Dancing up a spiral staircase: learning how best practices and policies intertwine lifelong moral development with education

Abstract

My professional and personal lives have always intertwined; as someone who works in moral education and psychology—fields defined by historical and socio-political contexts—the political sphere has also surrounded my career. Being a researcher, interventionist and evaluator has taught me that it is very easy to lose one or more of the necessary, but often too loosely woven, threads of educational practice and policy with human development and culture. Based on my own professional experiences, I discuss two sets of issues that inform my current political stance on school reform. Currently in the USA and elsewhere, school reform efforts focus almost exclusively on learning and short-term goals to the neglect of lifelong developmental goals. Development and learning are not considered equally important educational goals. These issues form the threads of my narrative; the dance up the spiral staircase is my career.