The Pit and the Pendulum

It is attributed to Hegel, the idea of the dialectic--thesis, antithesis, synthesis. That is, there is an idea, then its opposite, and then some form of solution. Marx used this idea to analyze history and then to predict communism as a system.

In the field of education, we have thesis and antithesis and only wise teachers find a synthesis. Take the reading wars for example. I was working as a graduate student in a college of education at the time and I witnessed first hand the type of sniping that was going on. I was working in the same office as the editor of a major journal in literacy, and I saw the manuscripts and the mean-spirited letters to the editor.

That was at the theoretical level. In the pit, or trenches, were the front-line teachers. What would be the best practices? If you listened to the so-called experts, you could never tell. One workshop might suggest one set of practices and another would suggest a completely different set of teaching strategies. Districts would allow one set of practices and then suddenly mandate a different set.

In fact, if you look at the field of education globally, you see this constantly swinging pendulum from the left to the right and back again. Right now, we are in a time of excessive attention to accountability using the strategies that conservative accountability buffs tend to like--standardized tests. This followed a time of no accountability. I was licensed during the no accountability phase and I can take any class, including Underwater Basket Weaving, to maintain my license as long as the class has a graduate level number. In my state, teachers now have to have a plan for how classes will benefit them as teachers--and this is actually a positive thing.

The ship of education creaks slowly side to side. Teachers who have no sense of themselves slide back and forth in response to the roll of the ship, out of control and at the mercy of the weather. Yet wise teachers know a few things: First off, there is something of value in most educational ideas--it is only when these ideas are pushed excessively that they become really dumb. So, in the reading wars, wise teachers borrowed the best of phonics and the best of whole language and came up with a synthesis that matched their own personalities and the needs of their students. Secondly, wise teachers know that one size does not fit all. Different kids need different approaches to learning, and good teachers learn strategies from a variety of sources.

Does this mean that good teachers have no philosophy of teaching? Some might say that teachers have to commit to a certain philosophy and that borrowing from here and there is intellectually dishonest.

Yet, I believe good teachers understand what they are teaching and they desire for their students to become competent not only in a particular subject matter but also in life in general. So the philosophy of education that I am proposing is one that is centered on the quality of relationship between teacher and student and the ability of the teacher to meet each student's needs.