On occasion, I spend a couple of days at Teachers College - Columbia - helping to give a workshop to their graduate students (there are no undergraduates) on some topic that may appeal to those studying adult learning or leadership or organizational psychology or curriculum and instruction. I did one the other day focusing on leading productive discussions, so I found myself thinking some about this enduring but often maligned institution.
You may have heard the saying that the widest street in the world is New York City's West 120th Street because it is the thoroughfare that divides Columbia University from its poor cousin - Teachers College. Why poor cousin? Because TC has always had only a tenuous relationship to the rest of the university, is entirely focused on educational studies, the lowest status discipline in any university, and, finally, has often been considered the primary culprit in spreading the influence of progressive education as promulgated by ideological liberals like John Dewey, William Heard Kilpatrick, and Maxine Greene. These people and TC in general are hated by many people for perpetuating the idea that education is something that is not primarily conveyed or transmitted to relatively passive pupils, but is an active, constructive process of making meaning and encouraging students to take control over their own learning, and hence their own lives.
Teachers College probably does have a lot to answer for and almost certainly hasn't done nearly enough to make schools more rigorous and accountable, but it really is an exciting and stimulating place where students are not only learning how to become more effective teachers, but are learning as well how to be strong leaders, insightful educational psychologists, experts in conflict resolution, and proficient in organizing ppor neighborhoods to support educational renewal. In the end, I would say that Teachers College offers a great deal to help us solve our educational problems and to make educational institutions of all kinds more responsive to their communities. This has been true since the time of Dewey and continues to be a critical part of its institutional mission.
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"Because TC has always had only a tenuous relationship to the rest of the university, is entirely focused on educational studies, the lowest status discipline in any university,"
ReplyDeleteHow strange that the purpose that most non-academics ascribe to the university, educating those who attend, should be so little regarded in its academic pursuit. The failures of American schools may come back to this.