Teaching the Science and Art of Teaching: Revisiting Teachers for the Real World

• In Event: Redesigning Teacher Education: Learning From the Past

Abstract

What does the “science and art of teaching” consist of and how can it be taught? One answer appeared in a l969 report of the NDEA National Institute for Advanced Study in Teaching Disadvantaged Youth. Published under the title, Teachers for the Real World (Smith, Cohen & Pearl, l969), the report offers a comprehensive, practice oriented blueprint for teacher education. In keeping with the focus of this symposium, this paper examines two components in the TRW proposal in light of contemporary calls for a model of teacher education grounded in practice (Ball & Cohen, 1999).

Historically, academic disciplines like philosophy and psychology were considered the wellsprings of knowledge about teaching and learning. But the question of how teachers should learn and use such knowledge in teaching remained elusive. To address this problem, the authors of Teachers for the Real World advocate the situational teaching of theoretical knowledge. This approach depends on the production of “protocol materials,” audio or video records depicting common situations that arise in the course of teaching. Preservice students would encounter the situation, study the relevant theoretical or empirical knowledge, and practice using that knowledge to interpret the situation. Such learning opportunities were intended to foster understandings of common situations in teaching before preservice students encountered them directly and to develop their capacity for diagnosis and interpretation.

If the situational teaching of theoretical knowledge addresses the disconnect between theory and practice, the training component addresses weaknesses in student teaching. Smith and his associates consider the lack of a training component the “principal defect” in teacher education. They assert that before preservice students enter the field as interns, they need systematic training in the skills of teaching. Such training depends on materials that model the desired behaviors and provide opportunities for cycles of practice, feedback, and correction until desired skillfulness is achieved. Ideally this training would take place in a special training complex, where novices have opportunities to practice specific elements of instructional work in carefully scaffolded situations.

Some of the criticisms leveled at competency-based teacher education could be applied to these proposals from Teachers for the Real World. Yet, before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, we might ponder whether the situational teaching of theoretical knowledge foreshadows current understandings about the situated nature of teacher learning (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005) and whether a systematic approach to training might help with “the problem of enactment” in teacher education (Kennedy, l999). In a “back to the future” move (Grossman & McDonald, 2009), this paper attempts such a thought experiment, along with a consideration of what kinds of clinical settings might be needed for practice-focused teacher education.

Author

• Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Brandeis University