Freedom and constraint in teacher education: Reflections on experiences over time

Abstract

Teacher education programs in Australia increasingly comply with new and narrowing accountabilities so that they can be approved by diverse regulatory authorities and accredited. This is an auto-biographical narrative study which draws upon the memories of a teacher educator who contrasts her experience of learning to teach in the early 1980s with her recent experience as a Program Leader working with colleagues to design a new Master of Teaching program. She interviews Professor Bernie Neville who was responsible for the design and implementation of the teacher education program she completed in 1983. He reflects on the principles guiding his practice at a time when greater freedoms were possible. She contrasts this with an interview her colleagues conducted with her during the program accreditation phase and highlights tensions in the current process of program design related to an increasing performance-orientation, greater levels of compliance, and managing an over-crowded curriculum.