Signing Off the Standards, Making the Disciplines Mandatory

Abstract

The place of the foundational disciplines in teacher education has long been an issue of on-going debate amongst programme developers, teacher educators and students. In 1951 a departmental report on the recruitment, education and training of teachers acknowledged that the work of practising teachers, academics and research students in a number of disciplinary areas had resulted in ‘an immense growth of knowledge relevant to the business of education’ (Campbell, 1951, p.2). Concerned educators, who have been aware of the limitations of our educational system in providing equitable outcomes for all students, have seized the opportunities such knowledges have provided to inform their practice. Others have remained sceptical and chosen to ignore the possibilities that attention to such insights may offer. However, with the introduction of the Graduating Teacher Standards (New Zealand Teachers Council [NZTC], 2008) and the imperative for students to demonstrate critical engagement with contextual factors, courses drawing on disciplinary perspectives have become mandatory. It is no longer possible for graduating teachers to accept the advice of less critical and more sceptical colleagues to forget the theory of education since they are about to go into the real world.