Reexamining Teacher Education

Abstract

ALTHOUGH a survey of the research on teacher effectiveness shows a dearth of answers concerning the nature of effective teaching, various competencies of the teacher are considered to be significant variables. Unfortunately, more money and time are presently engaged for research on other school related factors in the learning process such as per pupil expenditure, physical structures, uses of technology, etc., than are allocated to studies of the teacher as a singular variable and as a variable in the related factors. A glance through such sources such as the Encyclopedia of Educational Research or The Journal of Teacher Education indicates that even less time is involved in research on the education of the teacher. Silberman's recent book, Crisis in the Classroom s has documented, on a more extensive scale, the imperfect state of knowledge which exists in teacher education. Institutions responsible for the education of teachers at the local, state, and national level need to dedicate this decade to carefully designed experiments of alternative teacher education programs and subsequent follow-up studies of the teacher. Granted this would call for longitudinal studies; however, it might also serve to provide educational researchers with data concerning the relationship between certain teacher behaviors and their effect on the learning process. These conclusions, in turn, could serve as a foundation for building a theoretical or conceptual framework for designing teacher education programs. Teacher education suffers greatly from a lack of such a framework. Sarason, Davidson, and Blatt in their book, (1) The Preparation of Teachers: An Unstudied Problem in Education, point out that the education of teachers from the time of the Oswego movement has been designed not from theory but in response to the needs of public schools. The curriculum has stressed the more technical aspects of teaching with a minimum of time devoted to theories or research in education. Perhaps more importantly, teacher education during its institutional development had little contact writh or relation to the academic orientation of the universities.