1st Edition
Teacher Education through Active Engagement Raising the professional voice
Teacher Education through Active Engagement identifies and addresses a contemporary issue: the ways in which teaching and teacher education are articulated by politicians, civil servants, business leaders and educational entrepreneurs intent on profit-making in the current global neoliberal policy context. This is often characterised by narrow and ill-conceived ideas about teacher characteristics and competences; recruiting and fast-tracking graduates from elsewhere into the profession; the reform of teacher training with less emphasis on theory and academic study; a narrow focus on teachers’ core skills; and the promotion of training in model ‘teaching schools’.
In this book contributors challenge this conceptualisation and demonstrate practitioners’ necessary intellectual activity to wrest back professional control. By drawing on practice-focused research carried out in sites of educational policy and practice, each chapter exemplifies for teachers, student teachers and teacher educators the sort of ‘knowledge work’ to coordinate a professional reply to non-educationalists who dictate the terms of teaching and teacher education. The book provides directions for encouraging critical thinking, analytical skills and political activism, which consider the needs and interests of diverse children and young people in real classrooms, real schools and real communities.
Illustrated throughout with practice-focused research and drawing on the historical case of Winifred Mercier and her colleagues at the City of Leeds training college who challenged the establishment to leave a legacy of professional control, the book will appeal to practitioners, academics and researchers in the fields of teacher education and education studies.
Foreword Stephen J. Ball Part 1: The Politics of Teaching and Teacher Education Power Struggles Over Teacher Qualifications Lori Beckett. RAISEonline, Half-Truths and Other Fictions about Attainment Gaps Jon E. C. Tan Part 2: Aspects of the New Policy Landscape 'Someone to Watch Over Me’: Observations and Scrutiny in the Classroom Joanne Pearson and Nick Mitchell. Moulding or Shaping? The Role of the Teacher Mentor in the Preparation of New Teachers Helen Mitchell. (Disturbing) New School-University Partnerships d’Reen Struthers Part 3: Curriculum, Pedagogies and Assessment Teaching the Teachers: Contesting the Curriculum Kate Hoskins and Meg Maguire. Where is Pedagogy in Teaching and Teacher Education? The Production of Pre-Fabricated Teachers Martin Mills and Jane Mitchell. The Thorny Issue of Assessment Jonathan Doherty Part 4: What Matters? The Challenge for Policy and Practice The Standards Cage: A Contradictory Politics of Control Jo-Anne Reid and Marie Brennan. Regimes of Control and Teacher Educators’ Janus Face? Ciaran Sugrue. The Struggle for Social Justice: A Focus on Students in Poverty Shereen Benjamin and Terry Wrigley Part 5: Practioners Reply STOP! Cloning Teachers as Stepford Wives Nikie Arthurs. Teachers' Politicisation Baljeet Ghale and Lori Beckett. Afterword Melissa Benn.
Biography
Lori Beckett is the Winifred Mercier Professor of Teacher Education at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Initially trained as a health and physical education teacher, Lori has worked in the field of education for more than 30 years, in schools, in the public education lobby and in teacher education in Australia and England.
