1995 EpistofReflective Prac_T+T

Schön (1987) has suggested that professional education undervalues practical knowledge and grants privileged status to intellectual scientific and rational knowledge forms that may only be marginally relevant to practical acting. This is not just an issue of sociology of knowledge. The literature of teaching and teacher education has shown that professional practices of educating cannot be properly understood unless we are willing to conceive of practical knowledge and reflective practice quite differently. It is for this reason that I would like to raise some questions about the meaning and place of practical reflection in teaching and about the relation between knowledge and action in teaching, the kind of teaching that is educational or pedagogical. The concept of " pedagogy "-the study or practice of guiding or rearing children-has long carried the meaning of discretion, prudence, judgment, caution, forethought (van Manen, 1994). So, on first thought there is nothing provocative to the idea that reflection is central to the life of the educator. It is in the very nature of the pedagogical relation that the teacher reflectively deals with children, rather than doing so unthinkingly, dogmatically, or prejudicially. Moreover, the concept of teacher as pedagogue assumes that he or she is motivated by a caring interest in the growth and welfare children. In other words, teaching is not only governed by principles of effectiveness, but also by special normative, ethical, or affective considerations. In colloquial language: the teacher teaches with the head and the heart and must feelingly know what is the appropriate thing to do in ever changing circumstances with children who are organized in groups but who are also unique as individuals. Therefore, the idea of an unreflective type of pedagogy or teaching would really be a contradiction is terms (which is not to say that there are no unreflective " teachers "). Reflective thinking is important not only as a tool for teaching, but also as an aim of education, said Dewey (1964), since " it enables us to know what we are about when we act. It converts action that is merely appetitive, blind, and impulsive into intelligent action (p. 211). However, to suggest that teachers need to be reflective practitioners begs the question that we know what the process of reflection consists in. The concept of reflection is challenging and may refer to a complex array of cognitively and philosophically distinct methods and attitudes. Dewey's thought …