S
Note something from this article
with which you disagree (note: I assume that reading this paper was a different
experience for those with P-12 experience and those without. That said, he made a sufficient number of
bold claims so I’m sure everyone can disagree with something he said). Why do
you disagree with it? Did Labaree give
words to any tensions that you feel as you head down the road of the
educational researcher?
12 comments:
This article provides some great insights into some of the tensions I have felt not only as I enter this doctoral program, but also throughout my service as a K-12 educator. Labaree very bluntly expresses the problem of teaching as the largest and least esteemed of the professions with a legacy of easy access and low standards. This has been a frustration of mine throughout my teaching career, as I desire it to be a calling worthy of esteem and high standards but experience it exactly as Labaree describes. Perhaps it is this tension that has brought me to pursue a PhD and explore the analytical, intellectual, universal, and theoretical research aspects of the field. Many of his bold claims in these areas did give words to the tensions I have seen not in myself, but in the attitudes and reactions of some of my colleagues.
The boldest claim that I disagree with the most strongly is that “you can’t fix problems of practice unless you have a deep and sophisticated understanding of the nature of these problems and of the contexts within which they arise”(p. 17). While for myself I do desire that deep and sophisticated understanding of many aspects of the field, it is clear that some problems of practice can be fixed with a superficial understanding of the problems. Not every practitioner is able to pursue the level of research required to engage problems at such a sufficient depth, but nevertheless solutions are being implemented across schools every day to fix any variety of problems without substantial theoretical frameworks.
In general, I feel that Labaree describes a cosmic divide between teachers and researchers where, in fact, a more realistic picture would simply be a canyon that can be easily crossed by the bridge of experience in research and theory. While the majority of PhD students in education may be former or current teachers, one would hope that by enrolling in a doctoral program, these students would already be of a mindset to pursue analytical and intellectual theory, knowledge, and research. I find myself questioning what his purpose was in presenting this article at Michigan State, at the NAE-SSRC, and then in his book, The Trouble with Ed Schools. What was his agenda? And how did these bold claims further those purposes?
Dana Brookover- The author makes many bold claims in this article, and I found myself agreeing with a lot of them. Already in my statistics class there were feelings expressed of research not being “real world applicable” when, as Labaree states, often educational research is “finding practices that teachers can adopt or adapt to meet their own pedagogical needs.” So, there clearly is a tension between practitioner and researcher, however, this leads me to the position I found myself disagreeing with- that this divide is so great a person could not be both at once. I think what comes to my mind is the dual roles of a counseling faculty member who both engages in research and continues to work in a clinical setting (not exactly a K12 setting, but counseling practice provides a similar example as noted on page 14). Being engaged in both worlds- and there will be varying degrees to the extent a person is immersed in one versus the other, it may not always be equal time in both settings- can be possible if the person is committed to both worldviews. I do think a person could “fully accomplish both tasks” without “loss of quality” (page 18). Perhaps those people do not “change into someone different” (page 21) after doctoral studies, but rather merge two worldviews and keep both to have a uniquely good perspective on counseling- both normative and analytical. I believe this can make a particularly successful counselor educator.
Yingying- As an educational researcher-to-be, never a teacher and did not grow up in the K12 system here in the US, this article gives me new perspectives on studies in Education by comparing different worldviews between teachers and researchers in Education. Although I totally agree with Labaree that teachers entering educational doctoral program should embrace worldview of research as a “second culture”, I also think it’s such an advantage to be able to have a “theme” to your work- something you want to know/change when entering a doctoral program. And teachers, they know why they choose to work on a certain problem.
In addition, Labaree referred education as “soft-applied knowledge” (p14) and as a result,
“educational researchers continually tend to rebuild the foundations of the field, instead of building scholarly skyscrapers on the apparently durable base of hard-pure research.” (p14), “instead leading to a dispersion of resources into a variety of parallel projects that are scattered across the terrain, each working its own discrete portion of the educational context and building its own intellectual foundations for analyzing that context”(p14). I can’t say I agree or disagree with this comment, I am wondering if anybody with more knowledge on educational research could give me some examples and insight on this comment.
