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True Stories: a case study in theuse of life history in initial teachereducationPat Sikes a & Barry Troyna aa Department of Education , University of WarwickPublished online: 06 Jul 2006.
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Educational Review, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1991
True Stories: a case study in the use of lifehistory in initial teacher education
PAT SIKES & BARRY TROYNA, Department of Education, University ofWarwick
ABSTRACT In February 1989, Kenneth Baker, then UK Secretary of State forEducation, insisted that the Government wanted 'trainee teachers to concentrate lesson the history and sociology of education and more on how to cope with a classroomof 14 year-olds'. In contrast to this and other calls for the dismemberment of initialteacher education (ITE) courses, as they are presently constituted, we argue for theintroduction of life history methods as a strategy for facilitating the transition frompupil to teacher. The article is a case study of our experiences of using this strategywith a group of 34 first year students on an ITE course. The students' responses to thestrategy suggest, provisionally at this stage, how ITE courses might be geared towardsthe development of teachers who might reflect critically on taken-for-granted assump-tions and who can articulate reasons for contesting some of the conventional wisdomsabout the abilities, interests and attitudes of their pupils.
Teacher education may be conceived as a process that encourages thedevelopment of half educated persons into fully educated persons whoknow 'when not to think'. (Ginsberg, 1988, p. 100)
Introduction: ITE a 'transitory influence'
To say that teacher education in the UK was under siege would be an understate-ment. Over the years, of course, we have grown accustomed to criticisms of theorientation and emphasis of pre- and in-service course provision. More often thannot, these have crystallised around the relative weighting which is or should beassigned to theory and practice.
Recently, however, criticisms of course provision have centred on more funda-mental concerns, with questions being asked about the desirability, even raisond'etre of teacher education as it is presently constituted. Thus, with the proposaland introduction of 'licensed teacher' and 'articled teacher' schemes, 'on the jobtraining' can be seen to be in the ascendancy [1]. What unites these and otherschemes that have been considered (see, for example, HMI (1989) The ProvisionalTeacher Program in New Jersey) is their emphasis on 'training', rather than'education', and the conviction that 'how to' rather than 'why' should be thedefinitive characteristic of provision for those following initial teacher education(ITE) and PGCE courses.
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These radical changes do not float in thin air of course and despite the celebra-tion of 'practice' over 'theory' we recognise, with Amy Gutman, that 'significantpolicy prescriptions presuppose a theory' (1988, p. 184). In this case the versions ofITE and PGCE courses currently being prepared can be seen to derive from andexemplify the present government's understanding of its 'proper' role in definingand confining the parameters of education.
This role, it would seem, is to ensure that its vision of the 'good society' in whichsocial cohesion constitutes the skeleton around which the moral order is formed, isinculcated in and legitimated through the educational system. In the words of theformer secretary of state, Kenneth Baker, the thrust of the new reforms is gearedtowards providing 'our society with a greater sense of identity' (1987, p. 3). Whatdistinguishes this government from its predecessors, however, is its intransigence.Its vision, in other words, is non-negotiable, as Brian Simon points out:
. . . involvement by the state in the restructuring and control of educationfor social/political purposes has been apparent at least from the middle ofthe last century and earlier. What is new are the modes of control nowbeing developed and brought into play. Significantly, the state, instead ofworking through and with other social organisations (specifically localauthorities and teachers' organisations) is now very clearly seeking a moredirect and unitary system of control than has ever been thought politic—or even politically possible—in the past. (1984, p. 21)
The unprecedented intrusion of central government into teacher education in the1980s [2] both extends and complements its determined efforts in other spheres ofpolicy-making to ensure that what takes place in schools, colleges and institutions ofhigher education is congruent with its own ideological conception of 'good' educa-tion.
