Reflections on the Field‪.‬

I began my career in special education in the 1960s. If I had tried at any time in that era to predict the status of the field in the early 21st century, I would have missed by a mile. I would have missed by a mile even 20 years ago. I thought things would be better than they are today. So, yes, I'm disappointed about certain things. Still, I haven't given up hope that things will get better eventually. Many younger people in the field are committed to ideas and values that I think are important, and they're very smart, too. They aren't going to let good ideas die. I'll mention six ideasand ideas are always related to moral values-about which I'm disappointed but still have hope. First, I thought that the scientific base of special education practice would be almost universally acknowledged by now and that it would be stronger than it is today. Instead, I see erosion of the scientific view in favor of radical doubt in everything except, of course, radical doubt about the reasonableness of radical doubt. There seems to be no doubt among postmodernists that science has no particular value in education. I've discussed my opinions on this matter in previous publications (e.g., Kauffman, 1999b, 2002). I think our choices are misrepresented by proponents of postmodernism. We need and can have both science and values. It makes no sense to me to suggest that we have to choose one over the other. I think science can help us understand what works best to accomplish a given objective. Therefore, it helps us understand how to get what we value. Without science we don't know how to do what we should. Postmodernism might therefore be considered caring that doesn't really matter. As one psychologist critic of postmodernism put it, "All it can offer, by its own admission, is word games-word games that lead nowhere and achieve nothing. Like anthrax of the intellect, if allowed into mainstream psychology, postmodernism will poison the field" (Locke, 2002, p. 458). Sasso (2001) aptly described postmodernism as a retreat from knowledge, and I think this retreat leads us directly into careless posturing and opens the door wide to some very destructive ideologies (see also Krueger, 2002; Kruger, 2002; Locke, 2002). But younger colleagues who see the value of science give me hope (see Crockett, 2001)