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Voices in Education: Constructing Education

Since becoming an educational researcher in the late 1980s, I have struggled with the disconnect between what we know from educational research and what is practiced in educational policy. In fact, my dissertation looked at support for practices identified through the process-product effective teaching research from elementary and secondary teachers and principals and college education faculty and students (Marchant, 1988). The group with the greatest support for the research-based approaches was secondary principals; the group least supportive of those same practices was secondary teachers. If these differences can exist within a school, how different can the views of educational researchers be from others? That was the question posed to The Teacher Educator’s Editorial Advisory Board. The conflict between what we ‘‘know’’ in education and the policies and practices in education has a long history and likely a long future. The issue of making educational research relevant or at least noticed by those governing practice is a perplexing concern. In the past, the failure of policy and practice to reflect education research has been discussed in terms of ignorance and evil (Marchant & Paulson, 2005). Some believed that those involved in policy simply did not know what the research said. The ‘‘cure’’ for this ‘‘ignorance’’ was information leading to enlightenment and change. Others (including myself) saw more nefarious influences at work. These ‘‘evil’’ policy advocates cared little about the achievement or education of all children, but instead sought profit and ideological advances of privatization. If this were at the heart of educational policy, simply providing research and information would accomplish little. Although it could be argued that evidence to the latter is substantial, a third explanation is possible. Based in cognitive psychology and constructivist theory is the reality that each person’s view of what education is, how schools operate, what teachers do, and how students learn is based on personal beliefs and experiences. The educational world of people in the field and/or involved in research is a different world from those who developed their view of education from their experiences as students and the news of the current state of education they get from the mass media. Although this is perhaps a more enlightened, well-grounded view than the ignorance/evil dichotomy, it may engender no more optimism than those fearing the involvement of evil motives. Simply providing research or information to policy makers or the masses is unlikely to solicit a collective ‘‘ah-ha’’ moment of enlightenment. What shapes people’s world of education has deep roots years in the making. This world is