In specific terms these latest conceptions of teacher education imply a scenario inwhich, on the one hand, schools and their teachers have a major say in theinduction of students into the profession; and, on the other, a correlative decline inthe contribution from 'educationists' in University and Polytechnic departments ofeducation [3]. Consider, for instance, Mary Warnock's proposals for improvingprimary and secondary 'training'. In her view, 'the centre of training must shiftfrom institutions of higher education to the schools themselves' (1988, p. 125).Although she is at pains to distance her proposals from those offered by TheHillgate Group in Whose Schools? (1986) and its other publications, both sets ofproposals coalesce around what amounts to a mechanistic interpretation of whatconstitutes a 'professional' teacher. Whether intending teachers need to study thetheory of learning is a question which Anthony O'Hear also posed in his pamphletfor the Social Affairs Unit (1988). On this view, practical experience is presentednot only as an alternative to academic study but, most significantly, as preferable.Simply put, practice is differentiated from and contrasted with theory. The latter,according to Caroline Cox, a member of the Hillgate group and a vehement(poacher turned gamekeeper) critic of teacher education, currently comprises a largepart of 'the rigmarole of teacher training' (1988, p. 17). In her view this should bediminished if not excluded entirely. In the process, of course, this dichotomy canonly be sustained if practice is deprived of intellectual rigour and rationality.
Now, it could be asserted that this concern with the structure and orientation ofcourse provision, especially in initial teacher education is misplaced in any case.
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Why? Well, according to Roger Dale (1977) students' experiences on ITE coursesare only one of the influences on the practising teachers' professional knowledge.What is more, if the research evidence is to be believed this contribution is atbest minimal, often negative. 'Training establishments', according to Martyn Den-scombe, have 'a weak socialising impact' (1985, p. 45). Marten Shipman had arguedthe same point 20 years earlier. In 1966 he concluded that ITE courses have a'transitory influence' on the assumptions and practices of teachers. He found thatwithin six months of their first year of teaching former ITE students had discardedmuch of what they had learned from their courses and adapted to the ethos andmodus operandus of their school; a trend which John Quicke has referred to as'slippage' (1988, p. 101). In her review of the literature on the transition from ITEto primary schools, Sandra Acker comes to similar conclusions. New teachers inprimary schools, she tells us, are often ' "brought into line" by the experience'; thoseteachers 'who persist in views incompatible with the dominant ethos of a particularschool may become demoralised and depressed and even leave teaching' (1987,p. 89). And Jan Lee's study of teachers in a multi-ethnic, inner city infants schoolprovides further corroborating evidence for this argument. As she puts it, theresearch findings reaffirm the contention that,
. . . teacher training has little conscious effect on the teachers' cognitivestyle. Teacher C endorses this view: "There are certain things at the backof your mind that you don't consciously use, but you absorb them andtake them (sic). The actual business of controlling the class you won't learnuntil you come out. You learn that from other teachers". (1987, p. 96) [4]
Reflective Teaching
It is undoubtedly the case that the DES consultation document, Qualified TeachingStatus (May 1988) has changed irrevocably the relationship between schools andeducation departments/institutions in their contribution towards the ascription ofqualified teacher status to prospective teachers. Under these proposals, decisionsabout the nature and structure of what constitutes 'appropriate' professional prepa-ration for those entering under the licensed teacher route will rest with the LEA orthe schools' governors. Departments and institutions of education will be relegatedto the status of advisory bodies which may or may not be called upon to provide'training' for licensed teachers (1988, p. 8). The circular issued by the DES inNovember 1989 (DES, 1989b) is the latest harbinger of central aggrandisement overthis sphere. This document provides for the reconstitution of the Council for theAccreditation of Teacher Education (CATE), places greater responsibility on localcommittees for the scrutiny of ITE, establishes ostensibly more restrictive andcentralised criteria governing the nature of ITE courses, and puts greater emphasison practical classroom experience.
