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education rests upon as well as having
implications for the develop-
ment of school knowledge.
Responsivenes of structure to school and trainin
institution
In the Alternative Course the creation of responsive structures was
the basic task and responsiveness to school did not imply a rejection
of the training Institution. The presence of the group in school
along with the tutor on the school-based days prior to block teaching
practice brings the Institute into the school and it is the tutor’s
responsibility to ensure that the group is responsive to the concerns
and strengths of the training institute. Here the tutor's capacity
and concern
to relate theory and practice is paramount whether the
tutor is an 'education' or 'subject' member of staff. During the
life of the Alternative Course both have been school group tutors.
Subject tutors by and large
are those who have extensive contact
with students in school and insofar as that responsibility
is not
shared with education tutors and whilst education work is primarily
located in the training institute the pressures mount for the separ-
ation of theory and practice. One way of breaking through this is
to recognise all practice as implying a theory and thereby all prac-
titioners as theoretical.
The task then becomes the rendering
explicit of the theories in use and the exploration of their conse-
quences for practice. Initial teacher education then has as much
to do with and responsibility for students' theoretical as with their
practical
development.
These are both concerns of the school group
tutor. It is this dual commitment that requires that the school
group also has an existence within the training institute with real-
istic access both to educational theory and to practice.