Being Prepared to Become a Moral Teacher: UK Teachers’ Experiences of Initial Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

Initial teacher education (ITE) often leaves teachers underprepared for becoming moral teachers. This paper draws upon two UK studies of student teachers, newly qualified teachers and experienced teachers (n = 254) to find out (1) what they think is involved in being a moral teacher (2), how they think that their ITE had prepared them to become a moral teacher, and (3) what recommendations they have for improving ITE. Findings show that acting on moral reasons was often difficult, partly because ITE focused mainly on mastering subject specific content. The importance of acquiring more life and teaching experience was emphasised, and we recommend how teachers can be stimulated to develop as moral teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral teacher
• initial teacher education
• practical wisdom
• character education
• virtue ethics

Acknowledgments

This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (number 39663). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. We thank our former colleagues from the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the Univeristy of Birmingham for their contributions to this project and Kristjan Kristjánsson and Doret de Ruyter for their encouragements and suggestions on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 1 Responses from Study 1 are labelled “Tchr #” and from Study 2 interviews “# Beg Stdt” (Beginning student), “# NQT” (Newly Qualified Teacher), “# Exp Tchr” (Experienced Teacher) or “# Tchr Ed” (Educator) as appropriate.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the John Templeton Foundation [grant number 39663].