Redefining Teacher Development (Teachers, Teaching and Learning)

✍ Scribed by Jonathan Neufeld

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 231
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Has any occupational group been the subject of as much research as elementary or primary school teachers? Written by a former elementary school teacher, this intensive study considers how the foundations of the ongoing teacher reform movement have appealed to researchers through its successive stages. By tracing these ideas back to their historical roots, Jonathan Neufeld illustrates how they actually descend from the physical and biological sciences rather than from student/teacher relationships. Neufeld’s in-depth analysis of economic trends during the 20th century shows how economic and educational reforms are closely related. He demonstrates how the century-long movement to develop teachers became obsessed with turning them into soldiers of a failing economy. This book rewrites the existing foundations and outlines a future direction that will excite researchers and practitioners alike. It introduces alternative theoretical foundations and propositions to inspire innovative discussions about teachers’ continuing educational development and what it could mean to teach children in classrooms. Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1982, "teacher development" has become a universal term, used to express an international movement to professionalize teachers. But imagine if the foundations of this research had little to do with life in the classroom. How would we then begin to discover what "development" means to practising teachers? Redefining Teacher Development will appeal to researchers in teacher instruction and development, as well as practising teachers with an interest in how research has conceptualised their field.

✦ Table of Contents

Redefining Teacher Development......Page 1
Contents......Page 5
Preface and acknowledgements......Page 10
Part 1. Defining teacher development......Page 14
1. The sociology of the school......Page 16
2. The life of classrooms......Page 29
3. Schoolteacher......Page 46
Part II. Teacher development, consciousness, and thought......Page 66
4. Development......Page 68
5. Purpose, trust, and educational development......Page 87
6. The science of teacher thinking......Page 103
Part III. The economics and narratives of teacher knowledge......Page 130
7. Economics of educational reform......Page 132
8. Sociology, classrooms, and economics as war......Page 150
9. Of narratives and knowledge......Page 170
Conclusion. Teaching, learning, and the spirit of the future......Page 194
10. Redefining teacher development......Page 195
Notes......Page 220
Bibliography......Page 222
Index......Page 227