Professional knowledge is messy and encompasses a range of categories (Markauskaite and Goodyear, 2014). Furlong and Whitty (2017: 13) identify three categories of “knowledge traditions” for educators which can arguably be applied to teacher education – academic, integrative, and practical. It is feasible that teacher educators will draw on all three of these categories to different extents at various times in their practice. In this post I identify three tensions between these categories that I experienced as a ‘novice teacher educator’ in the hope that this will be helpful for others transitioning from ‘expert classroom teacher’ to ‘novice teacher educator’.
One of the tensions in my knowledge base as a ‘novice teacher educator’ was the value placed on tacit practical knowledge in both my practice and the developing practice of the students I taught. Schulman (1987) and Schön (1983) both describe expert educators as ordinarily being unable to articulate what they intuitively do and why they do it. Schön (1983) does not consider there to be a need for intuitive knowledge to be fully articulated however others indicate a concern that this lack of articulation can harm how such professionals are perceived by its implication that there is nothing to be known (Labaree, 2017, Shulman, 1987). This can lead to political questions about the difference academic knowledge makes to teaching (Furlong and Whitty, 2017) and to the rise of non-professional, alternative routes into teaching that exclude Higher Education Institutions (Hargreaves, 2000) such as Teach First. For me as a ‘novice teacher educator’ there was perhaps a hypocrisy here. This hypocrisy, involved me initially relying heavily on my practical experience as a classroom teacher and the tacit practical knowledge that brought, whilst at the same time resisting the move of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) out of the university domain in which I was becoming established. Shulman is a familiar author on many ITE courses with programmes drawing on the knowledge base for teaching which he describes e.g. pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987). The sources of this knowledge base are in part academic (e.g. content knowledge) but also in part tacit. Shulman (1987: 11) describes the latter as “the maxims which guide able teachers”. Arguably these are the same maxims which guide teacher educators giving some legitimacy to the tacit knowledge on which ‘novice teacher educators’ initially draw.
A second tension that I experienced (which was closely related to the first) was the commonly perceived separation of academic and practical knowledge. This according to Labaree (2017) is a global tension in ITE. Schön (1983) draws a clear distinction between theorists and practitioners which Eraut in Markauskaite and Goodyear (2014) rebuts, arguing that professional education should support the interpretation and personalisation of theory into practice. Aligning with this, Brookfield (2017) argues that the place of theory is to help educators understand what they do and think. Dewey, in his middle works, posits that ITE should incorporate a well-grounded underpinning in theory (Dewey and Boydston, 1976). Eventually, this leads, through the application of theory, to a good teacher who knows not only what works but is also able to articulate the how and why underpinning their actions. Without such an underpinning all that a good teacher can do is refine and perpetuate the status quo without the ability to effect significant educational change (Dewey and Boydston, 1976). Such an ability to effect significant educational change is a powerful reason for ‘novice teacher educators’ to ensure the inclusion and application of theory in ITE courses.
The third tension that I experienced fed into the perceived gap between academic and practical knowledge (Vanderlinde and van Braak, 2009) and was associated with the rise of “the new science of education” (Furlong and Whitty, 2017: 28) during my career as a classroom teacher. They suggest that this form of academic knowledge is also referred to as ‘what works’ and often focuses on random control trials and meta-analyses’ which produce recommendations for the practice of educators. This is the form of academic knowledge on which many classroom teachers draw. Published examples of this knowledge are Black and Wiliam’s (1998) work on formative assessment, ‘Inside the black box’ and Hattie’s meta-analysis work in ‘Visible learning’ (2009). In ITE a reliance on the recommendations from this form of academic knowledge feeds into the development of what Hargreaves’ (2000) identifies as de-professionalised amateur post-modern professional, who follow instruction without questioning why or to what end. Although a focus in ITE on ‘what works’ research may appear to lead to immediate skill development, as Dewey identifies (Dewey and Boydston, 1976), this is likely at the cost of the ability to continue to improve and leads to a reliance on being told what to do. Additionally, although such academic knowledge is popular with governments and schools it however privileges technical knowledge and in doing so reduces the scope of professional judgements of educators (Furlong and Whitty, 2017). These judgments may well be concerning the purposes and values of education itself. For example, Biesta (2015) criticises this type of academic research for failing to ask what purposes the recommendations work for (or do not work). To this we could add: for whom and in which contexts. Aligning with this, Kemmis and Smith (2007) and Sachs (2016) describe such teacher-proof methods as de-moralising practice, separating the educator from making professional judgements about the values underpinning their practice. This broad awareness led me as a ‘novice teacher educator’ to use the ‘what works’ research in my practice with my students after careful examination and in a critically reflective way.
In conclusion then, considering my own experience, there are three potential tensions in the knowledge base of ‘novice teacher educators’ which I believe are valuable for them to take time to explore and consider when becoming teacher educators. These are the tension between tacit practical knowledge and academic knowledge; the perceived separation of these two and the rise of the ‘new science of education’. Grappling with these tensions over time has the potential to help a ‘novice teacher educator ‘move away from being an ‘expert classroom teacher’ towards becoming an ‘expert teacher educator’.
Reference List
- Biesta, G. (2015) ‘What is education for? On good education, teacher judgement, and educational professionalism’, in European journal of education, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 75-87. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12109
- Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998) Inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment, Londin, nferNelson/King’s College London.
- Brookfield, S. (2017) Becoming a critically reflective teacher (2nd edn), San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
- Dewey, J. and Boydston, J. A. (1976) The middle works, 1899-1924, Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press.
- Furlong, J. and Whitty, G. (2017) ‘Knowledge traditions in the study of education’, in J. Furlong and G. Whitty (eds.), Knowledge and the study of education: an international exploration, Oxford, Symposium Books, pp. 13-50.
- Hargreaves, A. (2000) ‘Four ages of teacher professionalism and professional learning’, in Teachers and teaching, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 151 – 182. https://doi.org/10.1080/713698714
- Hattie, J. (2009) Visible learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, London, Routledge.
- Kemmis, S. and Smith, T. J. (2007) ‘Conclusions and challenges’, in S. Kemmis and T.J. Smith (eds.), Enabling praxis: challenges for education, Rotterdam, Sense Publishers, pp. 263-286.
- Labaree, D. F. (2017) ‘Futures in the field of education’, in J. Furlong and G. Whitty (eds.), Knowledge and the study of education: an international exploration, Oxford, Symposium Books, pp. 277-283.
- Markauskaite, L. and Goodyear, P. (2014) Professional work and knowledge, in S. Billett, C. Harteis and H. Gruber (eds.), International handbook of research in professional and practice-based learning, Dordrecht, Springer, pp.79-106.
- Sachs, J. (2016) ‘Teacher professionalism: why are we still talking about it?’, in Teachers and teaching, theory and practice, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 413-425. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1082732
- Schön, D. A. (1983) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action, New York, Basic Books.
- Shulman, L. S. (1987) ‘Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform’, in Harvard educational review, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.57.1.j463w79r56455411
- Vanderlinde, R. and van Braak, J. (2009) ‘The gap between educational research and practice: views of teachers, school leaders, intermediaries and researchers’, British Educational Research Journal, 36(2), pp. 299–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920902919257