Conditions for learning as a teacher

Abstract

Teachers learn to be teachers. The process is most intense and explicit in the early years of teaching, but continues throughout a teacher's career. Educational reform programmes, school strategies for staff development and individual plans for professional development are based upon views about the conditions, which optimise teachers' learning. This article outlines two complementary accounts that analyse the conditions: Peter Ashworth's work on adult learning as participatory hermeneutics and the authors' own work on active professional location. These accounts are used to examine the conditions for teachers' learning provided in educational reforms at national level, through professional associations and in schools. Examples from the United Kingdom and other countries are analysed, including the model of learning underpinning current government policy in England.