When best practices aren’t: A Schwabian perspective on teaching

The curriculum literature has much to say about the ecological fallacy embodied in the ‘best practices’ movement. The work of Schwab anticipated much of it by reminding us of the dangers of trying to control classroom practices from afar, with the use of theoretical representations of classrooms that were, by definition, never fully like their real counterparts. The North American discourse on the quality of teaching can be substantively improved by being understood through this important Schwabian lens.