ABSTRACT
Behind teachers’ day-to-day decisions (as behind those of doctors, academics, priests, social workers, politicians, lawyers) lurk value judgments grounded in philosophical and empirical principles which can seem very abstract, but usually turn out to be very practical in what they imply for a busy professional’s work. We should welcome this situation. Teachers’ professionalism depends on their holding to their own values rather than meekly submitting to those of others. It is, of course, always possible for government reformers to earn the professionals’ compliance so that state-sponsored values come to equate with those of teachers. It is possible that practitioners will buckle under political pressure, temporarily sacrificing their beliefs for the sake of professional harmony, and if this were to be shown as already happening, the wilderness years for progressivism might stretch far into the next millennium.
