Philosophy of Education: Introductory Readings

Philosophy of Education

Philosophy of Education

Introductory Readings

4th edition

William Hare and John P. Portelli, editors

Copyright © 2013 William Hare and John P. Portelli

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Philosophy of education : introductory readings / William Hare and John P. Portelli, editors. – Revised 4th edition.

Includes bibliographical references.

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ISBN 978-1-55059-445-4 (pbk.). – ISBN 978-1-55059-446-1 (epub). – ISBN 978-1-55059-468-3 (pdf). – ISBN 978-1-55059-469-0 (mobi)

1. Education – Philosophy. I. Hare, William, editor of compilation II. Portelli, John P. (John Peter), editor of compilation

LB1025.3.P53 2013 370.1 C2013-902690-8 C2013-902691-6

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART I: PHILOSOPHY, THEORY, AND PRACTICE

1 Harold Entwistle, The Relationship between Educational Theory and Practice: A New Look

2 Robin Barrow, Empirical Research in Education: Why Philosophy Matters

3 Heesoon Bai, Philosophy for Education: Toward Human Agency

4 David T. Hansen, The Place of Ideals in Teaching

PART II: CLASSROOM DISCUSSIONS AND CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

5 Andrea R. English, Listening as a Teacher: Educative Listening, Interruptions, and Reflective Practice

6 Douglas J. Simpson and William J. Hull, Jr., Discussing Ethical Issues in the Classroom: Leveraging Pedagogical Moments that may Otherwise Undermine Important Discussions

7 Claudia W. Ruitenberg, That’s Just Your Opinion!—American Idol and the Confusion between Pluralism and Relativism

8 Michelle Forrest, Sensitive Controversy in Teaching to be Critical

9 Eugenie C. Scott, What’s Wrong with the Teach the Controversy Slogan?

PART III: DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

10 Laura Elizabeth Pinto, The Case for Critical Democracy

11 Kathy Hytten, Philosophy and the Art of Teaching for Social Justice

12 Emery J. Hyslop-Margison and Samuel LeBlanc, Post-Neoliberalism, Education, and the Principles of Democratic Learning

13 Nel Noddings, Schooling for Democracy

14 Trudy Conway, Strangers in our Midst: From Tolerance to Hospitality

PART IV: STANDARDS, EFFICIENCY, AND MEASUREMENT

15 John P. Portelli and Ann B. Vibert, Standardization and Equity in Education

16 Francine Menashy, The End of Efficiency: Implications for Democratic Education

17 Trevor Norris, Arendt, Freire, and the Pedagogy of Possession

18 Harvey Siegel, High-Stakes Testing, Educational Aims and Ideals, and Responsible Assessment

19 Wayne Au, The Idiocy of Policy: The Antidemocratic Curriculum of High-Stakes Testing

PART V: RIGHTS, FREEDOMS, AND CONFLICTS IN EDUCATION

20 Frances M. Kroeker and Stephen P. Norris, An Unwarranted Fear of Religious Schooling

21 Dianne Gereluk, Parental Rights and the Aims of Education: Teaching Religion, Human Sexuality, and Sexual Orientation in Schools

22 Paul Clarke and Bruce MacDougall, Crossing the Line: Homophobic Speech and Public School Teachers

23 William Hare, Propaganda in the Classroom: The Keegstra Case

24 Dwight Boyd, Moral Education within Difference: Impediments to Appreciating the Moral Other

PART VI: CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION AND TEACHING

25 Maxine Greene, Literacy for What?

26 Paulo Freire, Reading the World and Reading the Word: An Interview with Paulo Freire

27 Jane Roland Martin, Education Writ Large

28 Gert Biesta, Teacher Education for Educational Wisdom

Contributors

About the Editors

Acknowledgements

It is very gratifying to see the fourth edition of this collection of essays appear on the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first edition. We are very grateful to Detselig Enterprises for publishing the earlier editions, and we are delighted that Brush Education, successor to Detselig Enterprises, has invited us to prepare this new collection. The fourth edition represents an extensive revision and includes many recent essays. The now classic essay by Harold Entwistle on theory and practice is the only one that has appeared throughout.

We wish to thank the authors for giving us permission to include their work in this collection. At every stage they have responded in a timely and helpful manner. We acknowledge the support of OISE in providing us with the assistance of a graduate student, Danielle Sandhu, whose contribution is greatly appreciated. We also thank Meaghan Craven for her meticulous work as copy editor, and Niki Hare for her invaluable help at different stages of the project.

Our thanks to Fraser Seely and Lauri Seidlitz of Brush Education, who were very enthusiastic about this project from the beginning and have supported it in every respect.

And finally, as with our other editions, we would like to dedicate this book to our families.

William Hare

John P. Portelli

July 2013

Introduction

This fourth edition, like its predecessors, is designed first and foremost to make available a collection of essays in philosophy of education that will offer preservice teachers a stimulating and accessible introduction to some of the most important issues in the field. Classroom teachers, school administrators, teacher educators, educational policy makers, graduate students, and general readers alike will also find this collection a valuable resource in connection with problems that relate to educational theory and practice. As with the earlier editions, and given our intended readership, we have included contributions that connect philosophical reflection with current debates concerning approaches to teaching, methods of assessment, the content of the curriculum, and many other practical matters that relate to schools and student learning. This reflects our belief that philosophical understanding is a vital aspect of professional development. We have chosen essays that will challenge readers to formulate their own views on matters that are the subject of lively discussion among philosophers and educators, and that are intended to encourage a thoughtful engagement with theories and practices that shape contemporary education.

