Reframing Expertise (The Habitual Line-Stepper)
In my travels this summer, I’m often asked to ponder this idea of expertise, and specifically, how education researchers and those in higher education can help K-12 teachers.
Since I entered the teaching profession almost a decade ago, I’ve had this struggle with this idea. From articles where a writer with a PhD in education lays out a plan for how school systems should be run to speeches where a professor from a prestigious college tells us why the Common Core will and must work, I’ve grown weary of the disconnected dialogue between well-meaning K-12 teachers and the plethora of college professors who’ve come to rescue American education from the vice grip of mediocrity.
Instead, I proffer the following: who is the real expert?
For instance, there’s a study out there (that I won’t point to for a multitude of reasons) that shows the difference between what K-12 teachers are currently doing with Common Core State Standards and what the writers of the CCSS think teachers should do with the CCSS. First, the writer of the study assumes that the expertise of educators comes second to those studying education from the outside. Second, it presumes that students aren’t variables all their own. Third, and consequently, it assumes that the teaching conditions set forth in places like Japan, Singapore, and Finland are equivalent, or at least negligible,
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