pedagogy ofliteracyteacher education. What do beginning teachers need to know
if they are to teach well? What are some teaching strategies LTEs could use in their
literacy courses? Induction courses for new teacher educators and ongoing inservice
for experienced LTEs could be places to discuss the four spheres of knowledge,
including sharing course syllabi, discussing goals for courses, pedagogies, and
assignments. Both a university forum for LTEs and cross-university forums would
provide places for these discussions and learning. Social media might be useful
such as the website (https://literacyteaching.net/) devoted to literacy teacher edu-
cators where issues are discussed, course syllabi are shared, and researchfindings
are disseminated which may lead to a community of LTEs.
A glaring oversight in governmental approaches to teacher education seems to
be the complete dismissal of the importance of teacher educators getting to know
their student teachers and in building a strong community. The 28 LTEs truly
believed that knowing their student teachers well was essential as shown on
Fig.9.4: Hold Dear to Your Heart. This less tangible goal has potentially huge
benefits: student teachers have a sense of belonging which may increase their
learning, issues that are genuinely important to the student teachers are addressed,
and the LTEs’personalized approach provide a model for them as future teachers.
Trying to teach a generic literacy methods course as many governments advocate
while ignoring the interpersonal aspect of teaching is folly!
These 28 LTEs had a clear view of effective literacy teaching but this has
collided with the government’s view that literacy teaching be narrowed to phonics
and grammar and assessment done by standardized tests. The government’s belief
that teaching is a craft learned through apprenticeship in schools downplays the
importance of the academic program, while the LTEs still conceptualized teaching
as an intellectual and reflective endeavour with a role for higher education. As a
result many were having tremendous difficulty reconciling government directives
with their priorities which were based on their research and experiences. Knowing
that their student teachers will be going into schools where the curriculum is
mandated to what extent do they prepare them to teach in the way the government
advocates? This was a conundrum faced by many with no easy answer.
The sheer number of policy briefs and initiatives were troublesome because they
were often contradictory with insufficient time to implement them. With surveil-
lance of programs and mandated content for teacher education courses, there were
fewer and fewer“places”for teacher educators to have“important”discussions
with student teachers. The sheer ingenuity of these LTEs to carve out space in their
course for these important discussions was impressive; however, it was demanding
and difficult. Although the situation is discouraging, LTEs need to continue to try to
engage with government officials and policy developers so their voices are heard
and their research is used as a basis for policy development. Their knowledge of
teacher education and of literacy education is essential if we are to improve literacy
instruction at both preservice and school levels.
Surveillance by governments is affecting LTEs’views of themselves as auton-
omous and informed academics. Having to“teach to the national curriculum”
erodes their independence with some seeing themselves as pawns for the
9 You Teach Who You Are Until the Government Comes to Class... 149