Fabricated Expertise: A Risk to Educator Freedom
Brett J. Holt · International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education · 2019
What determines expertise?What is an "expert" educator?What are the credentials an "expert" should possess?The discourses and dispositions of Ericsson, Berliner, Marion, and Firestein will help determine answers to these questions creating a foundation in which to view expert educators.Attention is given to accepted expert considerations for both academic and grade school educators (i.e.Preparatory Training, Government Licensure, Years of Service, Visibility, Professional Maintenance, Promotion, etc.).After identifying educator expertise, the author will examine various ways in which false expertise is enabled including but not limited to: Lack of accountability, emergency need, loyalties without consideration, profiteering, reference neglect, attribution, dispositional conformity, and false assumptions.Identification characteristics are provided for recognizing genuine and false experts.By taking a look at common practices used by school/college administrators, elected officials, organizations, and other non-professionals that have inadvertently or possibly willfully enabled false expertise of educators, the author will conclude that the educational academies might begin to recognize the dangers posed to educator freedoms (i.e., Argumentum ad Veracundiam, loss of public trust, and credibility).If educators are unable to defend this assault on educator freedoms (defined within the scope of Lehrfreheit and Lehrnfreheit) enabled by false expertise, the author determines that society will lose faith in education.