Teacher education

Teacher education refers to the policies and procedures designed to equip teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the school and classroom. In early times, teachers were often scholars or clergymen who had no formal training in how to teach the subjects of their expertise. In fact, many believed that "teachers were born, not made." It was not until the emergence of pedagogy, the "art and science of teaching," as an accepted discipline that the training of teachers was considered important.

Although there has been continued debate about whether teaching is a "science" that can be taught or whether one is "born" to be a teacher, it has generally been agreed, at least since the nineteenth century, that certain characteristics are needed to qualify a person as a teacher: knowledge of the subject matter to be taught, knowledge of teaching methods, and practical experience in applying both. Most educational programs for teacher's today focus upon these points.

Overview

A primary school teacher in northern Laos

In education, teachers facilitate student learning. The objective is typically accomplished through either an informal or formal approach to learning, including a course of study and lesson plan that teaches skills, knowledge and/or thinking skills. When deciding what teaching method to use teachers consider students' background knowledge, environment, and their learning goals as well as standardized curricula as determined by the relevant authority. A teacher may interact with students of different ages, from infants to adults, students with different abilities and students with learning disabilities. Hence, teaching is a complexly important job, which is why prospective educators are mandated to have degrees in general education, subject specific education and/or specialized education; many countries also require teachers to be licensed. Beyond legislative dictum, many scholars and academics for over one hundred years have believed that a person must be rigorously trained and educated in methods and skills that eventually make him or her an effective teacher.

History

The debate over the most effective teaching methods and the history of teacher's education are closely intertwined as educating teacher's began from the belief that it was the best way to create effective educators. Before a systematic method of educating teacher's was created, many teachers used didactic methods; lectures, memorization and the testing of a student's knowledge retention were fundamental aspects of education for thousands of years. While this method was effective in producing many brilliant scholars, it did not take into account different methods of learning nor was it easily adaptable to differing cultural and societal situations. In the early 16th century, the pedagogy movement, started to change to way education was believed delivered to pupils. Such educational innovators as the Jesuits, Comenius and Jean-Jacques Rousseau helped to develop educational models that were more practical, adaptable and more student-perspective based.

While the pedagogy movement was helping to re-shape how teacher's taught, educating teacher's started to become a formalized movement around 1684, when Saint John-Baptiste de la Salle, founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and a great educational reformer, established what is generally considered the first teacher's educational school in Reims, France. This was an institution in which young men were trained in the principles and practices of a new method of teaching, adaptable to the youth in every country.

The French concept of an "école normale" was to provide a model school with model classrooms to teach standard teaching practices to its student teachers. The children, the teachers of the children, the student teachers, and the teachers of the students were all housed together in the same building.

Normal schools, as they were starting to be called in this time, spread throughout Europe. In the early 1700s August Hermann Francke organized a teachers' class at Halle to train the teachers for his orphans who received education in what came to be known as the Franckesche Stiftungen. A student of Francke, Johann Julius Hecker, opened the first school for the training of teachers in Berlin in 1748. Normal schools were generally only for men in Europe for many years, as men were viewed as having more intellectual capacity to be scholars than women. This changed during the nineteenth century, when women became more popular as private tutors than men.

By the late 19th century, almost every country had some form of a normal school, as the desire to have trained and effective teachers in public and private schools had spread far and wide. During the first half of the twentieth century, teacher specialization became a frequent occurrence: as Special education became more frequent in schools, (and eventually mandated by law in many countries), potential teachers started to learn methods to help effectively educate students with mental, physical and emotional handicaps whose needs had been largely ignored for many years; the emergence of Physical education as a career path; the distinction between the arts for potential educators (in most schools now, Fine arts, Music and Drama are all distinct subjects taught by teacher's who specialize in one of the areas); and the development of education administrators, and college degree paths for such a field, have all diversified the education of new teachers since the mid 20th century.

Educational Structure

Nearly every country in the world now has institutes of higher education that are responsible for the education and training of potential teachers. These institutes can be schools entirely devoted to the education of teachers or colleges/departments of education of a larger university. In most countries they are autonomous and allowed to develop their own curriculum for educating teachers, while meeting legislative requirements for teacher's eventual license, but in certain countries, like China, these schools are state run and therefore all programs of study are approved by the government. Depending on numerous sociological factors, every country has different standards by which teachers are educated. However, most countries follow the same career path for potential teachers:

• initial teacher training / education (a pre-service course before entering the classroom as a fully responsible teacher);

• induction (the process of providing training and support during the first few years of teaching or the first year in a particular school);

• teacher development or continuing professional development (CPD) (an in-service process for practicing teachers).

Curricula

The question of what knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and skills teachers should possess is the subject of much debate in many cultures. Generally, teacher's are educated in certain core areas, each of which can and often are augmented by regional, cultural, societal and even religious perspectives depending upon where the potential teachers are being educated:

• Foundational knowledge and skills;
• Content-area and methods knowledge;
• Practice at classroom teaching or at some other form of educational practice;

Foundational Knowledge and skills

Usually this area is meant to give an understanding to the principles and methodology of education in general. Students are often taught about the philosophy, history, psychology, and sociology of education.

Content-area

This often also including ways of teaching and assessing a specific subject, in which case this area may overlap with the first ("foundational") area. There is increasing debate about this aspect; because it is no longer possible to know in advance what kinds of knowledge and skill pupils will need when they enter adult life, it becomes harder to know what kinds of knowledge and skill teachers should have. Increasingly, emphasis is placed upon 'transversal' or 'horizontal' skills (such as 'learning to learn' or 'social competences', which cut across traditional subject boundaries, and therefore call into question traditional ways of designing the Teacher Education curriculum (and traditional ways of working in the classroom).

Practice at classroom teaching

Usually supervised and supported in some way, though not always. Practice can take the form of field observations, student teaching, or internship. This core area reflects the organization of most teacher education programs in North America (though not necessarily elsewhere in the world)—courses, modules, and other activities are often organized to belong to one of the three major areas of teacher education. The organization makes the programs more rational or logical in structure. The conventional organization has sometimes also been criticized, however, as artificial and unrepresentative of how teachers actually experience their work. Problems of practice frequently (perhaps usually) concern foundational issues, curriculum, and practical knowledge simultaneously, and separating them during teacher education may therefore not be helpful.

External links

• Research on Teacher Education in the Developing World
• Teacher leadership in developing countries
• Teaching Educational Psychology
• Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy
• MOFET ITEC - International Portal of Teacher Education

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