Cultivating Virtue in Teaching: The Role of the Personal, the Professional, and the Situational

Abstract

It has been argued that virtuous teaching dispositions are essential to high-quality teaching. Discourse around dispositions, however, is still murky because there are contradictions in the field in regard to the issue of virtue. What is the source of teacher virtue, and how might it be cultivated? This essay explores evidence and implications for three possible sources of teacher virtue: the teacher's personality, the teaching profession, and the teacher's situational context.

Key words:

• Dispositions
• professional development
• teacher education
• virtue