What kinds of philosophical problems are taken up in these selections? Reflective teachers will quickly find themselves involved with difficult and important questions that clearly have great relevance for educational policy and practice. Along with our contributors, readers will surely wonder whether a certain kind of testing is appropriate, what limits there might be on a teacher’s conduct beyond the classroom, if and when it might be justifiable for a teacher to take a stand on a value issue, what would make a school or classroom democratic or socially just, how far we can rely on research findings about teaching, whether sensitive material should be discussed in class, what genuine dialogue involves, and so on. Such questions inevitably draw us into reflection on common sense views and assumptions about education and teaching that have been accepted without serious debate; they focus attention on the language we use to describe education, teaching, and schooling, and its influence on the way we understand and approach our work as educators; they require us to think more carefully about our educational aims and how they can be justified; moreover, they stimulate us to look for imaginative ways in which we might attempt to pursue our ideals or resolve dilemmas that we confront in our work.

In earlier editions, we put forward the view that philosophy of education involves a critical inquiry into educational concepts, values, and practices. Philosophy of education as critical inquiry means that philosophy itself is a practice that intrinsically raises critical awareness, encourages self-reflexivity, and contributes to the development of intellectual and moral virtues that are essential to good teaching. Our hope is that the selections included here will bear out these claims and show that critical reflection has an important bearing on practical educational decisions.

Student teachers and others encountering philosophy of education for the first time might wonder how best to approach these essays, knowing they will meet with controversial and provocative views and theories that may well conflict with their own ideas and values. Bertrand Russell remarks that if people have a determination never to surrender certain philosophic beliefs, they are not in the frame of mind in which philosophy can be profitably pursued (Russell, 1927, p. 299). This comment reminds us that we need to approach philosophical discussions with an open-minded outlook, ready to consider objections to our views and to revise them if we discover we are mistaken (Hare, 1979). Philosophy of education does not arrive at conclusions that all philosophers accept; philosophical ideas typically remain controversial and debatable. In the end, we must judge for ourselves, but this should come after we have given serious consideration to the best arguments we can find, and the conclusions we reach should be held in the same open-minded way. This attitude does not mean that we lack confidence in our beliefs or that we regard other beliefs as equally acceptable but that we see our ideas as open to revision in the light of further evidence and argument (Hare, 1993).

The topics, issues, and problems selected for inclusion in this volume are much discussed by philosophers of education today, and this has led to work of high quality that teachers and educators will find relevant and thought-provoking. Six major themes serve to organize the chapters into the various parts that comprise this collection. Each part has its own introduction providing an overview of the chapters in that group and drawing attention to important questions that arise from the discussion. In each part, readers will find there are arguments, insights, and examples that prove to be helpful in thinking about problems and issues that are discussed elsewhere in the book.

• Part I offers teachers provocative and informative perspectives on philosophy, theory, and practice. A central theme concerns the way in which philosophy and educational theory influence a teacher’s outlook and independent views.

• Part II turns to certain issues that arise in classroom teaching. Attention is focused on pedagogical situations and controversial areas where teachers need to make difficult choices guided by educational principles.

• Part III takes up issues that concern democracy and social justice. These essays prompt reflection on the ideals and values embedded in these notions and what it would mean to see them reflected in education and schooling.

• Part IV deals with matters related to standards, efficiency, and measurement in education. The arguments here raise concerns about assumptions and practices prevalent in contemporary schooling that threaten to undermine our educational aims.

• Part V explores issues relating to rights, freedoms, and conflicts in education. The problem of balancing conflicting rights and freedoms is examined, and the possibility of understanding others with different values is explored.

• Part VI presents certain general conceptions of education and teaching. These discussions challenge teachers to look critically at the somewhat narrow ways in which their work is often defined and to develop a deeper understanding of their role.

There is a wealth of material for discussion and debate in these essays. Student teachers may find it useful to supplement these readings with case studies related to teaching and education (Hare & Portelli, 2003); those who wish to read further in philosophy of education can readily do so and references are provided below.

REFERENCES

Hare, W. (1979). Open-mindedness and education. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Hare, W. (1993). What makes a good teacher. London, ON: Althouse Press.

Hare, W., & Portelli, J.P. (2003). What to do? Case studies for educators. Halifax: Edphil Books.

Russell, B. (1927). Philosophy. New York: W.W. Norton.

FURTHER READINGS

Bailey, R., Barrow, R., Carr, D., & McCarthy, C. (Eds.). (2010). The Sage handbook of philosophy of education. Los Angeles: Sage.

Cahn, S.M. (Ed.). (2011). Classic and contemporary readings in the philosophy of education (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Curren, R. (Ed.). (2006). A companion to philosophy of education. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Hare, W., & Portelli, J.P. (Eds.). (2007). Key questions for educators. San Francisco, CA: Caddo Gap.

