Innocence in Education

Abstract

After at least 5,000 years of educating the young in the home, in schools, and in the work place, educators frequently complain that almost nothing is really known about the educative process. The complaint becomes a rationalization for the failures of education and an excuse for the quick adoption (and equally rapid rejection) of new educational panaceas. Many educators appear to boast that they are in a state of innocence about education. In striking contrast with professional educators are the host of journalists, reformers, and faddists who are quite certain that they have the true remedy for our educational ills. Most of them get a hearing in the mass media. The more persistent reformers have little difficulty in securing a grant to demonstrate their panacea and in collecting a following of educators who move in their wake for a few years. The libraries and basements of our schools still store the forgotten relics of fads and nostrums which were purchased because they promised to solve our educational problems. In education, we continue to be seduced by the equivalent of snake-oil remedies, fake cancer cures, perpetual-motion contraptions, and old wives' tales. Myth and reality are not clearly differentiated, and we frequently prefer the former to the latter. It is not difficult to understand why the layman purchases fake cancer cures-he still yearns for a cure even when hope has been denied by a physician. But it would be