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how they were ’got at’ and how what they knew or felt was made to
seem of little worth beside the ’harder’ knowledge of established
practitioners. The competing definitions are essentially points
of growth and developement and are trivialised if they are explained
away by what ’experience teaches’ and ’teachers know' and ’young
teachers will once they give up their idealistic notions. Ideals
are both
personal and social constructs and teacher education has
of ensuring that young teachers engage realist-
the responsibility
ically in their production and their mediation as responsible profes-
sionals .
This
process
of
ediation
is
shown in
the next
extract
which demonstrates how a young teacher sees himself using the
theory’
of his PGCE.
School B 24.11.81 P20 vii
EδO
The thing about School B is it’s there and
here's that theory to be listened to. where
it becomes vital
later
when the
theory isn’t there and it becomes what you
can show - have you read this or you’re
working in a department that went out of
date 20 years ago - and that’s your training,
have you explored it any further - do you
you in touch with current educational thinking
and that’s crucial because you do get set
know where this
comes from - are
up. I think most of the big arguments in
most of the places to go and people can’t
catch you out by saying you were just told
that because you usually have a book in mind
- I think we did that Alternative Course
Yearbook to try and combine how we felt from
schools back into the course.
Por students presently on the course such a statement stands as a
pointer to a possible place of the theory as a part of one’s profes-
sional outlook. Earlier in the discussion in response to a question
from one of the students E8θ gives another use of theory where it