REKINDLING THE SPARK - TEACHERS EXPERIENCES OF ACCELERATIVE LEARNING

SEVERAL teacher training packages called 'Accelerative Learning' (AL) have recently attracted widespread support among teachers in Australia n schools. AL purports to expound a 'brain theory', covering various ' learning styles'. This project investigated the experience of teachers who were attracted by AL. The authors surveyed AL texts, conducted pa rticipant observation in AL training, and interviewed AL proponents in cluding 24 teachers at three Western Sydney secondary schools. We foun d a sense of revitalisation for teachers undertaking AL. While the bra in theory of AL resonates with teachers' 'scientific' training, its fo rmulaic solutions deal with the craft aspect of teaching. Teachers are seeking immediately practical solutions to the crisis they are experi encing with intensification of their work. Appearing to 'cater to' lea rners overlooked in 'conventional' teaching, AL's formulas fix differe nces in cultures of learning into individual, biological ones - reinfo rcing social inequalities. Nevertheless an important grain of good sen se can be identified in teachers' common sense of AL, in its returning of schools' attention to pedagogy.