Johnson, T.W., & Reed, R.F. (Eds.). (2012). Philosophical documents in education (4th ed.). Boston: Prentice-Hall.

Kohli, W. (Ed.). (1995). Critical conversations in philosophy of education. New York: Routledge.

Siegel, H. (Ed.). (2009). The Oxford handbook of philosophy of education. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195312881.001.0001

Part I : Philosophy, Theory, and Practice

The essays in this section deal with the issue of the relationship between theory and practice in education, the value of empirical research in teaching, the role of philosophy in education, and the place of ideals in teaching. The issue of theory and practice is a classic one in debates about the nature of the preparation of those in professions such as teaching. Initial teacher-education students frequently doubt the value of theory, including philosophy of education, given the perceived importance of practical school-based experiences. What is the best or most appropriate way to prepare people to become competent teachers? Should the emphasis be on theoretical and philosophical concerns or practical concerns? Should and can the two be separated or should they always be seen in tandem? Do practical matters simply involve the application of skills? Can such issues be determined on empirical grounds? Is it not worthwhile to think critically about one’s aims in teaching, and the values, principles, and ideals embedded in them? The replies to these questions will vary according to how one views the nature of theory and practice and the relationship between the two, the nature of empirical work, philosophy and ideals. And, in turn, such views will impact on how one constructs the nature of professions.

The first essay by Harold Entwistle tackles the issue of the possible causes for the split between theory and practice while developing a notion of theory from a critical stance. In this discussion Entwistle deals with several questions that have troubled educators: Is the role of theory to dictate specific actions to practitioners or to raise a critical awareness? Can and should the gap between theory and practice be lessened? What is the role of theory and practice in reflective practice? Entwistle refutes the rigid, traditional notion of theory that assumed neutrality and is expected to provide detailed, specific, secure, universal prescriptions or solutions. On the contrary, he believes that educational theory (including philosophy of education), of its nature, does not offer and is not meant to offer specific knowledge and skills applicable to a given practical situation. For him the role of theory is to evoke judgment rather than rote obedience, and to encourage professional autonomy, which entails developing new perspectives that help to analyze, question, and be aware of the complexities in the teaching context, and dealing with problems that arise from practice. Nonetheless, Entwistle concludes that although learning the art of compromise will help teachers to reduce the gulf between theory and practice, in the final analysis the gap is inevitable; struggling with this very fact will help us refine both theory and practice!

In the second essay Robin Barrow raises foundational questions about the nature and role of empirical research. To what extent can empirical research provide definitive answers to educational issues? Is it possible and meaningful for empirical research in education to mimic the nature of research in the natural sciences? Barrow argues that given the contested nature of education and educational concepts, as well as the fact that it is impossible to make meaningful educational claims without taking into account the unique nature of contexts that vary, it is not possible to expect exact and universal general rules that apply in a neutral manner. Expecting otherwise will limit, if not negate, the professional responsibility of teachers. For Barrow, philosophy has a crucial role in providing the clarity of educational concepts, which is needed in determining the nature of empirical research and its direction. Empirical research is inevitably based on philosophical premises and assumptions; sound empirical research needs to identify the philosophical underpinnings.

But how then should we view philosophy and its contribution to education? Is not philosophy of its very nature abstract and theoretical and hence not practical? In the third essay Heesoon Bai takes up such popular questions and articulates and argues for a conception of philosophy as practice that aims primarily to develop human agency and autonomy. Without the cultivation of human agency, which is a lifelong project, Bai contends, we would fall prey to fundamentalist dogmatism, whether it is of a religious or secular nature. Building on ideas from both Eastern and Western philosophy, she articulates a view of philosophy as life-practice and self-making. While arguing against a utilitarian and positivist relationship between theory and practice, Bai offers world-making, dialogue, philosophical writing, and contemplative arts as ideal ways of cultivating human agency. Based on her experience as a university professor, Bai proposes a conception and practice of philosophy that are different from popular misconceptions of philosophy: philosophy is ultimately a way of being that symbiotically incorporates a certain kind of thinking and doing.

But is there room for ideals in education? Would not ideals hinder educators from fulfilling their publicly defined obligations, which are primarily practical and, to an extent, bureaucratic in nature? Consistent with the nature of theory and practice as envisioned by Entwistle and Barrow, as well as the dialectical tensions involved in developing human agency as identified by Bai, in the fourth essay, David Hansen argues for a balanced understanding of ideals—one that harmonizes the view that teachers should have ideals that go beyond societal expectations with the view that they have defined obligations. He reminds us that ideals are in fact human constructs that partly depend on contexts and, as such, deserve critical examination. Ideals are different than slogans, for while they are general and abstract they call for a critical and thoughtful enacting (rather than implementing) in the reality of life. As such, Hansen concludes that idealism and respect for reality reinforce one another. Applying tenacious humility, according to Hansen, will greatly assist educators to navigate the productive tensions that arise between ideals and reality.

