ABSTRACT
In their report, the Plowden Committee stated that teachers ‘should bring to bear on their day-to-day problems astringent intellectual scrutiny’. Two years after their comments were published, their own report was subject to such ‘astringent intellectual scrutiny’ by a group of educationists from the London Institute of Education, led by Professor Peters. Peters provided a hard-hitting critique of the ‘half-truths’ underlying Plowden’s ‘recognisable philosophy of education’ summarized in paragraph 505 (reproduced on p. 89 of this source book.) Here, he examines some of the principles enshrined in the report, including the importance attached to development and self-direction, the approval given to the non-compartmentalization ‘of knowledge, and the image of the teacher. He finds many of the report’s notions ‘suspect’, in particular its neglect of the ‘inescapably social character of thought and language, of processes of transmission, and of motivation’.
