[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/) # A 4 Step Process to Make Kids Smarter? "DSRP," Education Reform a la Dr. Derek Cabrera, and Pants (Yes, Pants!) ## Details **Authors** Steve (no surname given) **Year** 2011 **Publisher** Stevieblarg's Blog **Kind of work** article **Discipline** Education **Secondary disciplines** Philosophy **Kind of engagement** public **Applied** false [Read it](https://stevieblarg.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/a-4-step-process-to-make-kids-smarter-dsrp-education-reform-a-la-dr-derek-cabrera/) ## In authors' words ### What they set out to do (purpose) To respond to a presentation of Cabrera's case that teaching four thinking skills would improve education, and to argue that the proposal overlooks the value-laden character of education and assumes a universal standard of educational success that the author does not grant. ### How they did it (methods) A blog post written in response to a talk, built around a worked example — a shopping trip for pants — used to show how focused questions structure information and how an arrangement meaningful in one context is not in another, the author's instance being an Amish community. The argument then turns on two claims: that education is inherently value-laden, and that there is no universal measure of good educational outcomes, with Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions cited for the view that fundamental shifts in thinking can overturn prior methods. An extended comment thread follows in which the author revises his position and three readers reply, one of them a middle school science teacher. ### What they found (results) The author accepts that thinking skills matter and that Cabrera raises a useful idea, but holds that Cabrera's view of education "seems to miss entirely that education is inherently value-laden" and "rests on an assumption that there is some universal measuring stick." He argues the more useful discussion is how education should prepare students to discern values. In the comments he shifts to a second objection — that schools already teach distinctions, systems, relationships and perspectives through their subject structure and assignments, so that DSRP is "somehow the same cat but in a different outfit" — and concludes that improvement depends on teachers, curriculum and resources rather than on a new method. Of the three commenters, one largely agrees with Cabrera while expecting DSRP to be colored by cultural values, one links teaching students to discern values with teaching them to consider perspectives, and a middle school science teacher reports that the four patterns are already present in her classes and that DSRP helped her locate where students were stuck in their thinking. ## Commentary ### In short A 2011 blog post arguing against the case for teaching DSRP in schools, on the grounds that education is value-laden and has no universal measure of success. In the comment thread the author shifts to a second objection: that schools already teach the four patterns, so DSRP renames existing practice. ### In more detail The post is a reaction to a talk, and its structure is a worked example followed by two objections. The example is a shopping trip: the author shows how a focused question organizes a rack of pants, and then observes that the same arrangement would carry no meaning in a community that does not shop that way. He takes this to show that the organization of information is context-bound in a way a universal account of thinking cannot absorb. From there he makes his two claims. The first is that education is inherently value-laden, and that a proposal to improve schooling by teaching four thinking skills treats as a technical question what is really a question about what a society wants its students to become. The second is that there is no universal measuring stick for educational outcomes by which such an improvement could be demonstrated, and he cites Kuhn for the view that what counts as a good method can be overturned wholesale. His constructive proposal is that the useful conversation is about how students learn to discern values and contribute in light of them. The comment thread is where the position moves. Replying to readers, the author sets the value argument partly aside and advances a different claim: that schools already teach distinctions, systems, relationships and perspectives through the way subjects and assignments are built, so DSRP names existing practice rather than adding to it, and improvement depends on teachers, curriculum and resources instead. The replies run against him on that point. A middle school science teacher agrees that the patterns are already in her classroom and reports that DSRP nonetheless gave her a way to see where particular students were stuck. ### Response The two objections fail at different steps. The first is a category error. DSRP is an account of how information is organized, not a claim about what education is for. It assigns no values and supplies no standard of educational success, and Perspective is the pattern that locates where values enter: a distinction is made from a point of view, and whose point of view it is is the question this post wants asked. The pants example makes the theory's point rather than a point against it — that an arrangement meaningful in one place is meaningless in another is a statement about perspective-dependent distinction-making. The second objection, that schools already do this, is agreement read as refutation. DSRP's claim is that the four patterns are always already in use; that is what makes it a descriptive theory of thinking rather than a method to install, and what it proposes is making their use explicit. The commenter who reports that the patterns were already present in her classes and that DSRP let her find where students were stuck is describing exactly the difference explicitness makes. The universality claim is open to test and the condition is published: produce a coherent identity, or any organized body of information, that does not decompose into distinctions, systems, relationships and perspectives. Neither objection attempts one. **Patterns it shows** D, P **Added** 2026-10-28 **How to cite this** Steve (no surname given) (2011). A 4 Step Process to Make Kids Smarter? "DSRP," Education Reform a la Dr. Derek Cabrera, and Pants (Yes, Pants!). Stevieblarg's Blog.