Contradictions, Ironies, and Promises Unfulfilled: A Contemporary Account of the Status of Teaching

Abstract

VER THE past several O ^ years my professional efforts have focused on the study of teach ing, conceived both as an occupation and as a subject for public policy. Out of this study has come a growing conviction that teaching is an imperiled profession and that efforts now under way to improve matters are insufficient, misguided, or both. I've come to this conviction slowly, mindful of our distressing history of cry ing wolf and of labeling every problem in education a crisis. Given the intense and critical (even shrill) coverage of education in the media, where the tendency is to identify simple causes for complex prob lems, I am especially sensitive to the dangers of alarmism. Nevertheless, the