teacher education
teacher education, any of the formal programs that have been established for the preparation of teachers at the elementary- and secondary-school levels.
(Read Arne Duncan’s Britannica essay on “Education: The Great Equalizer.”)
While arrangements of one kind or another for the education of the young have existed at all times and in all societies, it is only recently that schools have emerged as distinctive institutions for this purpose on a mass scale, and teachers as a distinctive occupational category. Parents, elders, priests, and wise men have traditionally seen it as their duty to pass on their knowledge and skills to the next generation. As Aristotle put it, the surest sign of wisdom is a man’s ability to teach what he knows. Knowing, doing, teaching, and learning were for many centuries—and in some societies are still today—indistinguishable from one another. For the most part the induction of the young into the ways of acting, feeling, thinking, and believing that are characteristic of their society has been an informal—if serious and important—process, accomplished chiefly by means of personal contact with full-fledged adults, by sharing in common activities, and by acquiring the myths, legends, and folk beliefs of the culture. Formal ceremonies, such as the puberty rite, marked the point at which it was assumed that a certain range of knowledge and skill had been mastered and that the individual could be admitted to full participation in tribal life. (Residual elements of such ceremonies remain in some modern arrangements; it has been seriously contended that the study of the Latin language in the Renaissance and post-Renaissance school can be interpreted as a form of puberty rite.) Even in the formally established schools of the Greek city-states and of the medieval world there was little separation between, on the one hand, the processes of organizing and setting down knowledge and, on the other, those of teaching this knowledge to others.
This does not mean, however, that prior to the 19th century little attention was given to a training in teaching methods as distinct from “subjects.” The great works of medieval scholasticism were essentially textbooks that were designed to be used for the purpose of teaching. Today, as in the medieval world, methods of teaching and the organization of knowledge continue to be reciprocally influential. Nor are the problems that today surround the qualifications and certification of teachers wholly new. State, church, and local authorities everywhere have long recognized the importance of the teacher’s work in maintaining or establishing particular patterns of social organization and systems of belief, just as radical and reformist politicians and thinkers have looked to the schools to disseminate their particular brands of truth. In medieval and post-Reformation Europe, for example, there was considerable concern with the qualifications and background of teachers, mainly but not entirely with reference to their religious beliefs. In 1559 Queen Elizabeth I of England issued an injunction that prohibited anyone from teaching without a license from his bishop. The license was granted only after an examination of the applicant’s “learning and dexterity in teaching,” “sober and honest conversation,” and “right understanding of God’s true religion.” Thus the certification of teachers and concern for their character and personal qualities are by no means new issues.
What is new for most societies—European, American, African, and Asian—is the attempt to provide a substantial period of formal education for everyone and not just for the small proportion of the population who will become political, social, and religious leaders or for those few who possess surplus time and money for the purpose. Universal literacy, already achieved in most European and American and many Asian societies, has become the goal of all. In an increasing proportion of countries every child now proceeds automatically to secondary education; many remain at school until 16 or 18 years of age, and large numbers go on to some form of postsecondary education and training. The scale and variety of educational provision that all this requires makes the supply, education, training, and certification of an adequate number of teachers a worldwide issue of education policy and practice. In developed and developing countries alike, no factor is of greater importance in relation to the quantity and quality of education; it is significant that a substantial proportion of the budget of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is devoted to the improvement of teacher preparation.
The term “teacher” in this article is used to mean those who work in schools providing education for pupils up to the age of 18. Thus, “teacher education” refers to the structures, institutions, and processes by means of which men and women are prepared for work in elementary and secondary schools. This includes preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and secondary institutions for children from the age of two or three to 18.
The evolution of teacher education
Teacher education, as it exists today, can be divided into two stages, preservice and in-service. Preservice education includes all the stages of education and training that precede the teacher’s entry to paid employment in a school. In-service training is the education and training that the teacher receives after the beginning of his career.
