Doctor and Disciple

Abstract

J AM not concerned with regaining the title of for the teacher. The historic process by which the honorific passed from pedagogues to physicians and surgeons, dentists and chiropodists, is probably irreversible. It is the conception of teaching itself as doctoring which interests me. I wish to appeal to the analogy between education and medicine, between teaching and healing, because I think it can help us cut through some of our contemporary befuddlement about educational problems. By considering the teacher as a doctor and, I must add, the student as a disciple-one who is in need of discipline-some of the current confusion about the relation of the curriculum to individual differences can be clarified. The analogy between education and medicine is deeply rooted. Teaching and healing are both co-operative, rather than productive, arts. As ars cooperativa each merely assists natural processes. The body heals naturally, and the mind learns without the aid of teachers. Unlike a shoe or a ship, which would never come into existence without human artistry productively transforming passive materials, health and knowledge are primarily caused by natural processes. The physician and teacher as artists merely cooperate with nature, facilitating these processes and enabling them to reach their goals more surely. The analogy can also be used to illuminate another problem, one that goes to the heart of current discussion concerning education-the question about the elective system. Shall the curriculum be a vast offering of alternatives among which the student chooses according to his inclination? Those of us who think that, so far as general education is concerned, the course of study should be entirely prescribed, are not dangerous fascists, as some of our friends in progressive education would like to scare the