On November 1st, Professor Thomas S. Popkewitz, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, was invited to give a lecture titled the impracticality of Practical Knowledge in Educational Research for students and teachers of the College of Education, Zhejiang University. As a leading scholar in the field of curriculum study, discourse analysis and teacher education, Professor Popkewitz started the lecture with the problem of change which has haunted the humanities since its institutionalization at the turn of 20th century. Based on his deep thinking about the history of educational development, Professor Popkewitz considered how students are cultured in schools along with the development of pedagogical sciences, showing some examples from oil-paintings, classic books and photographs. Three limits of traditional school planning were pointed out. One was that the making of people is based on practices that exclude the impulse to include. Second and paradoxically, were that the principles for creating the future conserve rather than challenge existing frameworks that govern the present. Third, the expertise of designing people is concerned with effects of power that produce a hierarchy and also inequality. These thoughts earned a warm welcome from the audience and aroused students to think about similar questions facing China. Some students commented on professor Popkewitz’ s brilliant lecture and others came up with problems which are haunting Chinese education and educational research. Professor Popkewitz interacted with students and teachers and responded to all the questions. At the end of the lecture, Professor Zhang Wenjun, the director of the Institute of Curriculum and Instruction, gave a gift to professor Popkewitz in appreciation of his lecture.