How rugby league's latest scandals and this cone relate

CONCERNED rugby league fans, it’s time we talk about Dale’s Cone.

Settle down edgy Penrith supporters – I didn’t say Dallin’s Cone. Nor, Manly fans, did I refer to Daly Cherry-Evans’ Cone.

I’m not even insinuating Dale Copley of the Titans may have found himself amidst a new scandal that involves the wacky tobaccy.

Dale’s Cone refers to a model that an American educator, Edgar Dale, came up with more than 70 years ago.

And it’s the fact that 70 years have since passed, and very little has changed, which underpins a point worth noting.

As someone who feels strongly about halting violence against women – and indeed domestic violence of any kind – it beggars belief that people are convinced harsher punishments will stem bad behavior in the NRL.

When the sport’s chiefs announced a ‘line in the sand’ last week that saw a wave of players stood down and fined, the wider public applauded.

Finally, they reasoned, something had been done.

Except I can guarantee you the next time a player holds a fist above his partner’s face, hovers his finger over ‘send’ on a home-made smut clip, or holds a tightly-rolled banknote up to a nostril, this will have minimal bearing.

When a person is on the brink of catastrophic behaviour, it is the experiences and values imbued before that moment which will shape their decision-making – not thoughts of the consequences that will follow after.

Let’s not be disingenuous and suggest a bigger stick for punishment guarantees any noticeable change in player behaviour next off-season, or even this coming season.

Chances are we could find ourselves in exactly the same position in 12 months’ time.

The ‘crackdown’ is 90 per cent a public relations exercise to assuage the dismay of fans and sponsors, and 10 per cent throwing hope to the wind that somewhere, somebody might wake up to themselves.

So back to Dale’s Cone – or the Cone of Experience as it is known in full.

After Edgar Dale graduated from being a teacher in North Dakota to becoming a professor at Ohio State University, he wanted to present a simple visual representation of how different students learn.

Dale came up with a cone with 11 different stratum, the pointy end being verbal symbols, visual symbols, recordings and still pictures, and the larger, underpinning foundations being direct purposeful experiences, contrived experiences and dramatised experiences.

Now it’s fair to say Dale’s Cone has been misrepresented and generalised over time.

You’ve probably heard someone say something like: “10 per cent of people learn through reading, 20 per cent learn through seeing, but 80 per cent learn through doing.”

That’s not expressly what Dale intended at the time, but that train of thought stems from his seminal work.

Even Igor Kokcharov’s 2015 Hierachy of Skills says that less than 20 per cent of the population learn through receiving information, and less than 75 per cent learn through participating in discussion and demonstration.

To crack the barrier where the greatest number of people have got the message loud and clear, Kokcharov says you need either ‘Learning by doing’ or ‘Working with a coach, practicing immediately’.

Where this binds into the NRL behaviour debate is that young men, young women, young people in general; many are not going to learn their lesson until they’ve done the deed.

Conversely, they might have learnt the lesson well in advance by being ‘coached’ from a young age in values and ethics by a guardian.

Even better is coming to certain realisations in advance, becoming your own ‘coach’ before faced with challenging moments.

Introducing NRL player behaviour education at age 16 or whenever is fantastic, but please don’t delude yourself that will ever have the same permeation as ingrained, reinforced morality and consideration of consequences.

Don’t kid yourself that we will ever have 100 per cent of players who have experienced that upbringing and will not make mistakes first before the light switch flicks in their head.

That’s not excusing the behaviour. It’s just a reality, and to expect otherwise is a misguided prayer.

You’re going to have kids from underprivileged backgrounds making right and wrong decisions, and kids from privileged backgrounds doing exactly the same.

The NRL cannot eliminate all vice from the sport no matter how hard it tries. It will barely make a dent in some areas.

Luke Lewis hit the nail on the head with a cracking great mallet this week on Fox League when he said: “You’ve either got morals, or you don’t.”

He later extrapolated on violence against women, based on his own experiences seeing his mother mistreated in his youth.

“I’ve seen my Mum get dragged down the hallway by her hair and get bashed,” he said.

“If I experienced it as a kid and I don’t want to see it and I don’t want to see it and I don’t want to see my daughter go through it, I’m the one who’s got to make the change.

“No one else is going to make me change unless I make the decision to do it.”

On so many fronts I can relate to Lewis. He experienced. He made a conscious decision himself at a young age.

NRL player education cannot take the credit for the strong, resolute man he is today.

Nor should it wear the burden of complete expectation when it comes to eliminating bad behaviour from others.

Loxton Berg is the pseudonym of an Australian sports journalist, who tells of his own experiences of family violence and rugby league in the recently released book Poolhall – Jail – Library.