Opening
Donald Schön shifts from critique to construction, arguing that professional schools can bridge the gap between theory and messy real-world problems by centering a Reflective Practicum. He then tests this idea in a live experiment at M.I.T., where an ambitious, integrated curriculum unexpectedly stifles the very student reflection it aims to ignite.
What Happens
Chapter 11: How a Reflective Practicum Can Bridge the Worlds of University and Practice
Schön diagnoses professional schools with a “dual orientation”: they answer to the university’s disciplinary, theoretical mission and to practice’s uncertain, problem-centered demands. He contrasts his vision with Herbert Simon’s faith in Technical Rationality, which proposes a formal science of design. For Schön, that approach cannot handle uncertainty, uniqueness, and value conflict. It risks proceduralizing artistry—replacing judgment with technique. His alternative is to put a Reflective Practicum at the very center of the curriculum, where students learn to think-in-action on indeterminate problems.
He maps the institutional obstacles that block such a shift: the entrenched hierarchy that favors abstract “knowing that” over practical “knowing how,” reinforced by departments, courses, and incentive systems. He adds a contemporary “squeeze play”: a resurgence of technical rationality on one side and shrinking professional autonomy on the other, which combine to narrow the space for Reflection-in-Action. New tools seem to make artistry unnecessary, while regulation, liability, and bureaucracy make it feel impossible.
To ground the squeeze play, Schön sketches three vignettes. A school of education answers legislative mandates for competency testing. A business school is pulled between tradition (case discussions) and quant models. An engineering school elevates engineering science while marginalizing design. From these cases, he reframes the practicum’s design task: it must teach skill and also build live connections between applied science and reflection-in-action; make disciplinary inquiry methods visible as tools for practice; and confront the organizational and political realities practitioners navigate. He closes with practicums tailored to education, business, and engineering that surface tacit theories, highlight value conflicts, and fold reflection on learning into the work itself.
Chapter 12: An Experiment in Curriculum Reform
Schön recounts a reform at M.I.T.’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (1981–1984), a program stuck in the rigor-versus-relevance bind. Student protests against a fragmented, overly theoretical core spark the formation of a faculty–student Core Review Committee. In a collaborative design process, the group settles on a new centerpiece: a studio-like practicum that supplies a shared, real-world context for learning.
The planners—faculty from diverse subfields and committed students—build a first-semester core of three integrated courses (Political Economy, Quantitative Reasoning, Planning Processes) wrapped around a project on a real Boston planning problem. As they design, the faculty themselves experience a kind of practicum: they learn to listen, surface disagreements productively, and discover conceptual connections across their fields. The process builds a lively intellectual community they hadn’t realized they were missing.
Evaluation brings a paradox. While faculty cohesion and cross-field insights flourish, the studio project proves “too demanding” for the time available and becomes the “least successful” element. More troubling, the coherent, tightly integrated design “drives out” student reflection. Overloaded and rushed, many students report having “no time to think,” slipping into passive reception instead of becoming reflective designers of their own education. Schön ends by posing a hard question: can a curriculum be both coherent from the faculty’s perspective and open enough for students to practice genuine reflective agency?
Character Development
Though nonfiction, Chapter 12 frames the M.I.T. Core Committee as a collective protagonist that learns by designing.
- The committee begins amid contention and student grievance, then becomes a cohesive, questioning community.
- Faculty move beyond disciplinary silos, discovering shared problems and complementary tools.
- The group models Learning by Doing and Coaching: they iterate, reflect on process, and refine together.
- Their success as a reflective community starkly contrasts with their struggle to enable the same reflective space for students.
Themes & Symbols
The Reflective Practicum anchors Schön’s solution to professional education’s split. In theory (Chapter 11), it bridges academic rigor and practical relevance by teaching students to frame problems, try moves, and read the situation’s “back talk.” In practice (Chapter 12), it energizes faculty community but proves difficult to implement for students when institutional constraints and course design compress time and autonomy.
Schön’s critique of technical rationality sharpens via the “squeeze play,” where resurging formalism and shrinking autonomy marginalize artistry. The M.I.T. case attempts to counter this with a curriculum that values reflection over technique, but its very coherence risks reproducing the problem by over-structuring student experience. The enduring dilemma of rigor vs. relevance sits at the center: integration can clarify ideas and still suffocate student agency. The M.I.T. experiment becomes a symbol for the book’s argument—an honest, messy test of Reflection-in-Action and the stubborn difficulty of institutional change. It also raises the stakes of Professional Artistry vs. Technical Skill, showing how well-intended designs can inadvertently privilege technique over judgment.
Key Quotes
“The irony is that we put as much time into it as into any other piece of the core and I think in many ways it was the least successful.”
- A faculty member’s candid assessment captures the gap between design intentions and lived outcomes. It models Schön’s ethos of self-critique and frames the studio’s shortfall as data for further reframing rather than a failure to be hidden.
“No time to think.”
- Student feedback crystallizes the central paradox. The integrated, high-speed curriculum overwhelms learners, converting them from active inquirers into passive recipients—the opposite of a reflective practicum’s aim.
The “squeeze play.”
- Schön’s label names the dual pressure—formalism plus reduced autonomy—that pushes artistry out of practice. The phrase becomes a diagnostic tool for understanding why reflective spaces shrink in schools and professions alike.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters function as the book’s culmination. Chapter 11 distills Schön’s theory into a concrete blueprint: center a practicum that teaches thinking-in-action while making disciplinary inquiry visible and politically/organizationally savvy. Chapter 12 stress-tests that blueprint in a real institution, revealing an unsettling truth: coherence and integration can unintentionally suppress student reflection.
By ending with an unresolved dilemma rather than a neat fix, Schön demonstrates reflective practice in action—listening to “back talk,” reframing problems, and acknowledging constraints. The result deepens the book’s credibility and clarifies the challenge ahead: designing professional education that protects time, autonomy, and uncertainty so students can develop genuine professional artistry.