such debates and perspectives impact on the centre’s teaching and learning. The
student teacher’s study of these elements of being in a teaching team, sharing and
constructing knowledge, will impact on the individual teacher’s experiences, as
well as those of her future colleagues and wider centre community.
When studying‘flows of knowledge’within teaching teams, we cannot bypass
the notion of‘working conditions’, as the quality of EC care and education is
closely associated with the nature and quality of working conditions. One critical
element of the work environment that teacher education should be concerned with
is the knowledge environment, through which teachers construct, understand, share
and develop their professional knowledge in sustained, collective and collaborative
professional relationships.
As noted above, teachers having recently completed their teacher education, may
arrive with new knowledge, ideas and tensions that are different to those already
circulating in their workplace. Such a condition thus requires negotiation in terms of
making meaning of the new knowledge in relation to the existing knowledge, its value
to the centre community, its impact on the curriculum, on children’s learning and its
impact on the sense of collegiality and security of the teaching team. The ways in which
such negotiations might occur should be a central element in the study of teaching, to
enable student teachers to practice the negotiation of knowledge in peer groups.
The focus on beginning/new teachers acknowledges the additional challenges of
being new to a profession and new to the centre: establishing relationships (with
children, teachers, parents and the teaching communities); establishing personal
support systems and networks; locating oneself in a workplace with a wide-ranging
ethos; engaging in professional processes such as registration, induction and
mentoring programmes; and becoming part of teaching teams (Dall’Alba 2009 ;
Sumsion 2002 ; Woodrow 2008 ). Because all of these factors and how they are
processed have a direct impact on the knowledge environment, and a further direct
impact on the quality of children’s learning, this provocation and reconceptual-
ization for teacher education has specificinfluence on centre management, for
pedagogical leadership in teaching teams, and for mentoring beginning, new, and
newly qualified teachers as they develop their knowledge and practice of teaching
and learning, and are welcomed to the teaching profession.
53.3 Newly Qualified Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand
Our study with newly qualified teachers (Farquhar and Tesar2016a) explored the
complexities of teacher identity, professionalism, relationship building and what it
means for teachers to transition from their teacher education programme to the early
childhood centre. The narratives of early career teachers, as explored through focus
groups and interviews, allowed deep understanding into these teachers’relation-
ships with knowledge. For example, Diana, an early career teacher, reported the
following encounter of beginner and experienced teacher, and her understanding of
what a‘flow of knowledge’looks like for her:
53 Flows of Knowledge in Teaching Teams... 789