A New Professional: The Aims of Education Revisited

Autor/in	Palmer, Parker J.
Titel	A New Professional: The Aims of Education Revisited
Quelle	In: Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 39 (2007) 6, S.6-12 (7 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0009-1383
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Emotional Intelligence; Higher Education; Case Studies; Social Change + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Emotionale Intelligenz; Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Case study; Fallstudie; Case Study; Sozialer Wandel
Abstract	The word "professional" originally meant someone who makes a "profession of faith" in the midst of a disheartening world. That root meaning became diminished as the centuries rolled by, and today it has all but disappeared. "Professional" now means someone who possesses knowledge and techniques too esoteric for the laity to understand, whose education is proudly proclaimed to be "value free." The notion of a "new professional" revives the root meaning of the word. If higher education is to serve humane purposes, we who educate must insist that knowing is not enough, that we are not fully human until we recognize what we know and take responsibility for it. In this article, the author calls for a new professional who can confront, challenge, and help change the workplace. Behind this call, he asserts, are two important realities: (1) our large, complex institutions are increasingly unresponsive to external pressure, even on those rare occasions when an informed and organized public demands change; and (2) the functions of a profession are not necessarily those of the institutional structures that house it. What would the education of the new professional look like? How might we prepare students to be teachers, lawyers, physicians, and clergy--to say nothing of parents and neighbors and citizens--who can help transform the institutions that dominate our lives? The author asserts five immodest proposals: (1) We must help our students uncover, examine, and debunk the myth that institutions are external to and constrain us, as if they possessed powers that render us helpless--an assumption that is largely unconscious and wholly untrue; (2) We must take our students' emotions as seriously as we take their intellects; (3) We must start taking seriously the "intelligence" in emotional intelligence; (4) We must offer our students the knowledge, skills, and sensibilities required to cultivate communities of discernment and support; and (5) We must help our students understand what it means to live and work with the question of an undivided life always before them. The author concludes that higher education needs to educate people in every field who have ethical autonomy and the courage to act upon it--who possess knowledge, skill, and the highest values of their vocations. Can such an education become a reality? Yes, if we who educate can think and act like the new professionals we need to raise up. (Lists 7 resources.) (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10