Ready for Ethical and Critically Reflective Practice in Supercomplex Times? Discourses, Knowledge and Values in the Postmodern Society of Hong Kong

Abstract

How often do we, as teacher educators, ask ourselves what kind of teachers are required for early childhood education in a postmodern era? How ready are we to prepare ethical and critically reflective teachers to meet challenging lives and issues in early childhood settings? In what ways can we work with pre-service and in-service teachers to build a professional capacity to stand up to these challenges? The reflective thoughts documented in this chapter were inspired partly by a collaborative endeavour to introduce postmodern ethics to early childhood teacher education programmes in Hong Kong, with the goal of developing culturally appropriate strategies to enhance professionalism. In the discussion, I attempt to make visible some of the frequently neglected discourses, knowledge and values that are embedded in macro contexts, government policy and teacher education. This in turn may have prevented us from preparing the kind of early childhood teachers that can profess ethically in turbulent times. The reflective journey that I have undertaken is an awakening call to someone who tried to explore new possibilities using a Western critical lens, i.e., a postmodern ethics, but became deeply troubled by the daunting task involved in building much needed professional capacity.