Toward a Profession, Not a Craft By W. R. MORFORD

My few years in the physical educa- tion profession have brought me to the realization that we are primarily a group of doers with little or no theoreti- cal rationale for what we do. The issue here centers around the absence of any real concern for a disciplinary or theo- retical framework to support the pro- fession.

The problem of identifying a subject field basic to physical education has been with us for some time. In spite of that, no widespread attempts have been made to develop an appropriate body of knowledge, much less to har- ness what theory is available. No doubt this state of affairs exists because the vast majority of the professional membership is occupationally oriented -exclusively so in many cases. Conse- quently, members persist in resisting attempts to restructure professional preparation curricula to include an ap- propriate body of abstract knowledge, because they are unable to appreciate or foresee the immediate influence of theory on the conduct of teaching phys-

About the Author Dr. W. R. Morford is Professor of Phys-

ical Education in the School of Physical and Health Education at the University of Wash- ington. Formerly Chairman at California State College, Hayward, Dr. Morford now devotes full time to scholarly activity and teaching in the areas of cultural and histor- ical foundations. He presently serves as Chairman of the AAHPER Scholarly Direc- tions Committee.

ical education in the school. If this is so, then our "professionals" have much to learn about the meaning of the term "profession," which is defined by Whitehead (1933) as

. . . an avocation whose activities are subjected to theoretical analysis, and are modified by theoretical1 conclusions derived from that analysis. This anal- ysis has regard to the purposes of the avocation and to the adaptation of the activities for the attainment of those pur- poses. Such criticism must be founded upon some understanding of the nature of the things involved in those activities so that the results of action can be fore- seen. Thus, foresight based upon the- ory, and theory based upon under- standing of the nature of things are essential to a profession [p. 711.

He further explains, "The antithesis to a profession is an avocation based upon customary activities and modified by the trial and error of the individual. Such an avocation is a craft . . . [p. 731."

Surely, this latter designation is an apt one for a system of instruction that emphasizes advice, examples, drill, criticism, and encouragement to the pupil while ignoring theory and analy- sis. While there may be practical ad- vantages to this system of instruction, it does have serious limitations for, in Weiss' ( 197 1 ) words,

It is one thing to recapture the wisdom of the past: it is another to repeat what

Emphasis mine.

Toward a Profession, Not a Craft 89

had been previously said or done. The viewed and summarized by Harries- repetition presupposes that what is be- ing taught is sound and is appropriate to the needs, capacity, promise, and prospects of the student. Little room is left for criticism, and practically none by those who are young. Inventiveness, daring, and fresh insight-though not unknown-because they are not en- couraged, are rarely found after a time [P. 441- Consequently, it is not surprising

that those few individuals within the field who express their interest in the phenomena of sports, games, dance, and other physical activities of man, either as ends in themselves or for pur- poses of physical education theory building, are regarded by many of their professional peers as "black sheep" seeking only enhanced academic pres- tige for the sake of their own satisfac- tion. That this is a mistaken and my- opic view should be obvious. The need for a theoretical field of physical edu- cation should not be justified because it might bring academic prestige to either the individual in particular or to the field as a whole, but rather, because a theoretical framework is a necessity, forming the very basis of professional authentication.

The notion that occupational status may be substantially elevated by the universal recognition of a well-estab- lished and adequate body of theory ac- tually is naive in view of the facts that govern the hierarchical ordering of pro- fessions. The prestige hierarchy of oc- cupations has been described as one of the best studied aspects of the strati- fication systems of modern society. The findings from several studies are re-

Jenkins ( 1970) and ~ e ~ ~ a i t (1970). Included in these findings are the fol- lowing considerations. Those profes- sions that have access to or possess relevant knowledge over life and death situations in the social context have the highest status. In the past, this po- sition has been held by medicine, law, and the priesthood. The last two are presently in a phase of descendency while certain biologically centered pro- fessions, such as genetic engineering, are in the ascendency. Closely associ- ated with the above is the degree of monopoly claimed over the professional area of interest, and the autonomy of the professional group.

Another group of factors contribut- ing to the hierarchy of professions cen- ters about the class origin of the group, the frequency of lay contact, together with the status of its clients-their age and social position and whether or not these clients seek out the professional because of his or her high reputation or because of being compelled to do so. These factors also act in combina- tion with others that center about the extent and quality of a systematic pat- tern of professional education with its examinations, its period of exclusive postgraduate training, and the appar- ent range of its professional activities from generalized to specialized prac- tice. The sum of these factors, then, leads to an interesting ordering of the professional hierarchy. In summary, this hierarchy expresses the exclusive- ness of the professional from the gen- eral public, the sacredness or mysteri- ousness of his knowledge, and the

degree of difficulty experienced in at- taining it. Such a hierarchy exists both within and between professions. For example, within the educational field, Jackson ( 1970) notes that

Prestige is distributed throughout the profession of learning according to the twin qualities of the esoteric value of what is taught and the consequent dif- ficulties involved in attaining it and the audience to whom it is communicated. Lowest status is thus reserved for teach- ers in the primary schools to which everyone goes to learn what everyone knows [p. 111. Similarly, in the realm of subject

matter, the highest status is accorded the teacher or professor of mathematics or physics whose mysteries few mortals seem capable of mastering. Concom- itantly, the coach and teacher of physical education, whose subject all seem to know and whose mysteries seldom exceed a system of verbal-nu- merical play signals and the frequent exhortation to "try harder," are ac- corded much lower status. Few of the public are lay physicists or mathemati- cians. But lay coaches? They are a dime a dozen. Their number is legion, far in excess of those with professional credentials.

