A Time Half Dead at the Top: the Professional Societies and The
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 115 649 95 SP 009 721 AUTHOR Bergstrom, Rosemary; Olson, Paul A. TITLP A Time Half Dead at the Top: The Professional Societies and- the Reform of Schooling in America--1955-1975. INSTITUTION Nebraska Univ., Lincoln. Curriculum Development Center. SPONS AGENCY Office of Education (DREW), Washington, D.C. PUB DATE 75 NOTE 333p. AVAILABLE FROM Nebraska Curriculum Development Center, Andrews Hall, UniverSity of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 58508 (No price quoted) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.76 HC-$17.13 Plus Postage DESCRIPTORS Curriculum Development; *Educational Change; Federal Legislation; *Humanities; Professional Associations; Professional Occupations; *Sciences; Socialization; *Social Sciences; Standards; State Licensing Boards ABSTRACT This report contains critiques of American professional societies by the Study Commission on Undergraduate Education and the Education of Teachers. The critiques examine the following five areas:(1) effects of professional societies on curriculum, preparation of teachers, and programs in public schools; (2) effects of professional societies on educational reform in higher education, on departmental divisions, and on curriculum of higher education;(3) the professional society's own informal curriculum and socialization process;(4) accreditation activities of v?rofessional societies; and (5) lobbying activities of professional societies and their effect on undergraduate education. The commission evaluated data received from professional societies and believes that by and large professional_societies tend to be more concerned with their own status and the status of their disciplines than in disseminating knowledge of their disciplines or in improving young people's education in their disciplines. The critiques are divided into sections on scientific societies, social science .professional societies, and humanities. Supplementary essays on broad themes are included along with the critiques evaluating specific professional societies. The report makes recommendations for making professional societies more responsive to the needs of the society and the public whose tax money helps support them. (CD) *********************************************************************** Documents acquired by ERIC include many-informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort * * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * via the ERIC Document Reproduction'Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. *********************************************************************** U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION I WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS SEEN REPRO- DUCED EXACTLY.. RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN. ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE- SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION DR POLICY A TIME HALF DEAD AT THE TOP: The Professional Societies and the Reform of Schooling in America-1955-1975 .Blessed still this tower .... Sing it rhyme upon rhyme M mockery of a time Half dead at the top.... Swift beating on his breast in sibylline frenzy blind Because the heart in his blood sodden breast had dragged him down. in to mankind." Yeats, Blood and The Moon Rosemary Bergstrom, writer Eli M. Bower, researcher Diane Savage, researcher 0 Study Commission on Undergraduate Education and the Education of Teachers 0 Lincoln, Nebraska (Paul A. Olson, Director) VI 1975 2/ TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments iv Introduction vii The Scientific Societies In trQduction "Intellectual Professions: Their Organization and Evolution" (excerpted) from Stephen Toulmin, Human Undersuatding 7 American Chemical Society 32 American Institute of Physics 40 The Mathematical Association of America 49 American Institute of Biological Sciences 60 Supplementary Essay I "The Pretend Professional Society and Influence on Government Agencies" by Daniel S. Greenberg 65 Supplementary Essay II "The Role of the AIBS in the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study" by Arnold B. Grobman 84 Supplementary Essay III "A Case Against Managerial Principles in Education" by Peter Hilton 98 The Social Science Professional Societies Introduction 106 Supplementary Essay IV "On the Social Sciences as Professions" by Murray L. Wax 1 1 1 American Anthropological Association 124 American Sociological Association 134 American Historical Association 142 American Psychological Association 147 Joint Council on Economic Education 156 Il Page .'..merican Political Science Association 171 Supplementary Essay V First Year Report of the American Political Science Association's Committee on Pre-Collegiate Education 180 Association of American Geographers 197 American Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation 203 American Vocational Association 209 Social Studies Curriculum Development: Second Thoughts 216 Humanities Introduction 222 National Council of Teachers of English 235 Modem Language Association 242 American Theatre Association. 254 Other Humanities Societies 256 Introduction to Supplementary Essay VI 259 Supplementary Essay VI "English Departrnents and the Professional Ethos" by Richard Ohmann 265 111 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Study Commission Directorate thanks the members of the Study Com- mission and other contributers to this document.Editorial assistance was ,Oven by Jeanne Bishop, James Bowman, Lorna Carter, Larry Freeman, Betty Levi tov, Paul Olson, and Jan Pieper. Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the following authors, agents and publishers who have granted permission to use selections from ropyrighted publications: American Political Science Association, Committee on Pre-Collegiate Education for "First Year Report" originally published in PS. Richard C. Atkinson for figures 2-5, 2-6 in "Computerized Instruction and the Learning Process," American Psychologist, 23 (April, 1968), 229. Copyright 1968 by American Psychological Association and reproduced by permission. George G. Dawson for excerpts from DEEP materials, Joint Council on Economic Education, 1212 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10036. Daniel S. Greenberg for "Moho le:The Anatomy of a Fiasco" from The Politics of Pure Science by Daniel S. Greenberg (New York: New American Library, 1967). Arnold B. Grobman for "The Role of AIBS in the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study" from The Changing Classroom by Arnold B. Grob- man (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969). Peter Hilton for "A Case Against Managerial Principles in Education," Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Richard Ohmann for "English Departments and the Professional Ethos" first printed in New Literary History and reprinted with permission of the publishers. iv Stephen Toulmin for "Intellectual Professions: Their Organization and Evolution" (excerpted) from Human Understanding, reprinted with per- mission of the author. Murray L. Wax for "On the Social Sciences as Professions" (unpublished paper). INTRODUCTION THE PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES AND THE REFORM OF EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES How This Study Came to Be 77, "Professional Society" committee of the Study Commission on Undergraduate Education and the Education of Teachers was set up in 1971 under the-eltainnanship of Eli M. Bower.The committee's charge was to look into the history and uses of the professional societies by the Office of Education, particularly with regard to what ought to be done next in the development of a new federal relationship. The almost fifteen-year period of curriculum reform, beginning with the passage of the 1958 National Defense Education. Act, in which professional societies had assisted the federal gov- enunent and been-subsidized by it, to push reform in the schools had spent its momentum.The archetypal cycles which included finding professional societies (or persons closely allied with professional societies) to develop curricula, followed by in-service institutes for practicing teachers to introduce them to the new curricula and get thern,.to teach them in their schools, followed by revision of the curricula, widescale introduction of them through commercial texts and efforts to affect pre-service licensing practicesthese cycles had nearly run their course in virtually every discipline taught in the schools. Other topics had come to concern the Office of Education and the American public.Reformers in the schools came to be aware, in the late 60's, as they should have been from the beginning, that the schools have audiences:that they exist in communities; and that what they say is com- municated through language. Even the densest of the reformers (I was among them) eventually recognized that there had to be much more concentration on the communication bf the culture of the child's COMMIlllitY, on his language and his thought.Communicating the intellectual paradigms studied in advanced graduate school circles, however definitive the activity might seem to be, could not be the be-all and end-all of school.Thus, the present concern for bilingual, bicultural education, for community education, for community control of the schools, and for without-walls kind of education vu Of Lill sorts. RefOrnters have also recently become clear that the schools which straddle two cultures have to come to some kind of understanding