Teaching about Teaching: Purpose, Passion and Pedagogy in Teacher Education

Abstract

In these times, it is much in vogue to speak of silenced voices. The reference is typically to the voices of teachers, women, children, or members of minority groups. It also applies to the voices of teacher educators. We hear the voices of university researchers, of law makers, and of policy analysts, speaking about what teacher educators do or fail to do, but we do not often hear the voices of teacher educators themselves. This book begins the remedy for lopsided talk about teacher education. In the chapters that follow, you will ‘hear’ teacher educators discussing their own work. They describe their aspirations for the teachers they teach, their methods for realizing these aspirations, the concepts and theories that ground these methods, and the tribulations and triumphs encountered in the course of their work. These are remarkable essays, for they are at once intellectually engaging and refreshingly personal. This duality of thoughtful abstraction and personal experience permits the reader who has taught teachers to both identify with and learn from the authors. These chapters can be read for profit and for pleasure, a treat too often absent from academic literature.