Consideration of these features con- tributing to the occupational group hierarchy forces the conclusion that, relative to the elite professions, physical education teachers have no likelihood of markedly improving their public prestige, their internal cohesiveness, or their status according to any existing scale of professionalism. However, the fact that-our status is low should not

trouble us in the least, for this is nec- essarily a relative scale which centers, in the main, about an unofficial and usually subconscious assessment of a profession's capability to fit various criteria. Being low on such an assess- ment scale is unimportant other than to one's ego.

It should be re-emphasized that any claims to knowledge merely to increase the sanctity or secretness of a profes- sion's operation (to more effectively exclude the profane world) would be to seek prestige for its own sake and this is not sufficient reason for develop- ing a body of knowledge. Surely then, the need to develop a body of knowl- edge basic to physical education is not a question of prestige, but one of ne- cessity to more effectively enhance pro- fessional service.

The identifying characteristics of professional work have been of recur- rent and continuing interest to sociolo- gists over the period of the last half century. Each analyst proposes a list of unique characteristics that are the qualifiable indicators of the closeness of a given occupational group to achieving full recognition as a profes- sion. Turner and Hodge (1970) note that if one extracts from among the most commonly cited definitions all the items which are said to characterize professions, it turns out that a com- mendable unanimity is disclosed, there being no contradictions. They go on to note that one of the ubiquitous assump- ,tions contained in these writings on professions is that a profession "has an essential underpinning of abstract prin- ciples which have been organized into

Toward a Profession, Not a Craft 91

a theory, set of theories or at least a complex web of theoretical orientations [p. 261."

Harries-Jenkins ( 1970) expresses the conviction that

It is this linking of the professional skill with the prior or coincidental mas- tery of the underlying theory that is the true difference between the skills de- manded from members of a highly professionalized group and other less professionalized groups. In the latter instance, there is considerable evidence of a high order of particular skill and, indeed, some "non-professional" occu- pations involve the exercise of a higher degree of skill than many professional ones [p. 741.

At this point, Harries-Jenkins notes that the very high degree of skill re- quired by the craftsman, as in the dia- mond cutter, is such as to require a period of training as prerequisite to at- taining occupational status that often is longer than the education demanded by many professions. He goes on to say 7

Such practice of skill, however, can exist independently of any body of the- ory so that role practitioners are cate- gorized as "craftsmen" rather than "professionals." The form of the educa- tional process which is undertaken by a group member thus reflects the extent to which the exercise of the occupa- tional skill demands knowledge of the underlying theory, and the form is thus an indicator of the level of group pro- fessionalization [p. 741. In our modern society, this process

of professionalization requires a body of systematic theory and the necessary skills of professional practice and is obtained by individuals in a formal

academic environment. In America, the relationship between the professions and the universities as the primary le- gitimizing agency is well established and widely recognized, albeit recently criticized.

It requires only a minimum compre- hension of the situation to realize that physical educators, inasmuch as they may aspire to professional status, actu- ally do so in name only and that, in fact, they can make no legitimate claims at all to such status. For even though aspirants to this occupation are trained in a university or college en- vironment and awarded a baccalaureate degree for mastery of the requirements for a major in physical education, it is nonetheless evident that the contents of the vast majority of these programs are mainly technical and skill-oriented rather than scholarly and theoretical. Further, there is no unique focus of attention upon a well-ordered subject matter which is firmly grounded upon the traditional academic fields. And finally, the primary thrust of these pro- grams is the mastery of elementary and borrowed knowledge for use at a lower level of educational competence.

I find this to be a confusing state of affairs. A part of most school programs is a subject called physical education. If considered in parallel with other school subjects, this would imply the existence of a field of knowledge having the same or a very similar name, the teacher of that subject having an un- derstanding of that field of knowledge. Just as is the case with any other sub- ject taught in the schools, the subject matter is derived from the teacher's

parent discipline. The acquisition of basic methodology for teaching the sub- ject then is regarded as supplementary training to prepare the individual for a teaching vocation. Yet, it is precisely in this latter area that we concentrate our academic efforts while spurning our own potential subject matter! As a group, we are synonymous with teacher education or the teaching profession without any identifying features or dis- tinguishing marks of our own even though, superficially at least, there are areas, namely sport, dance, and exer- cise, that could well provide a focus that is distinct from teaching per se. However, if there is such a focus, it is not the object of study itself that inter- ests us but, rather, only the teaching of it.

