The End of Education in Teacher Education: Thoughts on Reclaiming the Role of Social Foundations in Teacher Education

In past editorials (Vol. 59, Nos. 1 and 5), we've argued that teacher educators should embrace the liberal arts and humanities and that teacher education candidates would benefit from being "liberally" educated. We're aware that what we've proposed goes against the grain of an established professional orientation, what some might even call a growing professional orthodoxy. It is an orthodoxy that purportedly supports reform-based content, constructivist-oriented learning, and student-focused pedagogy. This progressive framing of the learning and teaching process delineates, in so many ways, a powerful and intriguing set of approaches. But we have grave doubts about a method of professional preparation that relies solely on any single, dominant educational framework. The issue is not that we disagree with a constructivist or progressive orientation. Rather, we have serious concerns when a singular framework is offered to candidates as the sole lens through which to understand learning, schooling, and the larger social and political context. When few or no other options are considered, we train and inculcate--we aren't educating. Candidates should not be trained or molded to fit a particular educational path--at least not without their informed and educated consent. Today, however, many (certainly not all) university-based teacher candidates are being inculcated to see teaching and schooling within a dominant, progressive paradigm. Given the range of possible paths and the admixture of educational orientations that have and could exist, a rather narrow, and some would argue ineffectual, path is being taken. Candidates are prepared for a professional role that frequently does not match the realities of public schooling. Future teachers' education should include (in part and at some point in time in their professional development) an examination of their own personal and professional values as well as the larger educational and cultural values. The education we offer our candidates should engage them in the best that the liberal arts tradition has to offer: reflective self-discernment as well as critical cultural understanding. Without this sort of educational engagement--somewhere along their path of professional development--we are failing the profession, the larger public, as well as our schools' students. At various times in our past, the social foundations, and the intellectual disciplines traditionally associated with it (history, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology), have played an important role in a reflectively oriented teacher education effort. It was through (but not only through) the social foundations that candidates came to see teaching as a profession and even possibly a vocation, to see teaching as entailing reasoned and reasonable judgment about educational ends and preferred pedagogical means. Professionally prepared teachers should learn how to inquire into as well as voice their understandings of students, learning, schools, and the varied cultural contexts of schooling. The philosophical and social foundations, when viewed as part of a liberal arts approach to teacher education, have enabled these distinct and varied understandings. This plurality of understandings, curricular approaches, and instructional practices is certainly a worthy goal. But today, we fear that all too many teacher education programs offer singular, not varied, understandings. In this article, we call for greater flexibility in and around the ways we examine teaching and schools and the manner in which we prepare our candidates for those schools. Without this flexibility, teacher education's shared blinders could easily become a stultifying professional orthodoxy. Obstacles to Educating the Profession Unfortunately, significant and powerful countervailing pressures exist and act against a liberal arts--based approach. We've already pointed to one such pressure. Many teacher educators, believing that they know the educational path others should take, proceed to prepare teachers within a narrow "progressive" approach. …