Response to Objectivism and Education

Educational Forum, The, Summer 2005 by Elkind, David

Though that may be true, the information imparted may not be of much value in the classroom. One testament to this lack of science is the fact that deans of education at the major universities in this country decided to eliminate the undergraduate major in education. According to the Holmes Group (1986), "Unhappily, teaching and teacher education have a long history of mutual impairment. Teacher education has long been intellectually weak; this further eroded the prestige of an already poorly esteemed profession." In Massachusetts, as in many other states, one now can get a provisional teaching certificate after attaining a bachelor's degree in any field. After a year of supervised teaching, the student can get provisional certification. In no other profession would you be allowed to practice with only an undergraduate degree in any variety of disciplines. Imagine going to a doctor, dentist, or lawyer with that training background.

Carson argued that all teachers learn the same thing, yet he (2005, 234) contended that education draws from a unique "body of knowledge that is not scientific and probably never will be because there is too much disagreement about the definition of education." Certainly education is complex, but that does not gainsay a science of education. For example, most teachers are not taught child development-a substantial body of knowledge that should be part of a science of education. If teachers were trained as child development specialists, they would be better prepared to adapt curricula to children's developing levels of ability. Carson misunderstands constructivism and science too, for that matter; therefore, he (2005, 234) claimed that "science undermines constructivism rather than serves as a prerequisite to it." All science is necessarily constructivist. The theory of relativity makes it clear that time is dependent upon the position of the observer. Any scientific theory that goes beyond observation is necessarily constructivist, whether it is the germ theory of disease or Freud's unconscious.

Carson claimed that I used a selective group of workers to make my case for a science of education and that their views were not testable or falsifiable and, therefore, should not be considered scientific. That could hardly be true of Piaget or Vygotsky, and I never wrote that either Rousseau or Kant were scientists. A true science of education should include scholars from all disciplines, including physics, chemistry, the social scientists, and the arts. Working together with child development and educational psychologists, these scholars could devise a curriculum that is up-to-date and developmentally appropriate. We lack such a multidisciplinary group; therefore, we have no science of education.

Critique of Curricular Readiness

Carson also challenged my argument for curricular readiness. He contended that to select a curriculum, one has to be an obiectivist and accept an objective reality independent of human construction. That is not true. Social consensus as to what should be taught is required. Carson missed this point. An objective standard exists for deciding which curriculum we would like students to acquire-namely, social consensus. When Dewey (1899) introduced progressive education, social consensus held that teaching young people what was functionally useful was more important than formal discipline-the classical education. This decision was made based on public rejection of the classical model. By missing the role of social consensus, Carson (2005, 234) argued that for a constructivist, "any curricular choice should be as valid as any other."