Intellectualism in Pedagogical Schools.

Overview & Synopsis

There are three types of scholars in schools of education: (1) scientists, who are primarily concerned with instrument development, research design and method, and the application of these to the study of teaching and to nonschool influences on the development of children and youth; (2) theorists, who concern themselves with the philosophy, social foundations, and history of education; and (3) clinicians, who are less concerned with concepts and principles, and mainly interested in helping teachers acquire pedagogical skills. All too often, today, these groups function in isolation from one another, even though the intellectual development of educational faculties depends upon communication between them. To correct this situation, a thoroughgoing modification of the program of teacher education is required. Basic courses in psychology, measurement, curriculum, and other areas should routinely require students to apply their learning in laboratory work. This arrangement would involve clinicians in the teaching of basic courses, and would provide a number of other advantages. The unfocused, non-clinical education curriculum of today results from our seeing teacher education as primarily theoretical, as general education, and as graduate study. Only when the theorists, researchers, and clinicians begin to focus their intellectual energies on the professional training function of schools of education will the intellectual life of these schools be revitalized. (KH)