????伍德羅?威爾遜國家獎學金基金會的負責人亞瑟?萊文，多年來一直在強硬地批評師范教育項目。最近，他宣布正在與麻省理工學院合作啟動一個新的師范教育研究生學位課程，這再次引起了人們對這些師范教育課程和整個教師培訓領域的關注。

????萊文對師范學院的指責并非無的放矢。師范教育目前處于嚴重的無序狀態。教育專業碩士學位是美國公立學校的教師任職資格證書，但各大院校對這項學位有著不同的要求和標準。而這種差異正在影響著整個K-12教育系統（譯者注：K-12指從幼兒園到12年級）。

????毫無疑問，教育學院確實面臨許多特殊的挑戰。自1990年以來，美國授予的教育專業碩士學位增加了一倍以上，由此使得人們更加關注該學位存在的問題。

????但這些擔憂也吸引人們去關注一個整個研究生教育的問題。

????研究生學院的問題并不新鮮。簡要回顧一下教育學院博士學位的歷史，便可以看出相關問題存在已久。

????1893年，哥倫比亞大學師范學院授予了第一個教育學博士學位。1920年，哈佛大學率先開始頒發一種新學位——教育博士學位。教育學博士學位是一種學者學位，而教育博士學位則屬于從業者資格認證。

????從最開始，這兩個學位便很難區分。教育學位課程往往要求研究工作——包括一篇畢業論文，這與博士學位課程的要求類似，但其他要求較少。

????截至1983年，美國共有167所高校授予這兩種學位。清楚兩種學位區別的人，看不起教育博士學位。不久前，擔任卡耐基教育促進基金會主席的李?S?舒爾曼，將教育博士學位稱為“博士學位精簡版”。

????2007年．一項旨在重新改造教育博士學位的倡議發現，對于教育博士學位和教育學博士學位的相似性，教育工作者也有同樣的不滿。一位教育工作者表示，我們需要“投入時間，認真研究兩者的區別。”兩者真正的區別僅僅是，教育博士學位被普遍認為重要性和價值更低。

????這種批評逐漸貶低了教育博士學位的地位。2012年，哈佛大學停止授予該學位，而此前已經有其他院校放棄了這一學位。如今，只有少數高校仍在頒發教育博士學位。

????教育博士學位的故事，是規劃不利的結果，但歸根結底，原因在于教學水平低下。但在研究生教育中，這種計劃失當，執行不力的情況，可不僅僅限于師范學院。

????人文科學專業的研究生課程也深受教學水平低下的折磨——其所造成的結果，也在挑戰整個高等教育的意義。

????我的新書《研究生院的混亂》中描述了教學水平低下的影響如何蔓延到研究生教育之外。

????我所說的教學水平低下，并不僅限于課堂教育。研究生的學習途徑不外乎實驗室、本科教學和自學。但他們需要指導。而他們獲得指導的唯一途徑，便是設計合理，既能滿足研究生的需求，又能幫助他們實現目標的研究生課程。

????但目前，美國的研究生學院無法滿足學生的需求。原因如下：

????所有專業的博士學位均需要太長的時間。（人文科學專業需要9年）。標準的研究生課程旨在幫助研究生做好在研究型大學求職的準備， 而在研究型大學，教學負擔很輕，學校對教授的期望據說是專注于發表論文，而不是教學。

????事實上，大多數博士生無法得到這些理想的工作。美國大多數教授職位所在的高校，均有更高的課業負擔，并且學校希望教授們將更多的精力投入到教學當中。

????然而，多數研究生課程仍未調整其教學方式，以應對這樣的現實。他們的教育，最終變成了使研究生們為大多數人不可能得到的工作做準備。

????經過多年努力終于獲得博士學位的人，均懷揣著獲得一份終身職位的夢想，但最終實現這一夢想的可能性不足50%，盡管不同專業的結果會有所差異。

????教學密集型工作在數量上超過研究型工作。因此，未能獲得教授職位的人形成了一個龐大的、憤怒的、充滿怨恨的助教群體，在許多公立大學，這個群體的工資水平墊底已經成為必然。

????從本質上而言，這些彼此關聯的問題就是研究生教育徹底失敗的明證。

????多項研究發現，人文科學專業的研究生，對他們所學專業的價值與目的充滿困惑。他們清楚學術性工作市場的競爭是多么激烈，他們感覺自己并沒有做好成功的準備。

????甚至對于非學術類工作，學生們也感覺并未做好準備，因為人文科學專業的研究生課程專注于復制：研究型大學的教授們通常會使學生們變成一個個年輕的自己。

????因此，研究生院并未使學生們為高校內外的工作機會做好準備。

????更糟糕的是，研究生院的教授們不僅沒能幫助學生們在畢業時做好爭奪就業機會的準備。事實上，他們告訴學生們不要重視這些工作，在極端情況下，甚至誘導他們不要去想這些工作。

