Validating Teacher Performativity through Lifelong School-University Collaboration

Abstract

The main point of this article is that more credence should be given in teacher education to performative dimensions of teaching. I agree with David Carr (1999) that the requisite capabilities are probably best learned in actual schools. I employ Turnbull’s (2000) conception of performativity, which speaks of tacit cultural learning. Following Wilfred Carr (1987) I go back to Aristotle, and to debate between Gadamer and Habermas, before arriving at the view that expert teaching practice should be in the spirit of phronesis. The article then proposes that school-university collaboration should be the standard motif of teacher preparation, the context within which the spirit of phronesis can be realized and modeled.

Keywords:

• performativity
• Gadamer
• phronesis
• school-university collaboration
• life-long teacher education
• Habermas