Although one may agree with the related positions developed in these essays, one may still ask, as many students have asked us: But is theory more important than practice? Are ideals more important than the actual living? The dictum of Chilean Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda helps: we need two hands to clap! Just as both hands are equally important for clapping, the same holds for theory (ideals) and practice (actual living). There is bound to be some division and even tension between the two. From this it doesn’t follow that we should not be concerned with theory or that anything in the practice is acceptable. What matters, however, is the kind of theory and practice that we adhere to. Hence educators and teachers, as professionals, need to be careful what to expect or demand from theory, whether it is a theory developed by them or others. To avoid being unprofessional, we need to constantly remember the unending dialectic or tension between what we aim for and what ensues, what we believe in and what we are allowed to do, and the contingent and ambiguous versus the desire for certainty and stability. From this perspective, while theory and practice are conceptually distinct, they are also inseparable, very much like the two sides of a coin. But as Paulo Freire (1998), one of the 20th century’s most influential educators, advised, the balance or relationship between theory and practice requires critical reflection: Critical reflection on practice is a requirement of the relationship between theory and practice. Otherwise theory becomes simply ‘blah, blah, blah,’ and practice, pure activism (p. 30). Our challenge as educators at all levels is to maintain such a relationship by finding the theoretical in the practical and the practical in the theoretical—a relationship that today is once again threatened by neoliberalism based on excessive competition, rugged individualism, blind efficiency, and extreme utilitarianism.

REFERENCE

Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

1

The Relationship between Educational Theory and Practice

A New Look

HAROLD ENTWISTLE*

*This is a slightly modified version of a paper presented at Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, March 27, 1987.

Why a new look at educational theory and practice? I have been troubled by the problem of the relationship between the theory and practice of education for more than 40 years. As a student doing my teacher training in an English college of education (or training college as it was then called), I remember writing an article for the college newspaper denouncing the theoretical component of my course as being utterly irrelevant to conditions in the school as I found them on teaching practice. As a qualified teacher, I would experience similar frustration when inspectors, advisors, and other people who were no longer practitioners would come to my classroom and offer me unworkable advice. When I eventually went to do graduate work in education, I recall wanting to do my thesis on the relationship between theory and practice. My supervisor warned me off it—I think I now know why. Then I became a teacher trainer (or teacher educator) and found myself in the peculiar position of being accused by my own students of offering advice that was all right in theory but no good in practice. I suspect that most of what I have to say is the result of my efforts to come to grips with the fact that I had now become just another starry-eyed theorist.

So, for me, this is a new look at an old problem (Entwistle, 1969, 1970, 1971). But I make this point about my own changing experience and changing perspective on the problem to suggest that whatever the solution is, it is far from simple. Indeed, I think that in terms of the way that the problem is usually posed, there probably is no solution. On the one hand, I believe practitioners have a perfect right to take theorists to task for what often is quite unrealistic advice about the practice of teaching. On the other hand, when you see it as a theorist from the other side of the fence, even when you have had practical experience of the problems of teaching yourself, the theory-practice problem has a new dimension and the discrepancy invites a different kind of explanation. And I think this fact, that when experienced and successful practitioners become theorists, even they become vulnerable to the charge of being unrealistic about practice, is salutary. It is sometimes suggested that the gap between theory and practice would be bridged if only we had the sense to fill colleges of education with practicing teachers. It may be a good thing, other things being equal, that teachers of educational theory should actually have taught in schools. But on the basis of my own experience, and the experience of colleagues and friends with whom I have discussed the problem, ex-practitioners can look as unrealistically theoretical to their students as anyone else.¹

To come to my major points. I want to argue that there are two main reasons for the gap between theory and practice. On the one hand, from the side of the practitioner, I believe it often follows from a misunderstanding of what theory is. This is to say that practicing teachers are apt to demand of educational theory what it is not in the nature of theory to deliver. I am suggesting that, in part, the theory-practice gap is the fault of practitioners. I will come back to this point later.

On the other hand, I am also convinced that a gap between theory and practice frequently exists because theory is often quite inadequate. Practitioners who criticize theory are sometimes kind enough to say, That’s alright in theory but it won’t work in practice, implying that there is really nothing wrong with the theory—that as theorists we have done our job well enough—but that practice is simply just a different world. I want to suggest, to the contrary, that the theory is often not alright; it is misleading and inadequate theory that practitioners have a perfect right to dismiss.

Let me give my reasons for saying this.

First, I believe that educational theory is often unacceptably utopian. An example of this would be in the conception of the child that dominates liberal educational theory. We assume the existence of a perfect learner—essentially innocent, insatiably curious, and intrinsically motivated. We rarely entertain the possible truth contained in Shakespeare’s characterization of the second age of man as a period when the child inevitably goes unwillingly to school. What follows from this Shakespearean assumption is that teachers will often be faced with an uncooperative learner and will need to have recourse to extrinsic motivational devices. Teachers, even good teachers, experience this problem daily in the classroom and I believe that they are right to distrust a sentimental model of the child that fails to take account of the reality of childhood.

This utopian assumption of original student perfection derives from one or the other of two sources. On the one hand, it is often a metaphysical fiction without any empirical basis; that is, it is a model of what we would like children to be, or, perhaps, a moral conclusion about what they ought to be. On the other hand, when it does have a basis in the real world, the perfectionist model is derived from child study that is conducted in privileged circumstances, indeed, in conditions that are near utopian from the standpoint of the typical classroom—in private schools, or with small groups of learners, or even, as with a good deal of Piagetian research, with individual children. In this connection, it is also worth noting that old-fashioned learning theory based on the study of animal behaviour was derived from the study of individual rats or pigeons.

