THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRACTICAL THEORIES OF TEACHING

Abstract

The work of teaching is a much more complex professional task than its critics realize. Although teaching has characteristics found in other professions-for example, complexity, uncertainty, instability, and value-conflict'teaching often is approached as if it were production-line work Some seem to think that if decision rules and ways to carry out the tasks of teaching can be decided in some central office and be implemented by passive, unthinking teachers, then uniform results can be produced across whole school districts Teachers, and readers of this journal, know that is nonsense But even so, educators do not seem to be very clear about the nature of professional knowledge and its role in teaching. In this article we hope to provoke dialogue about these matters by suggesting a way to think about practical knowledge in teaching, how it comes into existence in usable form, and how its quality and use might be enhanced.

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