There’s a post called The Deciders over at Teacher In A Strange Land that takes me to task for a variety of things, including belittling the experiences and advice of teachers when it comes to NCLB: “When did it get to be OK, even kind of hip, to denigrate the professional work, judgment and thinking of educators?”
True, I am not always respectful of teachers’ views on NCLB, but that’s not any more denigrating in my mind than it would be to say that doctors shouldn’t be the sole arbitors of Medicare policies (which they shouldn’t). The experiences and perspectives of practitioners and clinicians (teachers, doctors) are by their nature vivid, detailed, and limited. But saying so doesn’t, in my mind at least, denigrate them.
The post to which this is a response is here.