So where do we go from here? Do we acquiesce to government definitions of'good teacher training'? Or do we exploit the ambiguities and spaces in any criteriato be specified by the government? This would not be an unprecedented response.As Michael Fullan (1982), amongst others, has shown, educationalists have oftenappropriated and redefined 'top-down' innovations and reforms to ensure that theybecome more acceptable to their own professional ideologies and practices. ThusSection 6, paragraph 1 of the May 1989 consultation document, Future Arrange-
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mentsfor the Accreditation of Courses of Initial Teacher Training, offers some scopefor those unwilling to submit to 'training' conceptions of teacher education:
Educational and Professional Studies: This element in courses shoulddevelop in students competence in key professional skills. It should alsoenable students to appreciate their task as teachers within the broadframework of the purposes of education, the development and structure ofthe education service, the values and the economic and other foundationsof the free and civilised society in which their pupils are growing up, andthe need to prepare pupils for adulthood, citizenship and the world ofwork. (1989a, p. viii)
In this paper we want to suggest an approach which, whilst retaining a commit-ment to the 'why' rather than 'how to' orientation to ITE can, nevertheless, beaccommodated within the programmatic requirements laid down by central govern-ment. The programme we are suggesting stems from our commitment to two things.First, to expose and make explicit the students' taken for granted assumptionsabout education, schools, teachers and teaching in order that they should be able toexamine them from a more critical perspective. We want to create, in other words,what Sheila Miles & John Furlong (1988) call a 'sociological break in educationaltransmission'. The purpose of such a break (from the practical experience of beingcaught up in school based education as either pupil or teacher) is to facilitate,amongst other things, the development of a 'sociological imagination'. Thus requir-ing that students "make" rather than "take" problems; '"making" them sociologicalby understanding their institutional, societal and historical dimensions' (Miles &Furlong, 1988, p. 81). It is an approach designed to encourage students 'to beintellectual about being practical' (Butt, 1989, p. 14) and should be juxtaposedagainst claims that 'the only way to learn how to teach is by doing it' (Cox, 1988,p. 17). This 'sociological break' might be achieved through various methods. ForMiles and Furlong, for example, it is realised through a partnership betweenteachers and teacher educators. We have reservations about this approach (knownas IT-INSET) however, insofar as the reproductive tendencies of teacher education(cf. Ginsberg, 1988, p. 101) might well be accentuated under this scheme. This maynot be explicit; but as Michael Apple notes, the reproduction of conventionalwisdoms may well constitute part of the hidden curriculum of this form of teachereducation in which,
the tacit teaching to students of norms, values, and dispositions (that)goes on simply by their living in and coping with the institutionalexpectations and routines of schools day in and day out for a number ofyears. (Apple, 1979, p. 14)
Our second aim is to encourage an enduring commitment to critically reflectiveteaching. What do we mean by this? Well, according to John Dewey the 'reflectivepractitioner' is one who is engaged in 'active, persistent, and careful considerationof any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it'(1933, p. 7). Our goal is to lay the foundations for an ongoing critical appraisal ofcustomary practices and beliefs in the classroom. Ambitious aims certainly but oneswhich are essential if teachers are to be creative professionals rather than merefunctionaries.
Common to both strands of our approach is a view that ITE can play animportant role in introducing student teachers to the idea of 'extended professional-
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ism' and all that the term connotes. We are also attracted to the idea that apredilection towards extended professionalism can be broached through what PeterBerger (1963) calls the 'relativisation' of taken for granted assumptions. This is animportant consideration because, as various people have pointed out, studentsentering ITE courses are already socialised into educational cultures (e.g. Buchman,1989; Crow, 1987a, b; Lacey, 1977; Lortie, 1975; Mardle & Walker, 1980; Munro,1987). They have collected and collated a range of assumptions about what makes a'good' teacher; a 'successful' lesson; a 'happy' classroom and so on. These have beenformed during their 15,000 hours at school when, as pupils, their commonsenseknowledge about such matters has emerged from a range of unstructured, arbitraryand opportunistic experiences. Summarising this point, Denscombe emphasisesthat by the time they enter college,
trainee teachers, like most other members of the public, have an ingrainedconception of what the job is all about as a result of their protractedexperience as pupils in classrooms. (1985, pp. 45-46, original emphasis)
The imperative then is to develop a coherent strategy within ITE courses whichallows those disparate experiences to be compared, contrasted and, ultimately,problematised. It is here that we share HMI's conviction that:
The foundations for this view of professional life must be establishedduring initial training. Students should become accustomed to question,debate, to analyse, to argue from evidence, and to examine their ownhabitual assumptions. (1987, p. 30)
The strategy we decided to explore is based on a biographical life history approach.In ideal terms, this is geared towards explicating the subjective world of the studentand how this is interpreted within specific socio-historical settings.
Biographical work has been found to be a valuable way of encouraging criticalreflection and enhancing personal and professional development in in-serviceteacher education (see, for example, Aspinwall, 1988; Butt, 1989; Quicke, 1988;Woods & Sikes, 1987). We were keen to investigate its potential as a strategy forITE and consequently devised an introductory programme for first-year undergra-duates on a BAQTS (B.A. with Qualified Teacher Status) course. Before elaboratingon the substantive nature of our programme we want to say a few more wordsabout the educational assumptions and expectations which intending teachers oftenbring to ITE and consider their implications for course design.
