinking-for-teachers/