How Do Teachers Matter? Not as Cause Agents But as Learning Opportunities
EducationMay 27, 2011Lost in the exaggerated claims of “bad” teachers being at the core of all that ails education and the concurrent calls for greater teacher accountability, often linked to student test scores, is a careful consideration of why we have universal public education in a free society and what the role of the teacher is within that purpose.
Debates about teacher quality and education reform are doomed to fail if we do not first place both within our purposes for and beliefs about education, human nature, and our culture. Universal public education, in its essence, must rest upon a commitment to human agency and autonomy as well as a full and complex faith in and support for democratic principles.
Once we embrace human agency and autonomy–everyone is born equal,