collaborative planning, teaching and the evaluation of learning jointly undertaken
by classroom teachers, college tutors and trainee teachers working in teams—
pre-service and in-service education—with the emphasis on theoretically reflexive
school-based experience. (And as I have already noted, the current PGCE courses
are significantly school-based and many Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) still
manage to run imaginative and innovative programmes—or bits of their pro-
grammes that are like this!)
I am not concerned so much with the provision of training schools per se,
although there is much that could be said about this move; but here I want to
consider the manner in which a‘general politics’of truth has been assembled to
support this particular policy. First, there is atechnology of erasure—the erasure of
the work of progressive and reforming teacher educationalists who have in different
times attempted to produce new ways of using school-based experiences to produce
new forms of teacher (and trainee teacher) knowledge. Some work that HEIs have
done in the past and are still engaging in, may be key to a better alternative future.
A paper by Ellis ( 2010 ) argues that we do not have a sufficient understanding of
‘experience’in teacher learning. He argues that ‘fitting in’and ‘tapping into’
classroom practices and school and department cultures may not extend and
develop teacher knowledge. I think this is a fruitful avenue for greater reflection.
Second, there is the normative assertion that underpins the move to school-based
teacher education of teaching as a craft:
Teaching is a craft and it is best learnt as an apprentice observing a master craftsman or
woman. Watching others, and being rigorously observed yourself as you develop, is the
best route to acquiring mastery in the classroom. (Gove 2010 :6)In contrast, teaching is a complex undertaking, where interplay between experience,
research evidence, knowledge of practice elsewhere as well as ethical-moral
decision-making shape what the teacher does. This is far richer, complex and harder
to bring off and while there is no reason why training schools will not be able to do
this, there is a repository of expertise and resources in HEIs that could complement
their work. As always, the devil is in the detail and in the ensuing practices.
However, Gove commented on his reforms that:
Higher education institutions will continue to make a significant and important contribution
to teacher training. But we want schools to play a much bigger role. As employers, schools
should have greater responsibility for recruitment; be more involved in the provision of
quality placements; and have more say in the development of content for training...we will
allow schools to recruit trainees and then to work with an accredited teacher training
provider to train them to be qualified teachers. Schools will be expected to employ these
trainees after graduation. (Gove2011a,b)In terms of the discussion I am rehearsing here about the legitimation of policy and
the way that specific texts call up versions of what is to be enacted, I want now to
briefly consider one of the key analogies that the Government uses to conjure up
‘quality’, and which is frequently used to advocate for reforms in training teachers.
That is, the medical model. The argument goes that doctors are trained in teaching
hospitals and this model can be distilled and reconstructed in the teaching schools.
490 M. Maguire