ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses exclusively on educational leaders who were connoisseurs in their time and place in the world. These connoisseurs were compared to Max Weber's railroad "switchman", a provocative metaphor he used to describe how new ideas create innovative pathways for material interests to be pursued. Connoisseurship is not only distinctive but developmental. The chapter addresses educational leaders who were also connoisseurs developed views and voices opposed to the tenets and pedagogy of traditional education in many different countries. It describes the international educational leaders who advanced ideas that changed the way subsequent educators thought about pedagogy and other educational issues. The chapter suggests that opposition to dominant forms of education and schooling are part and parcel of opposition to other forms of orthodoxy embedded in a society's cultural beliefs and practices. It includes the contribution of Jacob Riis, for his public advocacy and education work that led to tenement reform for poor citizens living in New York.
