tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9725220.post2051305770135370854..comments2023-11-05T05:39:14.998-05:00Comments on Going to the Mat: Eduwonkette's Question about Professionalization of TeachersAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01352443552682708733noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9725220.post-73615439997945984412008-04-30T12:39:00.000-04:002008-04-30T12:39:00.000-04:00I think this puts the cart before the horse. It wa...I think this puts the cart before the horse. It was the idea that people holding themselves out as experts owed their clients a duty of care than a layman working on the same task that drove the state of the art, not the achievement of some level of the art that led everyone to say "now we should have a professional duty of care." <BR/><BR/>Neither medicine nor law had the capacity for great precision in the identification of client problems or the application of solutions when their higher duty was first recognized in common law. The standard of professional care has never been absolute, but related to the actual state of the art as determined by a jury. Doctors and lawyers were expected to understand the state of the art in their locale - city doctors were expected to have better training, current knowledge and facilities than their country cousins. <BR/><BR/>Roe v. Minister of Health, an English malpractice case decided in 1954, arose from an incident that occurred in 1947 where a patient was administered anesthesia from a glass ampule. The ampule was defective, with microcracks invisible to the naked eye but sufficient for a contaminat to leak in that ultimately killed the patient. <BR/><BR/>In deciding for the hospital and the anesthesiologist, Lord Denning said “We must not look at the 1947 incident with 1954 spectacles.” Commenting on the case, Wikepedia notes "It was held that the micro-cracks were not foreseeable given the prevailing scientific knowledge of the time. Thus, since no reasonable anaesthetist would have stored the anaesthetic differently, it was inappropriate to hold the hospital management liable for failing to take precautions. That the profession had changed its practice in the light of experience proved that the profession was responsible in its self-regulation.<BR/><BR/><BR/>The tools teachers have today are far from perfect, but teachers are still in a position to offer substantially better teaching services than lay people. They do hold themselves out as experts - albeit ones overly restrained by management. They can only do as well as the technology available to them, and this would be part of any review of a teacher's professional conduct in teaching.<BR/><BR/>The duty would be constrained to the extent that teachers were not provided the required tools etc, and the duty itself would be a powerful force to improve the state of the art. So long as teachers perform as reasonable teachers should have performed in the circumstances, they will have met their obligation. The technology argument is entirely a red herring.Marc Dean Millothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01015137200387473630noreply@blogger.com