Research (Crow, 1987a, b; Denscombe, 1985; Lortie, 1975) suggests that studentteachers have an ideal model of the sort of teacher they would like to be and be seenas being. This is usually based, as we have already indicated, on their ownexperiences in schools. They subsequently tend to accept and internalise those partsof their professional education which support, strengthen and confirm their ideal,and reject those which do not [5]. By this process of selection student teachers playan active and dynamic part in their own socialisation. This has clear implicationsfor the content of teacher education courses (Crow, 1987a, p. 34), not least becausethe students will have had various experiences of schooling which are likely to havegenerated a range of definitions of 'good teaching'.
Dealing with this diversity of experience, understanding and 'habitual knowledge'could be a problem for conventional didactic and non-reflective approaches toteaching and learning. For example, if tutors do not take account of or know whatIdeal Models students hold, or are unaware of the different educational experiences
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in the group, they are unlikely to be able to encourage critical reflection. Abiographical/life history approach however, offers the opportunity of capitalising onthese different experiences and perspectives and utilising them as teaching re-sources. As Dewey pointed out, personal experience constitutes the prime source ofeducation (1963, p. 55) and we would want to mirror in our course the sorts ofpractices that students could use with pupils.
As well as encouraging critical reflection through challenging students' taken forgranted assumptions we wanted to broaden their educational awareness. 'Tra-ditional' teacher education tends to emphasise individualism which does notencourage students 'either to question the nature and values of the system in whichthey (are to) practice or seek the sources of the problems confronting them in socialrelations rather than in individuals' (Dale, 1977, p. 96) [6]. This can result in thereproduction of conventional wisdoms and practices based on racist, sexist andother oppressive assumptions.
Last, but by no means least in preparing the course, we took account of RolandMeighan and Clive Harber's (1986) salutary reminder of the tendency for lecturersin ITE who are committed to non-authoritarian approaches to present thoseconcerns in authoritarian ways. Consequently the way in which we organised ourproject drew upon principles of co-operative, social learning and peer-teaching (seeDiaz, 1977). This shaped not only what we did but also how we did it.
ITE and Life History: methodology
Educational studies in the first year of a four-year course comprised a total of threehours per week of which one hour was taken up by a lecture for the entire first yearcohort. This left us with five two-hour sessions. Our combined classes totalled 34students, who we divided as far as possible into groups of three. Each week everymember of the triad took turns as 'Interviewer', 'Interviewee' and 'Recorder' for 20minutes, with a further 30 minutes for whole group discussion (see Fig. 1). TheInterviewer would take a prompting role in collecting the life history of theInterviewee, and the Recorder would note 'key' points. At the end of the session theRecorder would feed back their notes which the group would then discuss. Inaddition, students were asked to keep a journal in which they recorded and beganto analyse what had been said within their triad.
Recorder
20 minutes • \ . 20 minutes
Interviewer 20 minutes Interviewee
FIG. 1. Organisation of life history sessions.
In the plenary our job was to lead the discussion and facilitate the ordering,analysis and classification of data. We also were responsible for encouraging areflective approach and for introducing relevant organisational concepts.
As it turned out, we had to modify our way of working and take a more active
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role than was originally envisaged. Because the students were not accustomed torecording, assembling and collating data in this way we found it necessary toassume a more directive role to ensure that they adhered to our agenda. This meantthat we offered frameworks to help them interpret systematically the informationthey were collecting.
We had hoped that this strategy would have a number of benefits, both theoreti-cal and pragmatic. On the one hand it would encourge students to reflect criticallyon their own assumptions about what constitutes 'good education' and 'goodteaching' and validate their educational experiences. This would ascribe them as alegitimate area for theoretical and intellectual study and interrogation. On the otherit linked in with the lectures on class, racism, gender and special needs which ranconcurrently and the school-based strand of the course which followed in the weeksafter our sessions (see Sikes, forthcoming, for further discussion).
Each week the sessions focused on a different theme. These were:
Week 1—Collecting personal educational life histories, and compiling a personaleducational timeline.
