Presidential Address: The Divorce of Theory and Practice in Public Education: How AATC Can Save the Marriage

Let me start with a story. A friend of mine, who is an elementary teacher, told me once that he doesn’t need theory to be a good teacher. When I hear teachers say things such as this, I find myself feeling confused. Why do they think they do not need theoretical knowledge? I can easily categorize this as an example of the dumbing down of our profession. I can see his comment as a symptom of our current sociopolitical context of public schooling that seems to have divorced educational theory from practice, and instead is using some other framework for making educational decisions, perhaps a corporate structure that is politically motivated, as Girioux and others have espoused. Frankly, at the time, I did just that: I discounted the comment as evidence of the anti-intellectual climate that is symptomatic of the political-corporate structure of contemporary schooling. But, whenever an answer seems too easy, too obvious, I believe we have an obligation to think more deeply. We have an obligation to listen. Why do teachers feel that they do not need to know or understand educational theory? Why do they feel that theory is removed from practice? Is it that professors of education are out of touch?