Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2007: Developing Dispositions: Professional Ethic or Political Indoctrination?

EDITORIAL
Developing Dispositions: Professional Ethic or Political Indoctrination
Lorraine Kasprisin
Editor

PROLOGUE
Editor: On March 30, 2006 and May 12, 2007, Gary Howard facilitated several workshops at Western Washington University, based on his book, We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know. His workshops provided the impetus for reexamining the concept of dispositions in teacher education (view video of the workshops from Mar. 30, 2006 and May 12, 2005). We are dedicating this issue to Gary Howard, who has written a special prologue for this issue.

Dispositions for Good Teaching
Gary R. Howard
REACH Center for Multicultural Education

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY – HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Antecedents of Disposition Testing: Lessons from the History of the Good Teacher
Jennifer de Forest
University of Virginia

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY – INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Teachers’ Ethics: Education International and the Forging of Professional Unity
Athena Vongalis-Macrow
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia 

Controversy Addressed in this Issue
Because teachers hold a very special trust in working with the young, public licensure and assessment have become part of the screening process in certifying new teachers for their roles. What makes up the qualities of a professional teacher and what should be legitimately assessed? Recently, schools of education and various accreditation bodies have begun to go beyond knowledge and teaching competences, and have begun to assess candidates for proper dispositions. In some colleges, conservative students have complained that these evaluations have discriminated against them for their beliefs and constitute a form of ideological indoctrination, amounting to a political litmus test. Conversely, educators of teachers argue that adherence to a professional code of ethics is expected of teachers as with all professionals. Furthermore, they argue that they have a responsibility to both their graduates and to the public to assure that prospective teachers will act in an ethical way in the classroom and are sensitive to issues of social justice and white privilege in this society.  The Journal of Educational Controversy invites readers to submit carefully thought-out analyses on this conflict that will shed some light on the issues and provide a reasoned, tenable position.

ARTICLES IN RESPONSE TO CONTROVERSY 

Ideological Indoctrination and Teacher Education
William Hare
Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS, Canada 

Advocacy and Teaching
Stanley Fish
Florida International University
NY Times Columnist 
Reprinted by permission of the author, from a New York Times article, March 24, 2007. This article is part of a larger project entitled "Save The World On Your Own Time: Or Why Colleges and Universities Should Tear Up Their Mission Statements and Just Aim Low."

Developing Dispositions for Ambitious Teaching
David Carroll
Western Washington University

Making sense of dispositions in teacher education: Arriving at democratic aims and experiences
Thomas Misco and James Shiveley
Miami University

Teaching (for) dispositions?
Old debates, new orthodoxies: Hanging onto a ‘knowledge approach’
Paul Tarc
York University, Toronto, Canada

In the spirit of self-assessment: Critical engagement and moral agency in pre-service teacher education
Sheron Fraser-Burgess
Ball State University 

Lessons from the Periphery: The Role of Dispositions in Montessori Teacher Training
Keith Whitescarver
The College of William and Mary 
Jacqueline Cossentino
University of Maryland

SPECIAL SECTION ON THE POLITICS OF “SOCIAL JUSTICE” 

An Analysis of NCATE's Decision to Drop "Social Justice"
Bonnie Johnson and Dale D. Johnson
Dowling College 

Setting the Record Straight
Arthur E. Wise
President, National Council of Accreditation of Teachers Education (NCATE) 

Dark Times Indeed: NCATE, Social Justice, and the Marginalization of Multicultural Foundations
Dan W. Butin
Cambridge College


ABOUT THE AUTHORS