The Nature of Teacher Education
By Professor Bart McGettrick
Professor Bart McGettrick, was a teacher and a senior member of staff in teacher education institutions in Scotland since 1975, becoming Principal of St Andrew’s College in Scotland from 1985 to 1999, and Dean of the Faculty of Education at Glasgow University in 1999, leaving the University in November 2005 to undertake consultancy activities.
He has served on innumerable national and international committees in education currently serving on several boards of schools and universities. He has a wide range of international commitments, and has led projects in many countries. He is actively engaged in developing models of leadership across professions.
This is an abridged version of Bart’s full paper which can be found on the ESCalate website at
Priorities in educational practices are often centred on the individual, concerned with improving outcomes, and driven by a utilitarian or instrumental view of the purposes of the profession. The models of “competencies” and benchmarks have often led this thinking, and these have been useful models. They have, however, had their limitations.
There has been a tendency to conceptualise teacher education within a set of parameters or organisers that have formed models that have incorporated ideas and constructs such as:
- Professional Knowledge and Understanding
- Professional Skills and Abilities
- Professional Values and
- Personal Commitment
As a broad framework for conceptualising teacher education this has served a useful purpose, not least because it has facilitated a shift from the somewhat arid debate of the balance and place of “theory” and “practice”. It has the advantage of being based on contemporary practices relating to evolving knowledge and having the capacity to incorporate new knowledge, changing skills, new technologies and innovation more generally.
However the model, if used alone, is based on the dubious premise that it is possible to identify the corpus of knowledge and the range of knowledge, skills and values required for the professional teacher. To some extent it is possible to do so, but the emphasis on the teacher as an active learner may suggest that an alternative paradigm would be more relevant in a world of change and flexibility. There is a need to examine what it is that gives the connectedness among the different areas of professional being.
The teacher is clearly the model of “the whole person”. That person is on a journey and there is an ever-changing environment that needs to be understood so that by professional practices it is constantly improved. That forms the basis of the work that the teacher is undertaking. That wholeness is a vital aspect of the life of the teacher. A vision that lacks concern for wholeness leads to a sense of the partial or the disintegrated person. A holistic view suggests that there is a “professional spirituality” that holds together the knowledge, values, ideas, practices and commitment of the teacher. This is not some kind of unsophisticated sentimentality that weakly connects these ideas and practices. It is the essence of humanity that inspires and enlightens relationships, and forms them as the central part of the professional being of the teacher. Each profession tries to create a culture of responsibility so that it can serve society through its distinctive skills and knowledge.
Education for the teaching profession is on a cusp of change, moving from a framework of knowledge and understanding to a world of professional development, personal formation and growth. The time seems right to consider the ways in which we educate for a profession beyond thoughts of competencies, and gives due weight to the values, ideals, virtues and distinctive service that allows the profession to contribute to developing a better society. A model of teacher education for the future has to address the formation and growth of the inner self, not separating this from practice.
There is a need to seek a proper relationship of personal development, emotions and commitment, integrity and courage with respect for the legitimate interests and expectations that society has for its professions. It is right that society should be able to trust that professional people will operate with up-to-date ideas and techniques, and will be skilled and competent in all that they do in the service of their clients or students. It is also right that society can expect professional people to be people of integrity, of service, and of personal virtue that allows them to serve society, as it would wish. It is attention to these qualities that takes us beyond competencies.
From Competencies to Capacity Building?
One of the characteristics of professional responsibility is the commitment to enhance professional practice with an ongoing review and development of those practices.
A more fully developed paradigm for professional development might focus on those key principles and practices that characterise any person, with the growth and flourishing of the whole person. This would not separate the “personal” from the “professional”, and would offer an opportunity to address issues about the nature of professionalism. This begins to identify the qualities of what it is to be professional and to suggest the importance of a profession in serving society. This paradigm envisages the teacher as someone in whom society entrusts the education of others, including young people.
This can be conceptualised as a move from a concern for competencies to the building of the capacity of the professional person. By capacity is meant those attributes, qualities and characteristics that have the power to facilitate the processes that are essential for the professional conduct of the work of the teacher. This is a way of thinking of the teacher that does not diminish the need for competence, but offers a more elaborated way of thinking of the teacher as a person with wider and deeper attributes and qualities.
A new paradigm for teacher education is one that highlights the distinctive service of the profession as a way of serving society. It allows a focus on the qualities of the teacher that are not always predictable or measurable. It highlights the characteristics of professionalism in providing a framework for personal and professional formation and includes the need for close and confident links with the teaching profession and other relevant professions. This will lead to inter-professional working in which “the person” is always the central focus of the activity, and their well-being is considered to be of paramount importance. It recognises the unity of the person and the interaction of the personal self with the professional self.
These comments are offered to demonstrate that approaches to professional practices are not necessarily best dealt with by using existing models of competencies and benchmarks. These do not take adequate account of the dynamic, human conditions that lie at the heart of personal formation for professional purposes. A new paradigm for professional education has to pay attention to the personal attributes and qualities of the individual, and not to separate these from the expectations of society. The central concern for all who educate is to focus on what we can do because of who we are. That relationship of our self to our actions is a sensitive and important one – and one that is at the heart of what it is to be a professional person.