This brings me to a second reason why educational theory is often inadequate. It is almost universally true that the institutional unit in which pedagogy has to be conducted is the class, a social group; occasionally, as in the graduate seminar, a group of half a dozen, but often in large lecture groups of several hundreds, or, if you are lucky, with a group of around 50. In elementary school, you may be lucky enough to have as few as 20 children, more likely to have around 30, but even there classes in excess of 40 are not unknown. Yet, despite this institutionalization of learning in the class grouping, liberal educational theory is overwhelmingly individualistic in orientation. Theory urges us to remember that each child brings a unique personal history to school that peculiarly affects his or her motivation and defines his or her idiosyncratic needs, interests, and preferences. We are even asked to entertain the view that each learner has a unique learning style and pace, such that the only adequate pedagogy would really be based on individualized instruction.² And logically, as is sometimes asserted, what this really adds up to is an individualized and personalized curriculum for every child. But the reality is that we do not, we cannot, teach children as individuals in schools, except occasionally and marginally. It is not even clear that it would be desirable to completely individualize instruction even if we could, for it is not only the existence of economic constraints that leads us to group students together in classes. The wealthy in society, who can well enough afford to buy individual tuition for their children, choose to send them to schools on the assumption that education is a social process requiring a social pedagogy. Yet teaching a group a common subject matter poses its own special problems to which few educational theorists address themselves, except for notable exceptions like John Dewey, whose embryonic project method was essentially a social pedagogy. What I am arguing here is that the educational individualism of liberal educational theory inevitably opens up a gap with practice because the context of institutional practice is inevitably a social one, the class.

Third, context of another kind is often ignored in a way that also serves to drive a wedge between theory and practice. It is a legitimate criticism by practitioners that educational theory often ignores the bureaucratic context of classrooms and schools. Here I am not using the word pejoratively; I take it that in the modern world bureaucracies are necessary to providing a public service like schooling or health care, and so on. But just as it individualizes the learner, educational theory often also implicitly individualizes the classroom and the school, in the sense that it assumes both to be autonomous associations in which the teacher is able to function independently, without bureaucratic constraints upon one’s professional judgment and competence. But in classrooms, teaching and learning have to be accomplished subject to legal, economic, and other constraints, as well as with an eye on the competing (and often contradictory) claims of interest groups of various kinds and the expectations of parents that are not always in accord with academic realities or the norms of a liberal education. The result is that teachers often cannot avoid performing in a manner that their better judgment tells them is not exactly pedagogically sound. An obvious example of this would be the pressure to resort to rote teaching and learning to achieve success in external examinations.

One of the things that is implicit in the three points I have made about the responsibility which theorists have for the existence of the theory-practice gap is that practitioners know their work frequently involves compromise, but they believe that theorists refuse to recognize the inevitability that successful human action is full of compromise. We almost always use the word in a pejorative sense: compromise is associated with betrayal of principles, with untrustworthiness or want of integrity; it almost carries the implication of moral turpitude. In fact, compromise is part of the stuff of which successful and harmonious relationships are made. Husbands compromise with wives, parents with children, doctors with patients, law enforcement officers with offenders, politicians with other politicians and their constituents, even perhaps, clergymen with parishioners. And most teachers would hardly survive in the classroom without compromising with bureaucrats, with colleagues, with students, with parents, between the competing claims of individuals and of the individual student and the group, and between pedagogical and bureaucratic imperatives. Compromise is a fact of classroom life. The fact that compromise is necessary in applying theory to practice ought to be treated as an aspect of educational theory itself. That is, maybe the successful marriage of theory with practice is consummated, in part, by learning the art of compromise.

This brings me to my alternative explanation of the gap between theory and practice; the practitioner’s misconception about the nature of theory. If part of the fault lies in inadequate theory, I believe it also follows from the unrealistic expectations that practitioners often have of theory and their failure to recognize that even the best of theories has to be applied with discrimination to the practical situation. It is in the nature of what a theory is that there can never be an exact, neat, one-to-one fit between theory and practice. Theories are generalizations about practice, while practical situations are particular, peculiar, and widely varied. A theory draws its relevance and cogency to every conceivable situation it seeks to explain only by being an exact description of none of them. There never can be a one-to-one correspondence between theory and practice, if by this we mean theory that predicts accurately every contingency in a practical situation. As Donald Schön (1983) puts it in The Reflective Practitioner: An overarching theory does not give a rule that can be applied to predict or control a particular event, but it supplies language from which to construct particular descriptions and themes from which to develop particular interpretations (p. 273).

