Developmentally Appropriate Practice: An Esoteric Knowledge Base

In class tonight we talked about Kenneth Strike’s Is Teaching a Profession: How Would We Know? We discussed possible knowledge bases by which the teaching profession could be grounded. I considered two possible knowledge bases.
In our Educational Psychology and Assessment class, we read an article that discusses Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP). It seems to me that this could serve as possible esoteric knowledge on which to base the teaching profession, particularly when referring to an Early Childhood knowledge base. “Developmentally Appropriate practice requires that we consider current, scientific knowledge of children’s development in our consideration of best practice” (Brain Research and Early Childhood Development: A Primer for Developmentally Appropriate Practice, 2005). An early childhood educator would be adept at utilizing this type of knowledge where as a lay person would not. Since it is based in scientific research, it is easier to pinpoint an exact specialty.
Another possibility may be that teachers are experts on how to present subject knowledge to a child in a way in which he can understand it and incorporate it into his current knowledge. A layperson may be able to present knowledge to a child but that does not necessarily mean that the child will understand it let alone learn it and incorporate it.
Considering the amount of knowledge we as teachers must have (especially from the classes we have had at Winthrop) about fundamental issues involving children i.e. brain development, influences of socioeconomic status on a child’s ability to learn, ect., it seems we would be approaching that esoteric knowledge base needed to establish teaching as a profession.