Tracing the Development of Self-Study in Teacher Education Research and Practice

Abstract

In this opening chapter of Section 4, which focuses directly on teacher education, I argue that the evolution and development of teacher education itself have made self-study both necessary and inevitable. Teacher education has been slow to come of age – as a “discipline” and as a domain of research. Within the generally low-status domain of education itself, identifying with a recognized discipline such as history, chemistry, or psychology is often a teacher educator's most direct route to some sense of status. The enterprise of teacher education itself has waited patiently to be noticed. Just as Western societies generally assume that “teaching is easy” because it looked easy to all who remember their own schooling, so it has long been assumed that teacher education – teaching other people how to teach – is “easy.” Preservice teacher education programs are rarely characterized as challenging or demanding, apart from the personally intense and often complex practicum experiences, when the beginning teacher first discoffers that teaching is not as easy as it looks. Although their academic status remains weak and although they are not readily accessible to teachers in schools, teacher education research and practice can meet and interact in self-study. This chapter provides a chronological account of important shifts in perspective with respect to teaching, teacher education, and educational research and practice, with special reference to the appearance of self-study. TS - RIS