CHALLENGING TEACHER-EDUCATION AS TRAINING - 4 PROPOSITIONS

The authors examine two trends of thought central to much of the curre nt discussion on the reform of teacher education: (1) Increasing the t ime certification students spend in schools and assessing their perfor mance in relation to a predetermined list of desirable teaching skills ; and (2) Developing preservice programs that require students to conf orm to a model of good teaching derived from 'objective' empirical res earch. While these trends differ in significant ways, the authors argu e that both are inherently conservative, supporting the long standing training orientation where the technical aspects of teaching are separ ated from educational aims and purposes. To reform teacher education, the authors argue, requires challenges to the assumptions of training. To begin to do so, they present four propositions that in their view will make teacher education more educative: preservice teacher educati on must be joined to inservice programs; work contexts need to be care fully studied and criticized; teacher education must clarify and criti que the personal theories perspective teachers bring with them; and re flection, especially on the aims and purposes of education and schooli ng, needs to become a central part of teacher education.