This means that educational theories have to be applied by practitioners in an active, thoughtful, creative sense, not passively as though applying predigested instructions or advice. The application of theory to practice, instead of being an exercise in carrying out good advice, is rather a matter of learning to ask a variety of questions about practical situations with the guidance of relevant axioms or generalizations. The philosopher Immanuel Kant put it this way: "A set of rules, presented in a certain generality and with disregard of particular circumstances is called a Theory … The practitioner must exercise his judgement to decide whether a case falls under a certain rule" (as cited in Rabel, 1963, p. 253). That is, the job of a theory is to evoke judgment rather than rote obedience. The application of theory to practice means bringing critical intelligence to bear on practical tasks rather than merely implementing good advice. We have to learn not only rules, theories, and principles but also how to interpret and apply them appropriately. That is, some initiative is required from the practitioner in discovering the pertinence of theory to his or her own peculiar practical situation. But if practitioners do not do this, or do not know how to do it, this may also be a fault that we have to lay at the door of teachers of theory. Too often, educational theories are taught not as analytical tools but as ideologies or dogmas that brook no argument. I suggest that just as teacher educators should confront teachers with the fact that compromise is a fact of life in classrooms, they should also accept the fact that part of the teaching of educational theory must consist of teaching exactly what a theory is, what it can and cannot be expected to do for practice, and the various ways in which theories have to be applied.

What I have just said about the practitioner’s responsibility for actively applying theories, exercising judgment or critical intelligence, can be summed up in Schön’s (1983) notion of the reflective practitioner in his book of that name.³

With reference to schooling, the notion of the reflective practitioner is the idea of a professional in a practical situation confronting the problems and the opportunities it poses, asking intelligent well-informed questions about the situation, acting in a manner suggested by the answers to these questions, evaluating the results, reflecting again on the implications of these, and so on. The result of this interpenetration of theory and practice is to develop what is sometimes referred to as praxis. Out of this continuous reflection on practice, one develops one’s own practice-relevant theory, one’s own characterizations of what one is trying to do in the classroom, why one succeeds or sometimes fails, and what has to be done to accommodate the failure, either by improving one’s practice or, perhaps, by redefining the situation. This raises the question of what it is that causes the practitioner to reflect critically on his or her practice and, especially, what it is, if anything, that academic educational theory contributes to intelligent reflection on practice.

One answer to this last question about the relevance of educational theory for reflective practice is that it contributes nothing, or very little. This is a point of view that might be expected from the cynical or disillusioned practitioner who feels that he or she has been left to work it all out alone. But the view that educational theory does little to inform educational practice, that it has no impact upon the teacher’s reflection on practice, is one that one hears occasionally from educational theorists themselves.

I have in mind here the view that when it gets down to the bare boards of the classroom floor, the only relevant guides to practice are common sense and worldly wise axioms or aphorisms like Praise is better than blame, Don’t expect them to sit and listen for too long, When they get restive give them something to do, Test them at fairly regular intervals, Give them feedback as soon as possible, Spare the rod spoil the child, Open the windows, Never turn your back on them, Start tough and then you can afford to relax, and so on. I remember spending some time several years ago with an American educationalist on sabbatical leave at the university’s department of education where I worked. He spent most days sitting at the back of a classroom at the local primary school. A good deal of his time at recess, lunch break, and at the end of the school day was spent discussing with the class teacher how she had seen the lesson or the day. Inevitably, he argued, her account of how things had gone consisted of observations on individual children, wondering if a particular child had been unwell, or feeling the strain of family breakdown, or was watching too much television for too long, or how much the class had been distracted by interruptions from outside, perhaps a change in the weather, or how some of them did math last year with Miss Smith who really drills them in the fundamentals, and some of them with Mr. Jones who is a super teacher when it comes to language arts but who is bored to distraction by math and does not do much more than go through the motions.

These kinds of reflective comments on the successes and failures of the teacher’s day may be more or less subtle and insightful, but, according to my American friend, they seem to depend hardly at all on a knowledge of academic educational theory. Evidently, what the teacher reflecting on his or her day does not do is to wonder what Piaget would have said about these things, or whether Plato or R.S. Peters might throw some light on his or her problems, or whether, like so many other things, they do it better in Sweden, or whether, according to Bernstein, it is all a matter of direct and elaborated language codes, or whether it all really comes down to the correspondence principle and, like Bowles and Gintis claim, the point is that we will never get schooling right until we get rid of capitalism. I do not know which discipline from educational theory I have omitted from that list, but if there is one, the reflective practitioner does not draw on that either to explain his or her day and to plan for a better tomorrow.

Now it may be that in reflecting on practice, the teacher rarely makes explicit or conscious reference to academic educational theory. But the fact is that not all homespun reflection on the practical situation in the classroom is equally relevant, equally cogent, or equally sensitive to moral standards and interpersonal relationships. And mere reflection from out of a teacher’s own untutored cognitive resources may fail to come to grips with the complexity of a practical situation, or to explore the wide range of alternative explanations of classroom phenomena or alternative solutions to educational problems. Nor is all folk wisdom equally sensitive to the moral issues arising in the classroom. After all, Jim Keegstra was presumably a reflective practitioner, according to his own lights.⁴ And he may be unique, but on my own experience of staffroom reflection, rednecks, racists, sexists, and chauvinists are not unknown, nor are practitioners who expect nothing of children and whose conception of what it means to be an educated person would make a Dickensian schoolmaster look like a liberal do-gooder.

