Part I
Becoming a Teacher: Teacher Education
and Professionalism
Introduction
Teaching is no simple matter. It is hard work, part craft, part art, part technique, part
politics, and it takes time to develop ease within such a complex role. However, for many of
us the effort makes sense, for one gets the opportunity to see young people grow while one
has a positive and caring role in their lives.
Kohl (1976),On Teaching,p.13What is a Teacher?
In the twenty-first century the meaning of‘teacher’internationally has settled
around the notion of a person working within schools, with responsibility for the
learning of young people. State education, as it has developed from the late eigh-
teenth century onwards is now recognised as a crucial element in the development
of societies and economies. This has led to the creation of a global occupational
cadre of people sharing a common purpose, that of educating the young, being
teachers.
Historically in the western world and more recently in‘underdeveloped’soci-
eties, the provision of formal education was much more limited in its availability,
being the domain of those with the wealth and/or power to secure it. Even at that
stage, the significance of education as a means of individual improvement was
recognised and this of course continues to be the case to this day. But what hap-
pened during the late eighteenth century in the industrial world and more recently in
the efforts to develop less‘advanced’societies, was that the social and economic
advantages of education came to be acknowledged (not without serious struggle).
Thus we saw the ‘universalisation’ or‘massification’ of education. In many
countries, parallel education systems still operate for the benefit of the social elite
(e.g. the so-called‘public schools’in the United Kingdom) but in nations around
the world we have seen the development of systems for preparing teachers to work