<i>PS: Education might seem like a flaky field and much of the discussions are devoid of good science. At the same time there is a lot of great research that has been which has real and important implications.</i><p>My wife and I were discussing this recently.  She is in an unusual program where she should graduate with both a masters in history and an education certificate with hopes to teach in history at the High School level after that.<p>This is both second hand an anecodatal, but from what she tells me the education courses she takes are less rigorous and generally easier than the history courses.  But the reason for this is that the education course she is taking are vocational. They are trying to teach her how to get teaching done in a modern classroom, not the science behind it.<p>It is akin to learning to the difference between training to be a mechanic and a mechanical engineer.  Both are very hard and important jobs worthy of respect, but they have very different focuses.  The education courses are focused on learning the technique of teaching effective, it looks like most of the research on the theory of effective education is done in departments like psychology, sociology, etc.