The Plague of 'Theory' in Educational Discourse

[endicom]

American Thinker
David Solway
May 18, 2018

There is an old pedagogical joke that has been making the rounds for years: those who can do.  Those who can't teach.  The joke has been supplemented by a tailgater: those who can't teach teach teachers.  One might add: those who can't teach teachers write theory.

What we may pejoratively call "theory" in today's educational discourse bills itself as a critical resistance movement serving the presumably dispossessed and the marginalized.  Particularly in the humanities, the social sciences, and the post-colonial disciplines, the arena is now monopolized by the paladins of resentment in pursuit of an ideological revolution – that is, the subversion of established power fields and the destabilizing of traditional values.  Departments of education are at the forefront of the cultural subversion movement, focusing their efforts on preparing a cohort of teachers to carry out the mandate of social reconstruction.

More... https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/05/the_plague_of_theory_in_educational_discourse.html

[ABX]

Uuuugh, one of my pet peeves. The word 'theory' has several meanings. In science, it does not mean 'guess' or as the article puts it, 'speculation'.

A scientific theory is an explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can, in accordance with the scientific method, be repeatedly tested, using a predefined protocol of observations and experiments.

Gravity, for example, is a theory. That doesn't mean we guess there is gravity, it means it is something that can be tested and measured using the scientific method.