I want to suggest that intelligent, well-informed, critical reflection on practice can be the outcome of familiarity with academic educational theory, however tacitly this theory may enter into thinking about practice. In fact, I would make much the same claim for the practical outcomes of a knowledge of academic educational theory that Peters does for the influence of the academic disciplines of the school upon the education of the person. As Peters suggests, the point of a liberal education is not that one arrives at a destination but that one travels with a different point of view (1965). One of the things I take this to mean is that the educated person is not merely satisfied to acquire a repertoire of relevant skills and knowledge that satisfies one’s needs, ministers to one’s interests, and assists one in solving problems in the here and now. In Peters’s sense, a liberal education transforms one’s perception of what the problems are, what opportunities are offered by life, and what new interests might enrich one’s daily experiences. Being educated, one is aware of new needs and interests, and the relevance of knowledge has to be tested with reference to the possibility of a changing and developing, not a given static, way of life. It seems to me that theory of education—psychology, comparative studies, philosophy, history, and sociology of education—does not provide knowledge and skills that are applicable to a given practical situation: it provides new perspectives, such that one confronts educational problems and opportunities from a different point of view. Educational theory can provide a liberal education, such that the teacher’s reflection on practice becomes intelligent, morally sensitive, capable of making finer conceptual distinctions and more subtle analyses of educational problems, and well-informed about the various relevant contexts of educational practice. The justification for educational theory is the same as the justification for liberal education itself. The teacher reflecting upon teaching equipped with more subtle educational theory is much like the liberally educated citizen reflecting intelligently upon public affairs.

To look for an educational theory that eliminates the gap between theory and practice is to chase a will-o’-the-wisp. Indeed, it is arguable that good educational theory that sensitizes the teacher’s capacity for reflection will inevitably widen the gap. To elaborate this point, I want to give a brief account of what Schön (1983) says about the reflective teacher.

First, it is interesting that Schön assumes that the teacher will carry on his or her reflective activity in terms of the individual model of education to which I referred earlier. The teacher’s reflection is never about problems of teaching the class or the group but always in terms of the individual learner, his or her needs, interests, strengths, and weaknesses. What will inevitably emerge from this reflection is a curriculum and teaching strategies defined entirely by reference to individual need.

Second, the teacher’s reflection (which, among other things, will give rise to a completely new conception of the nature of curriculum) will inevitably bring him or her into conflict with bureaucratic norms and requirements. Things like timetabling, required syllabuses, objective testing, uniform student records, and many of the disciplinary and control mechanisms of the school will all seem to stand in the way of ministering to the individual student’s educational needs.

Third, the teacher will conclude that reflective practice is hardly compatible with the kind of student-teacher ratio that is common in the public schools.

Notwithstanding these pessimistic conclusions that the reflective practitioner will inevitably discover a widening gap between one’s increasingly sensitive theory and the given objective conditions of classroom life, the teacher must choose between two options that offer themselves at this point. He or she may choose to abandon the role of reflective practitioner, concluding that reflective practice is just another example of those things that look good in theory but, because of the bureaucratic and economic contexts of teaching, do not work in practice. One can reject the notion of the reflective practitioner as one of those utopian fantasies that do not fit the real world: something that looks good in theory but will not work in practice.

Or we can settle for half a loaf and see reflective practice as one of those things about which we have to learn to compromise. Indeed, one of the things that reflective practice would entail is thinking about the compromises that are necessary and possible and justifiable in the classroom. This amounts to repeating what I concluded earlier—that part of teacher education in both its theoretical and practical aspects is learning the art of compromise.

My conclusion is that the gap between theory and practice is probably inevitable, and that attempts to bridge the gap may even make it wider. Perhaps this conclusion is all that has come out of my new look at the problem. But far from this conclusion being regrettable or a source of disillusionment with theory, it seems to me to constitute rather an opportunity. I have argued that one of the things that educational theory has to do is to give an account of why the discrepancy between theory and practice is there, and how one might learn to live with it, not as a blemish or something that disfigures the educational enterprise but as something that nurtures both theory and practice. The continuous process of interrogating our practice with theory and refining our theory in the crucible of practice is the condition of our growth as both theorists and practitioners.

REFERENCES

Entwistle, H. (1969). Practical and theoretical learning. British Journal of Educational Studies, 17(2), 117–128. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071005.1969.9973245

Entwistle, H. (1970). Child-centred education. London, UK: Methuen.

Entwistle, H. (1971). The relationship between theory and practice. In J.W. Tibble (Ed.), An introduction to the study of education (pp. 95–113). London, UK: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Peters, R.S. (1965). Education as initiation. In R.D. Archambault (Ed.), Philosophical analysis and education (pp. 87–111). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Rabel, G. (1963). Kant. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Schön, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.

Simon, B. (1985). Why no pedagogy in England. In B. Simon (Ed.), Does education matter? (pp. 77–105) London, UK: Lawrence & Wishart.

