Necessary Competencies to Bridge the Gap between Educational Theory and Practice; an Explanation Based of Islamic Theosophy

Teachers and educators often concern about how they can benefit from their theoretical knowledge (which is usually general and situation-independent) in practical and real situations and have a sound decision about what to do specifically? In modern educational thought, some thinkers have introduced a mediating field of knowledge or proposed practical guidelines to overcome this gap, some educators have emphasized some personal traits of the teacher, while some other have less attention to this challenge. This research tries to formulate the necessary competencies which a teacher needs to move from theory to practice by analyzing the views of Muslim philosophers on some philosophical issues such as the classification and stratification of knowledge/science, human praxis and its preliminaries, practical intellect and practical characters. According to the findings, beside to some categories of general knowledge, competencies such as practical experience, tarawwi (i.e. the ability to ponder upon a particular practical situation), moral and professional characters and taqwaa (piety) are also needed in this regard. What fills the gap between educational theory (which is always conceptual and general) and educational practice (i.e. to recognize what to do in a specific situation) is a personality who has these competencies.