From reflective practitioner to comprehensive teacher

The work of Donald Schön has drawn attention to the paradox inherent in the activities of teaching and learning. His own concept of the reflective practitioner tries to offer a way through this paradox for students arguing that by risking the power inequalities of being a learner they can eventually empower themselves as self-educators. However, it is argued below that Schon has not applied these insights into the paradox of teaching and learning to the activity of reflective practice nor to the identity of the reflective practitioner, and that therefore his educational model is not genuinely comprehensive. The failure by the reflective practitioner to risk the negativity of self-relation within the dialectic of reflection reduces its educational potential, and holds back the education of the philosophical consciousness, which characterises the truly comprehensive teacher