The Learner's View

The learner's view of the result of common teaching practice at university is suggested by Small (1896):

A graduate of a leading eastern university ...said recently that when he took his diploma, about ten years ago, history to his mind was a collection of material which he had studied under Professor A.; political economy another independent body of information which he studied under Professor B.; psychology another isolated subject which he had studied under Professor C.; and so on through the curriculum. Not until six or seven years after graduation did it dawn upon him that each of these details of representation is an aspect of one reality which the pedagogy of the college had concealed in making the fragments prominent. (131)

Will the learners of tomorrow have to wait six or seven years?

• Small, A.W. (1896). Demands of Sociology on Pedagogy. In Borrowman, M.L.(Ed.) (1965). Teacher Education in America: A Documentary History. Teachers College Press, New York: Teachers College Press.