Rachel Regal
Labaree voiced a tension that I’ve struggled with as a former database manager turned counselor and current doctoral student; namely the tension between the personal and the intellectual. As someone who values connection deeply, it is difficult to commit to sitting in front of a computer running statistical analyses instead of sitting with a participant listening to their story. Research is certainly a way to give back and make a difference, both as participants and as principal investigators, but as Labaree states, “the primary currency of scholarship… is not relationships; it is ideas” (pg. 19). I found it interesting that Labaree later goes on to mention the importance of research mentoring relationships (pg. 21) as a way to bridge the cultural divide. I believe emotional intelligence is still key to success as a researcher because it is socially-situated and often occurs in groups.
The quote that I disagree with most from this article was about the change in perspective from particular to universal where he states that “the general rule of teaching is that general rules don’t help very much” (pg. 19). I can’t claim to have any previous teaching experience, but I do still wonder about this stance. As a counselor, it is necessary to tailor treatment to the individual and take into account the setting, counselor, time of day, duration, number of clients, etc. As Labaree notes, there are a wide variety of variables to take into account. Still, we learn in our training about the “common factors” of counseling; these are empirically-based general rules or characteristics of effective counseling. For instance, effective counselors have unconditional positive regard for their client. Cases are important learning springboards, but I don’t believe they are all a counselor (or teacher) may go on. I believe universal guidelines are created and honed to guide practice over the years, either intentionally or as a product of learning a field.
Cat Henney here: The first moment that gave me pause was the idea that knowledge exists on a continuum from “hard to soft”. Labaree references an NRC publication, one that is also concerned with the curious character of educational research. The word “soft” doesn’t show up in the NRC’s publication, but the word “hard” does appear in a section describing an increasing call for “hard evidence” about U.S. educational concerns/questions. Labaree uses the words “soft” and “mushy” because of the “great complexity, vast scale, and uncertain purpose”, of ed research that make establishing causation so difficult. I believe causation is pretty thorny, even in the natural sciences. And I fear that Labaree’s portrait might lead a reader to think that the scientific work in other disciplines is somehow more “objective”, but I’ve never been convinced that’s true. (I don’t know when I’ll have a moment to look at it again, but I vaguely remember that Donna Haraway’s “Situated Knowledges” problematizes some of these assumptions pretty effectively. I really think this is worth another read, though.)
I had a few other disagreements with Labaree. On p. 19 he writes, “All of those person-centered skills that are so essential to teaching seem to be discounted in doctoral study. … All of these … seem to matter little in the unnaturally idea-centered world of a doctoral problem.” I think this may be something of an exaggeration, although time will tell, I suppose. I’ll offer an anecdote (which would probably irritate Labaree!) to help me imagine something different. Last spring I attended a presentation called, “Critical Care in College Algebra: The Connection Between Care, Achievement and Student Demographics”. The presenter was a doctoral student who was very transparent about the difficulties of quantifying “care” for the purposes of his research. But he was as committed to care theory as he was to mathematics education and seemed to have the full support of his institution.
Could this be pointing to a tension between qualitative and quantitative research?
Erin Hanley
The Labaree article was interesting for many reasons. He did provide some incredible insights into possible expectations for a doctoral program. I especially appreciated the mention of things I have heard often so far, even in only my second week of classes, including the importance of flexibility and collaborating with researchers across disparate fields and disciplines. I did disagree with the author on a few of his stances, though the idea of refusing to embrace “intellectual skills” over skills that would more readily be used by teachers in the classroom was the most jarring.
One of the deciding factors in returning to school, for me personally, was gaining knowledge that would further my en vivo experiences. Gaining this knowledge, at least so far, has not made me feel like a “prisoner,” as Labaree suggests, but instead like a leader who, after gaining the adequate knowledge, can go forth and lead others. I am excited to match my background experience with the knowledge this program will provide, and do not feel it would be a “disservice” to the work I have done within the school setting. In fact, the completion of this program will allow me more professional freedom, another deciding factor in returning to the life of a student. I will not feel like “an actor,” but will instead feel like an actionable member of the field of education. While I do appreciate his concern for where my heart falls in the matter, I am hopeful to have the opposite happen for me.
Erin Hanley again (Citing Source this post)
The Labaree article was interesting for many reasons. He did provide some incredible insights into possible expectations for a doctoral program. I especially appreciated the mention of things I have heard often so far, even in only my second week of classes, including the importance of flexibility and collaborating with researchers across disparate fields and disciplines. I did disagree with the author on a few of his stances, though the idea of refusing to embrace “intellectual skills” over skills that would more readily be used by teachers in the classroom was the most jarring (p. 19).
