A secretary in the classroom

The following article utilizes methods of educational connoisseurship and educational criticism to describe, interpret, appraise, and thematize the videotape of U.S. Secretary of Education, William Bennett teaching Federalist Paper No. 10 to a group of high school students. The aim of this approach to the study of classroom practice is to give the reader a vivid picture of what has transpired, to try to account for what has been described, to appraise the educational significance of what has occurred, and to extract from the particular situation general themes having import for other educational situations. The following article is a vignette, a short sketch. It was written from a videotape, not a “real” classroom. Nevertheless, it attempts to portray the qualities, significance, and educational meaning of the lesson.