True Stories: a case study in the use of life history in initial teacher education

Abstract

Abstract In February 1989, Kenneth Baker, then UK Secretary of State for Education, insisted that the Government wanted ‘trainee teachers to concentrate less on the history and sociology of education and more on how to cope with a classroom of 14 year‐olds’. In contrast to this and other calls for the dismemberment of initial teacher education (ITE) courses, as they are presently constituted, we argue for the introduction of life history methods as a strategy for facilitating the transition from pupil to teacher. The article is a case study of our experiences of using this strategy with a group of 34 first year students on an ITE course. The students’ responses to the strategy suggest, provisionally at this stage, how ITE courses might be geared towards the development of teachers who might reflect critically on taken‐for‐granted assumptions and who can articulate reasons for contesting some of the conventional wisdoms about the abilities, interests and attitudes of their pupils.