Chapter 1: Introduction: Developing Stewards of Practice

As I prepared to write this introductory chapter, I grappled with how to frame the discussion of Stewardship in a meaningful way. My research and note-taking led me down a very academic path of analyzing the many definitions of stewardship and professions, and of gathering data around defined skills and dispositions of a steward. Then, during my research, I came across an on-line EdWeek article entitled The EdD Dilemma—Why Harvard’s decision could harm the quest for teacher professionalism, by Ted Purinton.¹ The article discussed the decision by the Harvard University Graduate School of Education to rename its 90-year-old traditional research Education Doctorate (EdD) to a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree. It wasn’t the article so much that caught my eye (though I was prompted to comment), but rather the lone practitioner comment. While the academics were debating the differences of the EdD and the PhD the anonymous author pushed back with the following: