This post is a short piece I wrote in 2011 for a special issue of the journal Teacher Education and Practice on “Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through Scholarship.” My one take is that research in education is not necessarily well positioned to enhance education; on the contrary, it often does more harm than good. See what you think. Here’s a link to the original.
Do No Harm
Education is a field of dreams and so is educational research. As educators, we dream of schools that can improve the lives of students, solve social problems, and enrich the quality of life; and as educational researchers, we dream that our studies will enhance the effectiveness of schools in achieving these worthy goals. Both fields draw recruits who see the possibilities of education as a force for doing good, and that turns out to be a problem, because the history of both fields shows that the chances for doing real harm are substantial. Over the years, research on teaching and teacher education – the topic of the discussion in this special issue – has caused a lot of damage to teaching and learning and learning-to-teach in schools. So I suggest a good principle to adopt when considering the role of research in teacher education is a version of the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm.
The history of educational research in the United States in the twentieth century supports a pessimistic assessment of the field’s impact on American school and society. There was Edward L. Thorndike, whose work emphasized the importance of differentiating the curriculum in order to provide the skills and knowledge that students would later need in playing sharply different roles in a stratified workforce. There was David Snedden, who labored tirelessly to promote CONTINUE READING: David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Do No Harm: Reflections on the Impact of Educational Research | National Education Policy Center