Category: Teacher Education
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Teaching observations
“Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.” (Keats) Teaching, by definition, is an activity that is observed, (McMahon, Barrett and O’Neill,2007), and during my career as an initial teacher educator and CELTA trainer I have probably observed literally thousands of hours of teaching practice. Teaching is inherently a very personal activity, since classroom decisions…
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Are teacher educators the ‘ragged-trousered philanthropists’ of the academy?
In their 2015 book ‘Transforming Teacher Education: Reconfiguring the Academic Work’, Viv Ellis and Jane McNicholl describe a process of ‘proletarianisation’ in which the exchange value of teacher educators’ labours (their academic capital) has declined over time. This, they say, is limiting the potential to contribute new ideas and innovations to schools and the wider…