????研究生院教導學生們不尊重工作，事實上是在讓他們變得不快樂——這是壞的教育最糟糕的情況。

????這些問題均源自于一種高校文化——鼓勵研究，將教學視為一種必要的附帶品。

????美國內戰結束數十年后，研究型大學開始在美國出現，一直以來，他們的辯護者不遺余力地支持將博士學位作為一種研究型學位，對于那些培養學生走出校園成為教師的研究生教育，他們卻極力貶低。

????密歇根大學研究生學院的院長阿爾弗雷德?H?勞埃德在1924年寫道：“如果有十個人在攻讀博士學位，就會有數百人成為碩士生。”對于勞埃德來說，教育碩士研究生是“膚淺的”。

????多年來，研究型高校文化一直在排斥大多數研究生最終要做的工作。在美國高等教育發展時期，這種態度可能會被掩蓋，因為學術性工作和其他類型工作的來源更加豐富。

????但在如今經濟低迷的情況下，高校需要明白，研究生院不僅要產生研究成果，還要培養出符合不同類型工作要求，并且對工作感興趣的畢業生。

????學術界是保守的（這意味著，學術界在面對變革時行動遲緩），理應如此。我們不希望高等教育受到最新潮流的沖擊。但研究生教育甚至在學術界都被視為保守，被形容為僵化。

????亞瑟?萊文的試驗項目大多為在線課程，在批評者看來，這或許不夠完善，但至少他正在進行嘗試。大型研究生院是時候進行一些新的嘗試了。我并不是說研究生院應該變成在線模式——它需要更小的規模。研究生院必須明白，研究生也需要擁有職業生涯，并對這種實際需求做出響應。

????最近，研究生教育領域也在朝變革的方向發展。人文科學專業的某些學科組織和個人機構，正在嘗試幫助研究生更快完成學業，了解他們將要面對的職業選擇。

????但由于學術價值系統的存在，未來的工作并不容易：教授和未來的教授們要接受研究型文化標準的評判。對于教學人員和研究生們來說，研究才是至高無上的任務。這也使研究型文化多年來在與其他高等教育理念的競爭中占據了優勢。這意味著，即便在教學最為重要的小型院校，研究也是決定地位、排名和成績的關鍵。

????高校不需要放棄他們的研究使命，只要他們能夠牢記，研究生教育與其他教育一樣，同樣需要優質的教學。只有如此，他們才有機會讓研究生教育重新走上正軌。

????優質的研究生教育將在最關鍵的地方發揮影響。研究生，這個高校內最弱小的群體，也可以藉此改善他們的生活。（財富中文網）

????本文作者萊納德?卡蘇托為福特漢姆大學英語專業教授。

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????審校：任文科

????Arthur Levine, the head of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, has been a vituperative critic of teacher education programs for years. His recent announcement that he’s partnering with MIT to start a new teacher education graduate degree program has brought new attention to these teacher training programs – and to teacher training generally.

????Levine’s indictment of education school teaching has legs. The teaching of teachers is in a serious disarray. Requirements and standards for the master’s degree in education, the recognized certification credential for US public school teaching, vary wildly from university to university. And the effects of such variations ripple through the entire K-12 education system.

????There is no doubt that education schools have faced some special difficulties. The number of master’s degrees in education awarded in the US has more than doubled since 1990. This increase has brought more attention to the problems with these degrees.

????But these concerns should also draw our attention to a larger problem with the teaching in graduate schools in general.

????The problems with graduate schools of education are not new. A brief look at the history of the education school doctorate shows how far back they extend.

????The first PhD in education was awarded in 1893 by Columbia University’s Teachers College. Harvard University was the first to offer a new degree in 1920, called the EdD. The PhD in education was supposed to be a scholar’s degree and the EdD was supposed to be a practitioner’s credential.

????From the beginning, the two were hard to tell apart. The EdD programs tended to require research work — including a dissertation — similar to what was performed in PhD programs, but with fewer other requirements.

????By 1983, there were 167 schools in the US that were awarding both degrees. The EdD was typically looked down upon — but only by those who could tell the difference between the two. Lee S. Shulman, while serving as president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, not long ago called the EdD a “PhD-lite.”

????A 2007 initiative to reinvent the EdD found educators muttering the same complaints they always had about the close resemblance between the EdD and the education PhD. We need, said one, “to invest the time to really look seriously at the distinction between them.” To the extent that they could be told apart, the only real difference was that the EdD was considered to be less substantial and less valuable.

