Another Look at Theory and Practice in Education

Abstract

The activities in which teachers, doctors and lawyers engage when they are performing their professional tasks are compounded of a mixture of practical skills and abstract theories which issue in actions. Teaching, for example, is not simply a piece of behaviour on a par with sneezing or breathing: it is an activity governed by the intention to bring about learning on the part of pupils and is thus associated with some theories - I use this term in a very general sense here - concerned with how this intention may best be realized. Practical activities of this kind are always theory-laden in that they would be quite unintelligible if they were simply characterized by the doing of certain things rather than others. Such activities as those which are intended to bring about learning, the restoration of health, or success for a client in court, are necessarily conducted against a background of theory: there is thus no sharp contrast between theory and practice such that there could be some practice without any theory. This is a point worth noting since it is not unheard of for practitioners to conceive of themselves as 'practical men' who can get along perfectly well without the aid of theory.