One of the deciding factors in returning to school, for me personally, was gaining knowledge that would further my en vivo experiences. Gaining this knowledge, at least so far, has not made me feel like a prisoner, as Labaree suggests, but instead like a leader who, after gaining the adequate knowledge, can go forth and lead others. I am excited to match my background experience with the knowledge this program will provide, and do not feel it would be a “disservice” to the work I have done within the school setting (p. 19). In fact, the completion of this program will allow me more professional freedom, another deciding factor in returning to the life of a student. I will not feel like an impostor, but will instead feel like an actionable member of the field of education. While I do appreciate his concern for where my heart falls in the matter, I am hopeful to have the opposite happen for me.
Labaree hypothesizes, "Posed with a situation in which two children are fighting in the back of the classroom, the scholar wants to ponder the social, psychological, economic, and pedagogical reasons for this conflict, while the teacher wants to separate the combatants. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that teachers are often reluctant to embrace the analytical practices of educational scholarship. They may well put a lower priority on getting things straight in their heads rather than on getting things right in the classroom." (p.18) I found this to be an interesting statement in that my background is non-traditional in doctoral education. From a CJ standpoint, we are taught to separate the parties while at the same time be keen to the ramifications of the situation and know when to interject (i.e. If there was only 1 officer trying to break up the fight between 2 MMA-trained combatants, it might be wise to analyze the situation before diving head-first in to a situation that one might be ill-prepared for.) So I agree and disagree to a point that a teacher would want to "dive-in" to the situation instead of analyze from the standpoint of the CJ education field. CJ Education would want to train the "teacher" on both standpoints in order to more effectively address the situation both long- and -short term solution based.
I can see this as an issue in K-12 even though I have absolutely no experience in K-12. But it is relatable, in part, to the field of preparing future CJ practitioners. Recruits in law enforcement academies tend to want to "solve" a problem with the most immediate or "obvious" solution that first comes to their mind. From an ethical standpoint, trusting first instinct can sometimes lead people down an unethical path if they are only trying to solve the issue from their standpoint without taking a second (or minute... or pausing) to contemplate all the parties who are involved in a situation's viewpoint in order to come up with an effective solution.
Andrea Moreau
Overall I agreed with a large portion of this article. My background is exclusively in higher education at a Tier I/II research initiation. While it is unfortunate, other disciplines across the University setting do look down on the School of Education. One argument the author made that I do not agree with is the claim that doctoral students with a teaching background bring in a “normative view of education that gives them encouragement to resist the pressure they get from their professors to start looking at education as an object of analysis” (pg 18). This harsh analysis of doctoral students does not give students the benefit of the doubt and seems to come from a place of unwavering disciplinary expertise. While K-12 teachers may view education from a normative place, they have made the decision to enter a PhD program with the knowledge that a PhD entails research.
Though I have 12 years of teaching experience in different settings such as undergraduate, graduate and professional programs in India, I never been a part of K-12 community in the USA. Hence Labaree’s article has given a new perspective of ‘teaching’ and ‘education research’ to me. It seems to me that many of his claims are bold and some of my classmates have already made thoughtful comments on them. Since I lack firsthand experience in the educational arena in the USA, I am not able to make any agreement / disagreement on Labaree’s claims at this point of time. Except, however, I would disagree with his claim “ All of those person-centered skills that are so essential to teaching seem to be discounted in doctoral study:…” I believe that education itself is a people-centered social science. Having said that, many people-centered skills should be profoundly effective even on the path of scholarly doctoral research. I look forward to gain more firsthand experience on this in future.
Preeti Kamat-Though I have 12 years of teaching experience in different settings such as undergraduate, graduate and professional programs in India, I never been a part of K-12 community in the USA. Hence Labaree’s article has given a new perspective of ‘teaching’ and ‘education research’ to me. It seems to me that many of his claims are bold and some of my classmates have already made thoughtful comments on them. Since I lack firsthand experience in the educational arena in the USA, I am not able to make any agreement / disagreement on Labaree’s claims at this point of time. Except, however, I would disagree with his claim “ All of those person-centered skills that are so essential to teaching seem to be discounted in doctoral study:…” I believe that education itself is a people-centered social science. Having said that, many people-centered skills should be profoundly effective even on the path of scholarly doctoral research. I look forward to gain more firsthand experience on this in future.
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