A Brief Response
Abstract
How wonderful! We all write for a multitude of reasons, chief among them is the desire for a competent response. I got exactly that, and I am grateful for this lively dialog. Let me briefly comment to my responders in alphabetical order.
My good friend Jere Brophy wisely says we should not think of participation in policy debates as an obligation of all educational psychologists. I would agree, given the way things are now. But I would propose that we rethink the training of educational psychologists so that many of our newly minted doctorates come to see their participation as public intellectuals as an obligation. Lawyers do not have to do pro bono service, but many do because they see it as an obligation. Physicians don’t all join Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) and risk their lives in war zones, or take a month off each year to work in overseas clinics for room and board, but many do because they see it as their obligation. My concern is that we do not train educational psychologists with the same sense of having a public trust that some attorneys and physicians have. It is not that these two professions are always successful in communicating the obligations of their profession. Clearly the behavior of many lawyers and physicians is not affected by exhortations that public obligations accompany their positions. But they are successful in affecting some members of their profession. We do none of that, and I think we should. Even a little increase in the rate at which educational psychologists take on the role of public intellectuals would please me.
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