Week 2—School Organisation.Week 3—The School and its Community.Week 4—Teachers' Styles.Week 5—Personal Crises and Continuities.
These themes were chosen because they were felt to encompass a number of'keyconcepts' central to the consideration of education and the schooling process.Amongst the most salient of these were equality of opportunity, labelling, differenti-ation, cultural reproduction, management, assessment and pedagogy.
We started the sessions by introducing the theme and outlining the sorts of thingsstudents might include in their interviews. After the small group work, we led ageneral discussion in which we drew out issues and offered interpretations. Forinstance, during Week 1, we focused on students' recall of 'good' and 'bad' times atschool. The brainstorming session generated a list from which we teased out certaindiscernible and common features. As Table I clearly indicates their bad experienceswere characterised, above all, by processes of humiliation experienced at anindividual level. Good experiences, on the other hand, tended to be shared withpeers. This provided a framework for exploring the advantages of collaboration as ateaching and learning strategy, and contrasted with the emphasis on individualismand lone study which they had been used to in their schooling. Occasionally, wealso set follow-up activities. For instance, at the end of session 4, which looked atTeachers' Styles, students were asked to reflect on and record: (a) their perceptionof a 'good teacher', (b) the sort of teacher they wanted to be and be seen as being,(c) what they could do in order to achieve their ideal, and (d) what sort ofconditions (e.g. contextual, environmental, organisational) were necessary for themto achieve their ideal.
Outcomes
Thirty-four students is a fairly small sample. What is more, our programme was nomore than a brief, even fleeting intervention into their overall course. Our assess-ment at this stage, then, can only be provisional. However, even from this limited
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TABLE I. Students' recollections of best and worst experiences of schooling
Best experiences Worst experiences
LearningBeing top of the classFavourite teachersLocking supply teacher in cupboardFavourite lessonsSchool dinnersSchool playsSportGood fightsChoirEisteddoffFriendsSocial sideMaths at primary schoolFree lessonsWaiting to see who the teacher would beLunch time sessions in the pubPlaying truantThe 6th formGetting prizes
PARTICIPATION
COLLABORATION
Physics lessonsExamsDetentionPrejudiceLinesCaneSchool dinnersReading aloudReciting poemsConducting choir in front of schoolMental arithmeticSpelling testsCross countryBeing left outBeing bulliedFolk dancingSadistic and unfair teachersSchool uniformMusic lessonsBeing teacher's petBeing asked a question and not knowing the answerPublic caning
Being unfairly blamed
HUMILIATION
BEING SINGLED OUT
experience of using life history in ITE there is emergent evidence of its value inencouraging critical reflection.
We undertook a formal evaluation of the strategy by using questionnaires and byanalysing a compulsory assignment which required students to reflect on how theirexperiences of schooling had influenced their educational careers, and their percep-tions and expectations of education, schools, teachers and pupils. In addition weheld an informal end of year discussion which was attended by approximately 25members of the group.
From both the formal and informal evaluations we found that the strategyappeared to have helped some students to perceive and organise school experiencesin a reflexive rather than simply functional way and brought to the centre of thestage themes and issues which, hitherto, students have viewed as incidental to theirown and others' schooling. Jane's [7] reflections on the sessions, for instance, werenot untypical of the group's response:
I think that one tends to assume that all schools are similar to the one thatyou know yourself and I found it interesting and enlightening to learnabout others' experiences.... I now realise how much schools vary fromarea to area, from community to community. I can now see that it isimportant to have an open mind when visiting schools rather thanexpecting them to conform to the standards that I am aware of throughmy experience.
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The following interchange between the students, during the end of year discussion,reinforces this point and shows how it encouraged critical reflection.
Angela: I suppose that we could all reflect on what sort of education wehad had, compare it with other people, because they are all very verydifferent, and we might assume that our education is the only sort ofeducation that there ever was. So I think it was very helpful to hear lots ofpeople, to listen to other people's experiences and build on other peoples'experiences.Naseem: And break down prejudices as well. That's very important Ithink.Tutor: Prejudices about what?Naseem: About different parts of your education. But other people havestereotypes [about state and independent education]. I know you say all thetime that you shouldn't think in stereotypes but you do so much that I findthat it has such a big emphasis that I think that really helps to talk about it.Jane: We had such a diverse thing in our group in schools it wasincredible; and yet I was just so sure that like everyone's school was likemine, just bar a few and yet everybody's was so different. I think justlooking at schools it was so completely different.
