The trouble with dispositions: a critical examination of personal beliefs, professional commitments and actual conduct in teacher education

Abstract

In this article, I argue that the concept of disposition is often unclear in teacher education programs, sometimes referring to general personal values and beliefs, and sometimes referring to professional commitments and actions. As a result, it is unclear whether teacher education programs should focus on selecting the right kind of person, or on educating the student for a profession. I suggest that a clearer distinction should be made between predispositions (value commitments that a person may or may not act upon) and professional dispositions (characteristics attributed to a person based on actually observed actions), and that teacher education programs should focus their attention on the latter, not the former. The question is not whether student-teachers have the ‘right’ personal beliefs but whether, if the dispositions required by the profession are at odds with their personal beliefs, the former will override the latter.

Keywords:

• teaching disposition
• belief
• predisposition
• teacher education

Notes

1. Some teacher education programs prefer the term ‘teacher-candidates’ for students or candidates in pre-service teacher education programs. In this essay I will use the term ‘student-teachers’.

2. Indeed in much earlier (fourteenth-century) literature, ‘disposition’ was used to designate ‘the nature or constitution of a planet or sign, in relation to its alleged influence or effects’, such as in Chaucer's line ‘Mercurie loueth wysdam and science, And Venus loueth ryot and dispence’ (Mercury loves wisdom and science, And Venus loves but pleasure and expense).

3. I am leaving aside here a discussion of another term used frequently in teacher education and other professional education: that of ‘competency.’

4. As the 2004 Kempling case in B.C. illustrates, expectations about a teacher's conduct extend to conduct outside of the classroom (Kempling v. The British Columbia College of Teachers).