Developing an understanding of teacher education

Abstract

Teacher education is a field of study that has increasingly come under scrutiny in recent times as the expectations for the teaching workforce and the hopes for advancement in school learning are so often tied to the perceived 'quality' of initial teacher education. It could reasonably be argued that such attribution is as a consequence of a particular conception of teaching and learning that ostensibly portrays them as existing in a direct 'cause and effect' short-term, immediately measureable, linear relationship. As a consequence, although perhaps not always stated as such, telling as teaching and listening as learning (Loughran JJ, What expert teachers do: Teachers' professional knowledge of classroom practice. Allen & Unwin/Routledge, Sydney/London, 2010) persist. As a consequence, school teaching and learning is simplistically portrayed as a 'banking model' (Freire P, Pedagogy of the oppressed. Herder & Herder, New York, 1972), through which 'rate of return' and 'substantive interest' are linked to curriculum certainty delivered through transmissive teaching approaches (Barnes D, From communication to curriculum. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1976) designed to mitigate variability. Not only does such a situation cloud the reality of the nature of schooling but it also leads to confusion about that which is reasonable to expect of pre-service teacher education.