Opposite Intended Effect: A Case Study of How Over-Standardization Can Reduce Efficacy of Teacher Education, The

Teacher Education Quarterly, Summer 2004 by Hughes, Bob

The alternative is a severe imbalance in favor of narrowly defined skills training for teachers. As schools of education we must return to the question of our mission. Are we preparing thoughtful, adaptive professionals, or are we molding technicians? As a document, and in its implementation, the SB 2042 standards push the state's higher education programs toward becoming technical skills schools. SB 2042 emphasizes the teaching of a narrow set of subject areas that are defined in very narrow ways. It encourages schools of education to develop teachers who can teach to tests and subj ect matter competencies, rather than teachers who understand the context of students' needs and can create appropriate curricula to meet those needs. In past times, teacher educators had the capacity and liberty to address what was missing in the needs of the students they served. That capacity and liberty threatens to be taken away in the name of standards which encourage a homogenized, decontextualized system of preparing teachers. This threatens to de-skill the teaching profession in the ways already implemented by other crafts and professions that have relegated their employees to becoming interchangeable components of an automated process (e.g., Zuboff, 1988). While that sort of delivery-focused model may work to increase the efficiency of a bank or sawmill, in the complex acts of teaching and learning, it will only serve to exacerbate existing inequities that already divide our educational system.

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Hughes, B. (2002). Nurturing online communications in a CalStateTEACH regional center: A two-year study. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association National Conference, New Orleans, LA.