Learning to teach without school-based experience: conundrums and possibilities in a South African context

Abstract

ABSTRACT Covid-19 and the resultant national lockdown saw thousands of initial teacher education students in South Africa moving at short notice to online learning. For teacher educators this represented significant technical and pedagogical challenges, as they faced the task of adapting their teaching to an online modality, while simultaneously maintaining the academic integrity of their modules. Schools too were closed, creating the possible scenario that new teachers might graduate with little or no practical exposure to the classroom. A previously unheard-of question emerged, namely whether a period of immersion in schools was a non-negotiable in learning to be a teacher. Put otherwise - would it be possible to prepare good teachers while schools were closed for large parts of the year? The article outlines some debates relating to teacher education that emerged in South Africa during this time, linking these to the concepts of situational learning, relational learning and pedagogical reasoning. Questions are then posed as to the potential longer-term implications of this period for teacher education pedagogy in South Africa.