NOTES

1 In speculating on the reasons for this, I recall a comment made by my own education lecturer in response to the critical article in the college newspaper to which I earlier referred. This was along the lines of: What you are pointing out is not a gap between theory and practice but a gap between my theory and practice and your practice. Implicitly, it was not only the theory he taught that differed from my practice; his practice (which he believed to be quite consistent with his theory, since he had hammered out his theory from reflection on his practice) also differed from mine: he had been an experienced practitioner. I was merely a tentative, vulnerable, inexperienced novice. Reflecting on his wise observation over the years, I have concluded that one reason why experienced practitioners appear to give unrealistic advice to novices is that their theory is a reflective account of their long, experienced, and successful practice. When experienced practitioners become theorists, they probably give an honest account of their own reflections on practice, practice refined by familiarity with educational theory and tested through trial and error over the years. It is this description, explanation, and analysis of their own work as experienced teachers that students are apt to reject as unrealistic when applied to their own practice. In fact, it is unrealistic only in their own circumstances, inexperienced and differently contexted in time and place. But, in turn, the reflective practitioner will fashion his or her own theory from his or her own experienced practice; as such, it may well seem unrealistic to an inexperienced colleague. Return to text.

2 For the argument that personal learning styles probably differ much less than our individually oriented educational theory suggests, see Simon (1985, pp. 94–95). Return to text.

3 Although Schön (1983) makes passing reference to teaching, he does not analyze the notion of the reflective practitioner in relation to teaching anywhere near the length to which he does for some other professions. So, what I want to say about the teacher as a reflective practitioner does not necessarily closely correspond with the brief observations he makes on the subject. Return to text.

4 Keegstra was a history teacher in Alberta who was found guilty of fomenting racial hatred through teaching, amongst other things, that the Holocaust never happened. See further, Chapter 23 in this collection. Return to text.

2

Empirical Research in Education

Why Philosophy Matters

ROBIN BARROW

Introduction

Governments in many jurisdictions are currently obsessed with evidence-based research. It is worth stressing at the outset that evidence-based does not have to mean empirically tested. A legal judgment, for example, may be evidence-based without being empirically established in the sense understood by educational researchers and policy makers. However, we are in practice talking about empirically researched claims.

In what follows, I am going to focus on empirical research into teaching methods. But I want to stress that in so far as my argument about teaching is sound, it applies equally to research into other things, such as leadership, classroom management, and several other psychological and social factors affecting student learning. Indeed, it applies to research in the social sciences generally and has implications for our attempts to answer a much wider range of questions, including What difference do orchestral conductors make? How important are football managers or coaches? and Do politicians actually make any difference?

The question I wish to explore is this: are we to presume that there is a given set of best practices or methods in education that transcends cultural differences, such that the most effective way to teach in the Yukon is also the most effective way in Delhi, regardless of what or whom one is teaching?

It will be noted that the question as I have posed it is about allegedly generic qualities of teaching, or methods and techniques that are supposed to represent good practice regardless of a particular context. Clearly, in any specific situation there may be better and worse ways to proceed, and one might be able to establish in particular cases which ways were most effective. But research, particularly so-called scientific research, is primarily concerned with establishing general laws. So, my concern is not with suggestions about good and bad ways to proceed in fairly well-defined particular circumstances, but rather with general prescriptions for teaching, of the type small group discussion is more effective than lecturing or students prefer written instructions to oral instructions.

The suggestion that we should answer the question Is there a given set of best practices? in the affirmative seems to me absurd. Such are the manifest differences between the situations in, say, central Paris and a small rural settlement in Siberia, that one would surely expect very different approaches to teaching might be desirable. And if that is so, why should one assume or expect there to be a significant set of practices that are consistently best within a particular culture, given that within a given culture there are almost invariably further distinct subcultures? Why presume that methods that will prove effective with children from poor disadvantaged and dysfunctional families in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, will also be the most effective methods to use with the children of wealthy educated parents in a private boarding school in rural British Columbia?

Consider, for example, the use of overheads when lecturing. There is a wide consensus that the use of overheads when making a presentation is desirable. I question this consensus; but even if one were to accept that overheads always enhance a lecture for any audience, it is surely obvious that the specific form, nature, and use of overheads might have to differ considerably to be effective with audiences of different, ages, cultures, and backgrounds. But to admit that is to render the advice use overheads more or less useless. To make it useful, I would need information about what would please particular members of my specific audience, even assuming that individually they would all welcome overheads.

But what suits a particular audience or individual members of that audience, which is precisely what should be of concern to individual teachers as they face their class, is not what empirical researchers are generally interested in, because they see themselves as playing a role in developing a science of teaching. To establish what would ideally suit a particular audience is quite different from establishing general principles or rules of good lecturing.

The more one thinks about it, the more the idea that using overheads must be a good or a bad thing across the board seems implausible. We are never going to establish the value of using overheads as a mode of teaching in itself: the value will vary depending on context, circumstance, and situation, as well as the particular form of use.

Here I must warn against a very basic but prevalent error: to say that we will never establish best practice empirically is not to deny that the question of whether a given practice is or is not efficacious is an empirical one. (Some would accuse philosophers of claiming that whether or not, for example, the use of overheads is desirable is ultimately a philosophical question. But that is not so.) The misunderstanding arises because philosophers rightly say that much empirical work is vitiated by a failure to deal with certain necessary conceptual and logical issues. But it does not follow that there are only philosophical issues to deal with. For example, most research on happiness is seriously deficient because it proceeds without explicitly providing a clear and adequate conceptualization of happiness; as a direct consequence of not having done the conceptual work before constructing the research model, researchers effectively define happiness purely in terms of the instruments and tests they use. But, given that this is empirical research, the instruments and