Missing voices and possible dialogues: problems and possibilities for teacher education

ABSTRACT

Teacher education exists today in a context of rapid globalization, which affects the systems in which future teachers will work, the governance of teachers’ work, the students teachers will be teaching, as well as the policies, programs, curricula and students in teacher education itself. Several ideas recently have gained traction internationally and are shaping the working landscape of teaching and teacher education in many countries. This essay critically examines the circulation of what appear to be a small set of ‘core’ ideas that are influencing national and institutional policies of teacher education. I explore the emergence of new players in teacher education internationally, including individuals, corporations, and international bodies. Using policy documents, influential research studies, university program statements, and interviews, the essay provides a discursive analysis of the contradictory voices in what is becoming a global conversation of teacher education. In many ways, these ideas marginalize the voices of teachers and teacher educators. They tend to narrow the definitions of education and teaching. As a counterpoint to these widely circulating arguments, I explore how reciprocal teacher education exchange programs in China and the US create opportunities for alternative constructions of visions of teaching and teacher learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Globalization
• reciprocal learning
• international
• OECD
• 21st century
• global competence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Craig (2016) explains that the ‘structure of teacher education is the foundation on which teacher education programmes are formed’ (p. 72). Her international review demonstrates how ‘Globally, the structure of contemporary teacher education differs by country and/or state/province/region and/or setting’ (p. 72). The finding by Gopinathan et al. (2008) about global pressures on teacher education in all contexts is all the more noteworthy.

2. Their claim that ‘the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers’ (Barber & Mourshed, 2007, p. 13) has become a mantra that justifies the growing attention worldwide to reforming teacher education.

3. La Londe et al. (2015) note how the work of Teach for All represents that of an international intermediary organization network (ION) ‘engaged in corporate education reform on a global scale. Operating in “localized policy communities,” IOs often include a range of lobbyists, think tanks, foundations, researchers, and media actors’ (p. 3). Such an actor represents a significant shift from traditional university, professional associations, and government stakeholders engaged in teacher education.

4. See as an example the IEA’s pioneering TEDS-M study, the first international study of teacher education that used nationally representative samples to produce descriptions of teacher education policy contexts and curricula as well as assessment of learning outcomes of teacher candidates (Tatto et al., 2012).

5. See Popkewitz (2012) for a thoughtful analysis of how numbers come to serve as a form of sensemaking in education.

6. In countries as diverse as Cambodia (Courtney, 2017) and the US (Zeichner, 2018), we see abundant examples of how a managerial order heavily influences the actions surrounding teacher education.

7. NCEE hosted a series of webinars. As an example of one dealing with teacher preparation, see http://ncee.org/2017/08/selecting-and-preparing-quality-teachers-lessons-from-empowered-educators/

8. Scholars have critiqued the term 21st century skills as ‘meaningless’ and argued that the list of such skills is often ‘vague’, ‘confusing’ or ‘misleading’ (Silva, 2009)

9. Takayama (2013) critiques these ongoing discussions on various grounds, including the tendency to privilege formal, school learning as the site for the development of such competencies.

10. Rönnström (2015) argues that ‘Policy makers in education worldwide seem to imagine themselves forced to respond adequately to a global economy that has made knowledge, competition and lifelong learning essential for economic growth. Teacher education, the work of teachers and the attractiveness of teaching are held to be vital in this global reform wave. Policy makers worldwide also seem to imagine that the competitive edge of a nation and the quality in education more or less stand or fall with the qualifications of teachers’ (p. 733). While he explores this in the context of Swedish teacher education, educational competitiveness as a motivating theme is prominent in many countries’ policy discourses (see, for example, Tucker & National Center on Education and the Economy, 2011).

11. While there are now studies in business and psychology which challenge the value of open-plan models for collaborative work, there does not at this time appear to be any challenge to the argument that the new economy prizes collaborative skills. https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithflamer/2017/12/31/future-of-open-office-space-is-chill/#42e7ef562b0f; Bernstein and Turban 2018 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239

12. For more information on the OECD plan, see http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2018-global-competence.htm. At least in the first round, the US is not participating.

13. While there has been a pause since then, the goal to continue reciprocal programs has remained, with a graduate level education MSU-BNU exchange in 2018 and plans for an expanded version of this kind of undergraduate exchange underway.

14. All program participant names included here are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lynn Webster Paine

Lynn Webster Paine is Professor of Teacher Education and Associate Dean for International Studies in the College of Education at Michigan State University. She studies policies and practices of teacher learning comparatively, focusing on preservice teacher education, induction and practice-based professional development. Her current research explores the ways in which globally circulating ideas are shifting the landscape and the stakeholders in teacher education debates and reform.