Abstract
Neoliberal assaults upon public education have been grounded upon the supposition that schools are failing to prepare students to respond to local and global economic needs and realities. The result has left the relational between pupils and teachers as a taken-for-granted practice. Lived experiences often can show and capture the unexpressed in taken for granted moments. This discussion presents teaching as relational moments, shared between beginning teachers and pupils. We employ a phenomenological sensitivity as we unravel the anecdotal evidence to bring into language a “lived through” dimension of human relations. As teacher educators, we ask: what is experienced when relationality is the focus for beginning teachers? The importance of this question is due to the prevalence of neoliberal forces that now guide, and to large extent, control what it means to teach in schools across Canada. In an effort to understand this emerging view of teaching, we explore what four preservice teachers from Nova Scotia experienced in becoming teachers, as they completed their final Field Experience in Bergen, Norway. We share these anecdotal representations to help teachers see how the relational informs identity in becoming a teacher and allows teacher educators to deconstruct the “taken-for-granted-ness” of teaching stuck in the rational-technical model.
Highlights
I got into teaching because I know I can make a difference
In response to growing interest in global education, the last decade St. Francis Xavier University (StFXU) has seen an increase in international Field Experience placements
While we value the quality of our program courses, there is no denying that the Field Experience for our preservice teachers ranks high
Summary
I got into teaching because I know I can make a difference. But I dread planning and teaching because it’s just teaching to the test. (Kylie, middle school Science teacher). The complexity of teaching confounds Emily because she sees the value of having students belong Her experiences as a preservice teacher have led her to wonder if she will continue teaching: If you spend any length of time inside a school you soon realize how stifling it is; it cripples the humanity, sucks the spirit out of you. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue coming indoors for a lesson, but I should be allowed to decide this for my class.” As teacher educators, these accounts reveal a profound need to bring back a relational focus, allowing preservice teachers to reclaim teaching that would be pedagogical versus regulatory. Neoliberalism’s assaults upon public education have been grounded upon the supposition that schools are failing to prepare students (in Canada, including Nova Scotia) to respond to local and global economic needs and realities. These intrusions into the teacher education sphere often result in teacher educators focusing upon and offering technocratic teaching idea(l)s rather than transformative ones, and for the purposes of this discussion, the relational in becoming a teacher
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