????Such criticism slowly dragged the EdD down. In 2012, Harvard discontinued the degree, in this case following the lead of other institutions that had given it up first. The EdD now straggles along at a small number of universities.

????The story of the EdD is an embarrassing tale of bad planning, but at bottom, it’s about poor teaching. But such badly planned and executed graduate teaching is by no means restricted to ed schools.

????Poor teaching afflicts graduate programs in the liberal arts generally — and its results challenge the meaning of the whole enterprise of higher education.

????My new book, The Graduate School Mess, describes how the effects of bad teaching extend far beyond graduate programs.

????When I say bad teaching, I don’t mean just what happens in the classroom. Graduate students learn in labs, through their own undergraduate teaching and on their own. But they need guidance. They receive it only through graduate programs that are rationally designed to meet graduate students’ needs and help move them toward their goals.

????Graduate school in the US isn’t meeting the needs of its students right now. And here’s why:

????The time taken to do the PhD degree has bloated in all fields. (It approaches nine years in the humanities.) The standard graduate curriculum is designed to prepare graduate students for jobs at research universities, where teaching loads are low and the expectation is that professors will focus on publication ahead of teaching.

????The fact is most doctoral students won’t ever get those fancy jobs. The majority of American professorships are at colleges and universities with higher courseloads and an expectation that professors will commit themselves to teaching.

????But most graduate programs don’t adjust their teaching of graduate students to reflect this fact. Consequently, their education is preparing them for work that most of them won’t ever get.

????The results vary by field, but most PhDs who labor for years in the hope of a tenure-track professorship have less than a 50% chance of getting one.

????Teaching-intensive jobs outnumber the research-centered ones. As a result, unsuccessful seekers of professorships populate a large, angry and embittered adjunct facultywhose low-wage labor has become necessary to the bottom line of many public universities.

????These problems, which connect to many others, are essentially a failure of teaching.

????Studies show that graduate school in the arts and sciences leaves students confused and bewildered about the value and purpose of what they are learning. They know how competitive the academic job market is, and they feel unprepared to succeed in it.

????They also feel unprepared for nonacademic alternatives, because graduate schools in the arts and sciences focus their curriculum on replication: professors at research universities essentially prepare students to become mini-me’s, younger versions of themselves.

????Thus, graduate schools fail to prepare students for the full range of jobs that are open to them, both inside and outside of the university.

????Even worse, it’s not just that graduate school professors fail to prepare students for the jobs that they will actually compete for when they graduate. The reality is, they teach them not to value those jobs — and in extreme cases, not to even want them at all.

????When graduate schools teach students to disrespect the jobs that they can get, they are teaching students to be unhappy — and that’s the worst kind of bad teaching.

????These practices stem from a university culture that rewards research and treats teaching as a necessary sidecar.

????Ever since research universities sprouted in America in the decades following the Civil War, their proponents have lavished support on the PhD as a research degree and devalued the kind of graduate education that prepares students to go out and become teachers.

????“Where ten seek the doctorate,” wrote the Michigan graduate dean Alfred H. Lloyd in 1924, “hundreds would be masters.” For Lloyd, educating master’s degree students was “superficial.”

????For generations, the culture of research has dismissed the work that most graduate students actually wind up doing. This attitude could be camouflaged during times of growth of American higher education, when academic jobs and other resources were more plentiful.

????Now, at a time of financial constraint, universities need to understand that graduate school is not just about producing research. It’s also about graduating students who are not only qualified for different kinds of jobs but also interested in doing them.

????Academia is conservative (with a small “c,” meaning that it’s slow to change), and rightly so. We wouldn’t want higher education to be buffeted about by the latest fads. But graduate education is conservative even by academic standards — which qualifies it as fossilized.

????Arthur Levine’s experimental, mostly online program looks sketchy to his critics, but at least he’s trying something. It’s time that the larger graduate school enterprise tried to do something new as well. I don’t mean that graduate school should shift to an online model – it needs to be more small-scale than that. Graduate school must respond to the actual needs that graduate students have as people with professional lives.

????There have lately been movements toward reform within the graduate school establishment. Some disciplinary organizations and individual institutions in the arts and sciences are trying to help graduate students finish sooner and understand the range of career options before them.

????But the job ahead is difficult because of the academic value system: professors and would-be professors everywhere are judged according to the standards of research culture. For faculty, and graduate students in their turn, research is the coin of the realm. That has given an advantage to research culture over the years against competing views of higher education. That means that even at small colleges where teaching matters most, research determines status, rank and merit.

????Universities need not abandon their research mission if they keep in mind that graduate education, like all education, requires thoughtful teaching. If they do so, they have a chance of bringing their houses back into order.

????Good graduate teaching will help make a difference where it matters most. It will improve the lives of universities’ least powerful citizens: their graduate students.