Research and Common Sense: Therapies for Our Homes and Schools

Abstract

Americans have long been proud of their high technology and elementary wisdom-a determination to document what they do with sound research and to follow through with common sense, even if it means sacrifice. Our schools benefited early from this pride. Yet, in recent issues of the Teachers College Record there have been at least two stimulating discussions of danger signson school effectiveness and teacher burnoutthat lead us to wonder if we have not lost our former grasp of our cherished ideals.1 These articles focused on making teachers more alert, comfortable, and secure, that is, they must be helped to a sense of “community” and to an understanding of their resources. I suggest now some critical needs that must also center on our students if American education is to keep our society strong. Teachers feel worthy and secure only when they produce well-socialized students who achieve and behave. So achievement and behavior of children become keys to teachers’ happiness. Yet, with literacy rates falling and behavioral problems on the rise, questions logically arise: Are these oldfashioned goals of teacher happiness and satisfaction achievable anymore? Is there some boat that we as educators have missed? Are there some tools we are not using? Have we ignored lessons of the past-a particular hazard in teaching where we always like to think of ourselves as looking ahead? I believe the answer to each of these four questions is yes, and suggest that we select a central issue or two and look carefully at the evidence. Many of us prefer to blame our school problems on “the times.” More specifically, we point to “factors that break up the family,” such as war, television, indifferent parents, macho-feminist movements, and general amoral behavior. These we cannot change, but there are two specific professional digressions for which there is no excuse: First, we do our research in bits and pieces, each researcher in his own narrow sphere. Even this might somehow be justified if we did not commit the unpardonable act of failing to bring the bits and pieces together -an omission as flagrant as the thoughtless mechanic who leaves car parts scattered all over his garage and fails to understand why the car will not run. Second, we ignore the perspective of history-and how we invented and ran the “car” in the first place. The result is “tunnel vision.”