Some of the 'mature' students in the group had been educated in and werecommitted to 'traditional' systems of schooling. Fairly early on in the course welearned that their apprehensions about more recent developments had been shapedby media representations of contemporary education. Indeed, these fears hadprompted Rachel to send her child to a private school. By the end of the first year ofthe course however, she had eschewed her uncritical view of private schools anddecided to place him a state primary school. Although the sessions were not entirelyresponsible for this decision, the collaboration between 'mature' and youngerstudents had gone some way to assuage her anxieties. As she put it in a writtenquestionnaire response:
I am now not so sceptical about a liberal approach to education. I don'tfeel that I will encourage 'self achievement' to the same degree. I suppose Iwill generally try to adopt a more flexible approach to certain educationalsituations.
By providing students with the opportunity to reflect on their own education thesessions enabled the mature members of the group, in particular, to criticise theirschooling experiences—characterised, it seems, by didacticism, competitive indivi-dualism, formality and the sanctity of the power relationships between pupils andteachers. Their discussions with the younger students revealed that, 'sadly there arestill many schools around that are like that' (Doreen). Sheila elaborated this point:
The thing that amazed me was that over the length of time I've been outof education [approximately 23 years] I expected my sort of school not toexist anymore but in fact it is still around.
Only time will tell whether their reservations about 'traditional' education willcolour their approach to teaching. For Doreen at least, there was a deliberate andconscious attempt on her first teaching practice to develop styles of teaching whichbore no relation to those she had experienced as a pupil.
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Tutor: How many of you found yourself doing things in your teachingpractice that you got from your own teachers?Doreen: I would say that what I got from my teachers was probably theopposite. [Mine] was a very narrow school, very didactic, it was all gearedto an A level. In that way, it was very narrow; so what I got from them wasthe reverse.
In view of our own biographies and professional priorities it was not surprisingthat issues of 'race', class and gender emerged as pervasive themes in the sessions.For some students, however, the significance of these in the organisation anddelivery of their schooling had not been acknowledged. Hearing of other people'sexperiences changed that. For example, Brian noted on his questionnaire:
Having myself been educated on a relatively strict Catholic doctrine Ihave a rather small knowledge of other people's religious ideals andcultures. If, however, the school would have adopted an attitude oftolerance and encouragement towards other segments of the community, amore rich and varied contribution to the school population would haveinevitably resulted in a greater depth of understanding between childrenof mixed faiths and nationalities.
Similarly Ann, who had been educated at public school recognised that, for somestudents, the transition from school to higher education, was not 'natural'.
For us, coming to university seemed a natural step but for some peoplethey had to give up a lot to come back into education. They left jobs,careers etc. to come back to something that may not be worthwhile forthem.
These comments are intended to be illustrative rather than representative ofthose received from the students and the level of consciousness revealed in thestatements by no means typified all the students' remarks. Nonetheless, no studentdismissed the life history sessions either as diversionary or irrelevant to the way inwhich they approached their school-based experiences and first-year teaching prac-tice. As one student put it to us:
I thought the life history was good, particularly from my point of view as areturner to education. It was good to assess things and see what you reallythought about your education.
Obviously we do not subscribe to the rationalist theory that 'knowledge' automati-cally prompts action; considerably more effort is required both within ITE andschool-based experiences to realise the goal of critical reflection. Nor, as weemphasised earlier, do we see life history as a 'solution' to the policy and politicalproblems facing teacher education in the UK. That would be naive and disingenu-ous. Rather we offer the project as a 'coping strategy' in the face of governmentintervention into the way ITE is defined and confined.
At the moment, our life history course is now into its third year. During thesecond year we decided to complement our qualitative evaluation with a morequantitative approach. The 'hard' data this yielded endorsed our earlier findings.For instance, of the 25 students who completed the formal questionnaire (i.e. 74%of the cohort), 22 felt that the sessions had alerted them to educational experienceswhich were at variance with their own (see Table II). Moreover, this access to otherexperiences seemed to generate more critical and reflective appraisals of their own
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schooling (see Table III). Finally, for those who remain sceptical about the relation-ship of this approach to the practice of teaching, it is salutary to record that 22 ofthe students reckoned that the session had gone some way towards preparing themfor school experience and teaching practice.
