Teacher education refers to the policies and procedures designed to equip prospective teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the classroom, school and wider community.
Although ideally it should be conceived of, and organised as, a seamless continuum, teacher education is often divided into these stages:
- initial teacher training / education (a pre-service course before entering the classroom as a fully responsible teacher);
- induction (the process of providing training and support during the first few years of teaching or the first year in a particular school);
- teacher development or continuing professional development (CPD) (an in-service process for practicing teachers).
There is a longstanding and ongoing debate about the most appropriate term to describe these activities. The term 'teacher training' (which may give the impression that the activity involves training staff to undertake relatively routine tasks) seems to be losing ground, at least in the U.S., to 'teacher education' (with its connotation of preparing staff for a professional role as a reflective practitioner).
Read more about Teacher Education: Induction of Beginning Teachers, Continuous Professional Development, Quality Assurance, Teacher Education Policy
Famous quotes containing the words teacher and/or education:
“A teacher can but lead you to the door; learning is up to you.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Our children will not survive our habits of thinking, our failures of the spirit, our wreck of the universe into which we bring new life as blithely as we do. Mostly, our children will resemble our own misery and spite and anger, because we give them no choice about it. In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)