Jonathan Zimmerman: The Trouble with Schools of Education
[Zimmerman is a professor of education and history at New York University's Steinhardt School.]
In 1963, journalist James Koerner published a scathing critique of American schools of education. Charged with preparing future teachers and principals, ed schools were falling down on the job. Courses were "puerile, repetitious, dull and ambiguous"; faculty were "inferior," even "anti-intellectual" - and so were their students, who imbibed a thin pseudoacademic gruel that was the laughingstock of the American university.
Why was this failing culture allowed to continue? Koerner's answer was simple: Ed schools held a monopoly on the preparation of educators. Collaborating with accrediting agencies and state officials, they made their mindless coursework a precondition for working in the profession.
Nearly a half-century later, ed schools remain what Stanford education Prof. David Labaree calls the Rodney Dangerfield of American academia: We don't get no respect. But we're also losing control over the preparation of future educators. Unless we make a new argument for ourselves, we're doomed....
That needs to change if we want ed schools to survive and to thrive. Instead of pretending that they have all the answers, ed schools should advertise themselves as places to explore your own. What is "education," anyway? How have different people defined it historically?
That also means admitting how much we don't know about education. But life is for finding out. If ed schools reframe the preparation of educators around discovery, not dogma, students will come to us; if we don't, the students will disappear. So will the American ed school. And deservingly so.
Read entire article at NY Daily News
In 1963, journalist James Koerner published a scathing critique of American schools of education. Charged with preparing future teachers and principals, ed schools were falling down on the job. Courses were "puerile, repetitious, dull and ambiguous"; faculty were "inferior," even "anti-intellectual" - and so were their students, who imbibed a thin pseudoacademic gruel that was the laughingstock of the American university.
Why was this failing culture allowed to continue? Koerner's answer was simple: Ed schools held a monopoly on the preparation of educators. Collaborating with accrediting agencies and state officials, they made their mindless coursework a precondition for working in the profession.
Nearly a half-century later, ed schools remain what Stanford education Prof. David Labaree calls the Rodney Dangerfield of American academia: We don't get no respect. But we're also losing control over the preparation of future educators. Unless we make a new argument for ourselves, we're doomed....
That needs to change if we want ed schools to survive and to thrive. Instead of pretending that they have all the answers, ed schools should advertise themselves as places to explore your own. What is "education," anyway? How have different people defined it historically?
That also means admitting how much we don't know about education. But life is for finding out. If ed schools reframe the preparation of educators around discovery, not dogma, students will come to us; if we don't, the students will disappear. So will the American ed school. And deservingly so.