From belief to practice
How school leaders can have better conversations and make smarter choices by using clear thinking and good arguments
Educational leadership fundamentally operates through discourse - from staff meetings to parent communications, board presentations to student interactions. Leaders spend much of their time engaged in dialogue aimed at building understanding and driving change. Yet the complex, value-laden nature of education makes these conversations particularly susceptible to logical fallacies and rhetorical pitfalls.
The challenge lies not just in communicating effectively, but in establishing and testing beliefs that guide organizational decisions. As Charles S. Peirce recognized in Popular Science (1877), humans naturally seek settled beliefs rather than truth itself. In educational settings, where multiple stakeholders hold diverse views and values, the process of establishing reliable beliefs becomes especially complex.
The ability to navigate this complexity through disciplined argumentation is thus a core leadership competency. Understanding how beliefs form, how arguments work, and how fallacies manifest can help leaders foster more productive dialogue and better-grounded decisions.
Belief formation in educational settings
Educational institutions often default to what Peirce called the "method of authority" - accepting established policies and practices without deep scrutiny. While this provides stability, it breaks down when stakeholders recognize that beliefs differ across contexts and cultures. Leaders must understand how their organizations fix beliefs through tenacity (clinging to existing views), authority (accepting official doctrines), a priori reasoning (following intuitions), or scientific investigation.
The scientific method, though more demanding, offers the most reliable path to truth. It requires testing beliefs against evidence through careful observation and reasoning. In education, this means moving beyond both rigid traditionalism ("we've always done it this way") and uncritical adoption of trends toward evidence-informed practice.
However, belief formation in education is inherently social. Even scientific investigation occurs through dialogue as stakeholders examine evidence, challenge assumptions, and negotiate meanings. Leaders must therefore create conditions for productive collective inquiry rather than just individual reasoning.
The architecture of educational arguments
Educational arguments take multiple forms. Deductive arguments aim for logical necessity but rarely capture education's complexity. Inductive arguments help learn from experience but risk hasty generalization. Abductive arguments seek explanations but may oversimplify. Analogical arguments compare situations but often overlook crucial differences.
Each type serves different purposes in educational discourse. Deductive arguments can clarify logical implications of policies. Inductive arguments help learn from implementation. Abductive arguments diagnose problems. Analogical arguments spark new insights. Leaders need facility with all these forms while recognizing their limitations.
Moreover, arguments occur within broader argumentative practices aimed at various goals - building consensus, managing conflict, improving beliefs, or coordinating action. The same argument may function differently in a staff meeting versus a board presentation. Context shapes both the construction and interpretation of arguments.
Common fallacies in educational leadership
Educational discourse is particularly prone to certain fallacies given its interpersonal nature and high stakes. Ad hominem attacks on character rather than content, appeals to emotion over evidence, false dilemmas between artificial choices, hasty generalizations from limited cases, and appeals to tradition or novelty frequently derail productive dialogue.
These fallacies often exploit education's complexity and value-laden nature. When issues touch on deeply held beliefs about children, learning, and society's future, purely logical consideration of evidence becomes difficult. Psychological factors like confirmation bias lead people to fixate on evidence supporting existing views.
Additionally, power dynamics in educational institutions can amplify fallacious reasoning. Arguments from authority may substitute for evidence when leaders lack strong justification for decisions. Complex situations may be oversimplified into false dilemmas to force choices. Recognition of common fallacies helps leaders maintain more rigorous discourse.
Implications for educational leadership practice
Leaders can foster more productive argumentation by creating structured forums for dialogue with clear norms that promote reasoned debate while maintaining professional respect. This includes establishing shared standards for evidence, modeling good reasoning, and teaching fallacy recognition. Regular opportunities for stakeholders to practice argumentation skills in low-stakes settings builds capacity.
Professional development should explicitly address argumentative competence, including logical reasoning, active listening, and constructive disagreement. Leaders can introduce protocols that require examining assumptions, considering multiple perspectives, and identifying potential fallacies. Making argumentation skills an organizational priority supports better decision-making.
Most importantly, leaders must model what Peirce called a "scientific attitude" - genuine openness to evidence and willingness to revise beliefs. This means acknowledging uncertainty, inviting challenge, and showing how careful reasoning shapes decisions. Through sustained attention to argumentative quality, leaders can help their organizations navigate complexity more effectively.
References
Hansen, H. V. (2015). Fallacies. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Novaes, C. D. (2021). Argument and argumentation. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Peirce, C. S. (1877). The fixation of belief. Popular Science Monthly, 12, 1-15.