Hi Phillip,
Disastrous consequences? I think it is rather pretentious when one who knows so very little about another's situation can draw such dramatic forecasts concerning it. But its OK, I've worked for the past decade in Cambridge, and I'm getting used to arrogance. (Well, maybe not) While the manner of the message delivery can sometimes be grating, there is often enough some substance to the message per se.
What is "best practice' is value laden indeed and is taken from the literature on educational assessment, drawing meaning from that world. For example, Fredericksen and Collins describe one dimension of assessment as *transparency* (meaning the students know in advance what it is being assessed). Another dimension is *Multiplicity*, which aims at using many measures to determine what a student is capable. Curiously enough a third (but not final) is *Expansivity*, those that "elicit from the student the most advanced performance of which she is capable", (Alverno College Faculty, 1979) which puts the student in increasingly complex situations with varied interactions, and at first glance seems similar to what one might do with the zone of proximal development.
All of these are of course, what is already known in other places, and even what is practiced at other places. I don't see the use of these notions as a misalignment with lbe, as these ideals are taken up in the ethnography of what is troublesome in the system. The process may not directly map onto lbe, as these ideas definitely come from somewhere, somewhere else, and do not magically appear from within the system. (That seems to be turning out to be the focus of my work) But that is not to say that what is happening must conform to the ideals of lbe. After all, this is the real world, with real complexity, and we are trying to do what works. lbe offers insights, and we will try to benefit from them. As people who work within our system, however, we have many instruments and ideas and instincts and experience to bring to bear with our situation, and these things afford us a broad perspective. If all works out, we may also understand how our situation is different than those posed in lbe. If the consequences are disastrous, we will learn too. And this, after all, is progress in the research world, n'est pas?
But just so that one doesn't think lbe has cornered the market on institutional developmental cycles, Fetterman's "Empowerment Evaluation" is similar in several ways (tho not so comprehensive as lbe):
"As a result, the context changes: the assessment of a program's value and worth is not the end point of the evaluation - as it often is in traditional evaluation - but is part of an ongoing process of program improvement. This new context acknowledges a simple but often overlooked truth: that merit and worth are not static values. Populations shift, goals shift, knowledge about program practices and their value changes, and external forces are highly unstable." Fetterman (1997)
But I always like to keep in mind a more apt quote that comes from Hamlet (my favorite tragedy):
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
:-)
bb
-- Bill Barowy, Associate Professor Lesley University 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790 Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169 http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html _______________________ "One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful." [Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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