ABSTRACT
Pedagogy, the science of teaching, has until recently been overshadowed by the science of learning. The demise of pedagogy as a psychological topic in the early twentieth century was a direct consequence of the success of the dominant paradigm in psychology, namely the psychology of learning. Within this behavioristic paradigm, teaching could be reduced to and understood in terms of its effects on learning. E. L. Thorndike’s (1913) two-volume Educational psychology had as its second volume The psychology of learning which “treats of the laws of learning in general, [and] the improvement of mental functions by practice” (p. vii). Factors that affected learning were said to be association, practice, and reinforcement while pedagogical efforts, if not overlooked completely, were addressed only in terms of their effects on the learners. Educational theorists of Gabi Salomon’s and my generation endorsed Ernest Hilgard’s mid-century textbook Theories of learning (1953) as addressing the central concern of education, namely learning not teaching. The focus on learning defined the problem of teaching in terms of effects on learning, namely the matter of arranging educational situations in such a way as to bring about those desired effects. Pedagogy was seen entirely as a prescriptive science, a helping science. How to improve it, even now the search for “what works” (No child left behind, 2002) or works best continues to overshadow completely the more basic questions: What is teaching? Is it universal? Is it a “natural kind”? Is it anything more than one among many causes of learning?
What is Teaching?