TABLE II. Did the sessions provide an insightinto educational experiences which were markedly
different from your own?
Male Female Total
Yes 4 18 22(88%)No — 3 3(12%)
4 21 25 (100%)
At present our initiative stands alone within the ITE course; it may or may not beadopted by our colleagues. And because it stands in (splendid) isolation it isexposed to countervailing, even contradictory influences within the institution. IanRobottom and his colleagues at Deakin University in Australia experienced similarproblems. They established an innovative research based science education coursein ITE which met with various forms of resistance from students and other lecturers(Robottom, 1988).
TABLE III. In what ways, if any, did the session encourage you to think critically about youreducational experiences?
Learnt there are no 'normal' schools
Encouraged me to be more reflective, questioningand critical
Learnt to use my own experiences as a basis forlearning
Sessions led to exhumation and reconsideration ofburied memories
Male
1
3
—
Female
5
9
3
4
Total
6 (24%)
12 (48%)
3 (12%)
4(16%)
As we have noted, antagonism to ITE courses in the UK at the moment is evermore powerful, coming not only from professionals and students but also frommore invidious and influential political quarters. We must be prepared to arguecogently for the efficacy of our approach within an ITE course which explicitly linkstheory and practice in partnership with schools, rather than to succumb to thePhilistine insistence that 'doing' should prevail.
Henri Giroux has denned empowerment as: 'the process whereby studentsacquire the means to critically appropriate knowledge existing outside their imme-diate experience in order to broaden their understanding of themselves, the worldand the possibilities for transforming the taken-for-granted assumptions about theway we live' (1988, p. 189). It would be misleading, even pretentious, to suggestthat our intervention had attained this goal. Nonetheless, our interviews have
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suggested that the life history programme created the conditions for the students tointerrogate—for the first time—the conventional wisdoms about what constitutes'good' and 'bad' schools, teachers and students. This move towards self-refiexivitypermits a greater understanding of the interests which might guide the way thesestudents perceive (and intend to structure and shape) classroom experiences. Putanother way, it might go some way to encourage students to excavate their ownhistories and attempt to understand how their class, culture, gender and 'race'related experiences have impacted upon the way they think and act.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Bruce Carrington, John Quicke, Martyn Denscombe, KathySylva and our colleagues for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Correspondence: Pat Sikes, Department of Education, University of Warwick,Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.
NOTES
[1] Hertfordshire recruited seven 'licensed teachers' in September 1989 and over half of all LEAsare also seriously considering introducing the scheme. Twelve experimental school-based'articled teacher' courses run by local partnerships of LEAs, teacher training institutions andschools are to start in September 1990.
[2] See Hargreaves (1988) and Whitty et al. (1987) for critical review of these documents.[3] According to the Hillgate group these 'educationists' are 'engaged in second-order study of the
process of learning', and should be 'deprived of authority, either to train teachers, or to imposetheir counsels on the classroom' (1986, p. 10). For a cogent argument supporting the role oftheory in teacher education see Sutherland (1985).
[4] There is an important instrumental reason why new teachers in their first post adopt the normsof the school and this is that they are concerned to be seen as a competent teacher, and, in thefirst instance, this usually means working in the same way as the 'experienced' teachers. If oneis to have a smooth running career it is as well to fit in (see Hanson & Hetherington, 1976,pp. 5-6). Tyros consciously decide to put their own ideas and preferred ways of working 'on ice'until their status as teacher is confirmed (Rnowles, 1988).
[5] This tendency—which reflects a 'know it all' attitude—may be part of the explanation for whythere is a widespread belief among student teachers, teachers and members of the public, thattheoretical study of education and teaching has little to offer the pactitioner—insofar asempirical, personal knowledge and a 'practical' approach is seen as all that is required.
[6] Lynch & Plunkett make a similar claim when they write that 'if education systems do functionto reproduce in learners the dominant values of a culture, or to legitimate for them the statusgenerally accorded to those values, then this function could be expected to be most clearlyobserved in teacher education' (1973, p. 62).
[7] We have used pseudonyms to retain and respect confidentiality.
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