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Discussion Notes / Débat
A Reply to “The Revival of School
Administration: Alasdair MacIntyre in the
Aftermath of the Common School”
Benjamin Levin
J. Anthony Riffel
Jonathan Young
university of manitoba
Mark Holmes is one of Canada’s most thoughtful and articulate critics of
education and educational administration. His work is usually carefully reasoned
and closely argued. We have serious concerns, however, about his recent
argument in the Canadian Journal of Education (vol. 17, no. 4; 1992). Here we
take up our main reservations about Holmes’ critique of schooling and his
proposals for change. We do so hoping to continue the important dialogue about
the value foundations of education. This is a conversation to which Holmes has
contributed in important ways, and in which we know he believes passionately.
The first part of Holmes’ paper briefly reviews the work of Alasdair
MacIntyre and traces some of its implications for school administration. Holmes
uses MacIntyre’s After Virtue (1981) to point out some important flaws in
contemporary thought on and practice in school administration. First, he argues
that contemporary school administration has been falsely premised on the idea
that there is a generalizable science of management, leading to a valuing of
“training and skills” over “wisdom, education, and moral judgment” (p. 428).
Second, he argues that modern administrators confuse role and person, fusing
themselves with their role, becoming “the person he or she is expected to be at
work” (p. 426). The consequence of this, says Holmes, is that this role is without
substantive core and thus the administrator loses the moral foundation essential
to any educational judgments. This critique of modern school administration is
centrally important. The challenge of making morality and virtue central to our
conceptualization of school administration, and to the daily life of schools, is
urgent.
The second part of Holmes’ paper extends his critique of school administration,
linking it to a critique of the present state of public schooling in Canada and
beyond, and offering an alternative model, “the MacIntyre School,” that would
provide an “education predicated on virtue.” We find this part of the paper far
less persuasive.
446 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 18:4 (1993)