When 'Cultures' Clash

By Sam Minner

One of the many innovations directed at improving teacher-preparation programs and schools involves university-school partnerships. Such partnerships have many names: professional-development schools, teacher-induction schools, and university-school collaborations. The basic idea is that quality improvements will occur when faculty members in colleges and schools of education work closely with students, teachers, and administrators in real-school settings. The benefits of these arrangements are thought to be mutual. Schools benefit by having additional resources brought to bear on the practical problems they face. Teachers learn new techniques or gain new ideas from novice teachers and faculty members working in their schools. Faculty from colleges of education benefit by testing theories in real schools. As a result, theories may be modified and teacher-preparation programs altered.

There appears to be a strong feeling among teachers and some others that it is "good'' for professors to spend time in real schools. It brings them down to earth. It makes them appreciate the complexity and demands placed upon teachers. This, in turn, will somehow manifest itself in more relevant and practical classes on campus.

I have been involved in a large number of such programs. In some cases, schools and colleges of education have benefited from the arrangements. In other cases, however, these programs failed. They sometimes failed miserably. Seymour Sarason, the Yale University scholar, once wrote of how schools and university preparation programs "misunderstand'' and "clash'' with each other. There are many reasons for these misunderstandings and clashes, but I am convinced that one important reason has to do with the cultures of institutions of higher education and those of schools. When these cultures...