Kroll (1971 ) suggests that the tradi- tional pattern of a typical undergradu- ate major in physical education would be analogous to preparation for the ministry were such preparation to con- sist only of courses dealing with (1) the relationship of church to society; (2) counselling in church work; (3) meth- ods of delivering inspiring sermons of a non-controversial content; (4) pro- fessional organizations; (5) adminis- tration of church affairs; (6) the law and the church; (7) non-taxable fund- raising ideas, and so on. Kroll's point is that all these courses merely describe a job analysis of the professional activi- ties of clergymen, the whole training program being completely devoid of any in-depth study of theology itself.

Our so-called professional prepara- tion programs deal almost entirely with the educational focus of the profession

without due consideration to the sub- ject matter content of physical activity itself. Small wonder that one physical educator was led to remark that, "phys- ical education has the doubtful distinc- tion of being a school subject for which colleges prepare teachers but do not recognize a subject field [p. 321" (Henry, 1964).

Obviously, a profession is an organ- ization dedicated to doing things for people, thus its survival is dependent upon its usefulness and value to soci- ety. A professional field becomes known by the things it does and how well it does them. Of great concern to those within the profession should be the manner in which knowledge is ac- quired so as to arrive at the position of knowing that what it does is good, sound, and appropriate to the needs of its clients. Any professional organiza- tion not capable of developing its own knowledge, effectively monitoring and evaluating social change in light of its knowledge structure, eventually is doomed to failure since it will be un- able to provide for society's demands. Merely serving society by catering to its existing needs may well relegate an occupation to craftsmanship status. Co- nant ( 1963) thought that the physical education teacher should be classed with the teacher of shop. Glasser's (1969) gymnastics teacher also is the school janitor. Unfortunately, the pub- lic image of our field as a craft already is well formulated, and sadly, it is an apt stereotype that we show little sign of attempting to alter.

This image will be difficult to change because, for so long, physical education

Toward a Profession, N o t a Craf t 93

students merely have been trained in a curriculum dictated by what goes on in the public school. This training has centered about the mastery of tech- niques for teaching others how to be- come skilled. However, the mastery of skill, no matter how highly praised, is not an education. One must have some body of knowledge--some kind of conceptual scheme in order to raise oneself above the level of just possess- ing a collection of disjointed facts, opinions, or abilities.

To be educated, or adaptable, one must be able to probe into the princi- ples underlying his code of conduct and way of doing things so as to evalu- ate the practices in light of society's constantly changing needs. To be able to do this, the profession must recog- nize and encourage the formulation of a subject matter field that may be only incidentally basic to its presently estab- lished professional practices. It also must increase the opportunity for scholarly input into its programs of study. This necessarily means severing connections and dependence upon edu- cation as a rationale for the existence of a course of study in the university and a substitution of concentration upon the phenomenon of study. No doubt, this is a threatening step for many to take. From the professional standpoint, however, survival and com- petency dictate the necessity for change.

There comes a critical time in the life of all organizations and institutions when the need to undergo sudden and extensive change is apparent. The need often is sudden and extensive because

organizations tend to resist change for extended periods, only to find them- selves facing a sizeable gap between ca- pacity and expectations that wilI not narrow. physical education now has ar- rived at that point. A previous gen- eration of education special- ists did not-see the need to organize a subject area basic to their professional practice. They were adequately pre- pared to meet the needs o f a society in their day. But the physical education of the future, operating in an educa- tionally, intellectually, and technologi- cally advanced super-society, will have to accelerate progress toward a more complete understanding of itself. Only in that way will it be possible to re- spond as a profession to a society which will tolerate no less.

REFERENCES Conant, J. B. The education of American

teachers. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. Glasser, W. Schools without failure. New

York: Harp-r and Row, 1969. Harries-Jenkins, A. Professionals in orga-

nizations. In J . A. Jackson (Ed.), Profes- sions and professionalization. Cambridge: The University Press (1970), 53-107.

Henry, F. M. Physical education: An aca- demic discipline. JOHPER, 1964, 35, 32-33.

Jackson, J. A. Professions and Professional- ization. Cambridge: The University Press, 1970.

Kroll, W. P. Perspectives in physical educa- tion. New York: Academic Press, 1971.

Leggatt, T. Teaching as a profession. In J. A. Jackson (Ed.), Professions and pro- fessionalization. Cambridge: The Univer- sity Press, 1970.

Turner, C., & Hodge, M. N. Occupations and professions. In J. A. Jackson (Ed.), Professions and professionalization. Cam- bridge: The University Press (19701, 19-50.

Whitehead, A. N. Adventures of ideas. New York: Macmillan Co., 1933.

Weiss, P. Sport a philosophic inquiry. Car- bondale: Southern Illinois University Press (Arcturus Books ed.), 1971.