The introduction of educational research into the training of teachers

CONCLUSION : My intention has been to go beyond a general description and formulate precise proposals based on practical exp.eriments in initial and continued training. My first concern was to avoid utopianism. The educational forms of the forthcoming decades are becoming fairly clear. Following the recent example of medicine, educational science will speedily gain in rigour and efficacy. In fact, our theoretical and experimental knowledge is already in a position to introduce considerable improvements in the education system. One essential condition (though there are others) is to ensure permanent communication between practice and research. Most countries are still far from having reached this stage. As I said at the ouniet. education (like medicine) cannot be a dry science and even less a technocratic one. Man's infinite complexity precludes an exhaustive knowledge of his nature and. behaviour; his extreme sensitivity makes any mechanisation of human relations unbearable. Perhaps, however, we are entitled. for the moment at least. to grant a certain preponderance to scientific pedagogy, because it is entering on its first great period of expansion after thousands of years during which the art and the craft of teaching reigned supreme. Introducing teachers to practical research seems an excellent method of scientific training. But I certainly would not •give it exclusive importance in teacher training. I believe equally in the gradual development of a sense of "caring" in a Hippocratic, practitioner-patient sense.