In graduate school, I took a class called Professional Writing. In that class, Bill Heward taught us to never use the word “paradigm” in our professional writing because the term is so often overused. So, in the twenty years or so since I took the class, I haven’t used it. The word was popularized by Kuhn, who argued that science sometimes goes through a dramatic paradigm shift when new data emerge that causes the field to change in dramatic ways, and even question the fundamentals. There is a lot of controversy over “paradigm shifts,” and I generally don’t blog about academic debates. But today, I’m breaking Bill’s rule about using the word paradigm because I do believe it is an essential concept.
The first time I experienced a paradigm shift is when I went to Vince Carbone’s Verbal Behavior Workshop in the late ‘90s. I already knew quite a lot about verbal behavior. I was conducting research on verbal behavior. We didn’t need CEU’s as there wasn’t a BCBA certification yet. But a group of us decided to go to Vince’s introductory workshop mostly because there was a student discount. At the start, it was so basic we almost walked out. But Vince had an incredible way of explaining things, and soon he started to cover concepts in a way that completely changed all of our views on how to teach. Many of the concepts Vince proposed went strongly against the established wisdom. It is hard to explain how widely criticized he was at the time. But now, many of these same concepts are accepted as “obvious.” Even if you aren’t a “Verbal Behavior person,” in all likelihood the ideas Vince championed (along with others) influence what you currently do. I have no doubt that I became dramatically more effective as a BCBA due to studying Vince’s work. Over the years, I collaborated with Vince on a few projects, and he continues to influence many of my ideas on practice.
I think most of us tend to prefer a small amount of Poogi rather than paradigm shifts. That’s because if the POOGI is small, it is easy to believe that we are doing an excellent job overall; all we need to do is “tweak” things here and there. But when you experience a paradigm shift, you have to admit that you can dramatically improve. I suspect that’s partially why we have some resistance to cutting-edge ideas Vince’s. I learned from Eli Goldratt to always assume that no matter how good you are, dramatic improvement is possible. Without this assumption, you might not recognize the dramatic improvement when you see it. The POOGI requires us to admit that we have a lot of room to improve, even if that means a paradigm shift.