British teachers’ transnational work within and beyond the British Empire after the Second World War

Focusing on British graduates from Gipsy Hill Training College (GHTC) in London, this article illustrates transnational history’s concerns with the reciprocal flows of people and ideas within and beyond the British Empire. GHTC’s progressive curriculum and culture positioned women teachers as agents of change, and the article highlights the lives and work of married and single graduates overseas after the Second World War. Some migrated to the dominions of Australia, Canada and New Zealand, while South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) were popular destinations for short-term teaching contracts. A few graduates went to the colonies as missionaries and colonial servants, and a handful taught in extra-imperial sites. Wherever they were located, these British women promulgated the college’s progressive ideals and shared their experiences with people at home in Britain, thereby shaping understandings of the Empire and constructing a world that was differentiated by class, gender, race and nation.     

Women's leadership of ‘much needed national work’ in wartime education

While there is a wealth of feminist research on women's educational leadership and policy-making in the interwar years, this article extends the discussion into the Second World War. My focus is the educational leadership of Dorothy Walker, head teacher of St Peter's Infant School and the youngest head teacher in Birmingham, and Lillian de Lissa, longstanding principal of Gipsy Hill Training College (where Walker trained) and national advocate for early childhood education. I highlight Walker and de Lissa's ongoing challenges to patriarchal authority and their continuing commitments to progressive education, as well as many war-related issues they encountered in their lives and work. Working at different levels of policy-making and contrasting in age, Walker and de Lissa invested their leadership with a national significance during the war.     

Contesting the 1944 McNair report: Lillian de Lissa’s working life as a teacher educator

This article explores teacher educator Lillian de Lissa’s working life in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1944 the McNair report criticised residential colleges and their female staff as isolated and intellectually impoverished. However, in Australia and then as the foundation Principal of Gipsy Hill Training College, de Lissa was not only committed to teaching and administration, but also to presenting and publishing her scholarly work nationally and internationally. Furthermore, she chaired the Nursery School Association for nine years, gave evidence at several government inquiries and lectured in the United States in 1943. This article focuses on the elements of de Lissa’s career that might be included in an academic curriculum vitae in order to challenge the McNair report and highlight her contributions to early childhood education and teacher education.     

A ‘break with tradition’ in interwar teacher education

British teacher education in the interwar years was a contested field, dominated numerically by women but regulated by the Board of Education. The traditional perception of women’s residential training colleges was that they were autocratic and socially isolated. By focusing on Gipsy Hill Training College (GHTC), the first specialist training college for nursery school teachers, and its foundation principal, Lillian de Lissa, I challenge this perception. I explore the relationships between young women students’ social worlds, teacher educators’ understandings, teacher education curriculum and GHTC’s institutional culture. The main argument is that under de Lissa’s leadership GHTC was a socially and educationally progressive and democratic institution that focused on shaping students’ identities as women, teachers and citizens.     

Finding ‘my kind of teaching’: How a drama project became a teacher’s expressive teaching moment

This case study examines how a teacher defined ‘my kind of teaching’. We focus on a dramatic production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and frame the teacher’s discussion with Dewey’s significant moments of experience. Findings indicate the teacher shifted her role to a facilitator position, learned alongside her students, and connected her past experiences with acting. Implications point to expressive teaching moments as experiences in which teachers might extend state‐mandated curricula, connect with their personal lives, and find delight in teaching.     

Narratives of ‘doing,knowing, being and becoming’: examining the impact of an attachment-informed approach within initial teacher education

The Scottish Government’s vision of improving outcomes for children prioritises attachment theory and research in promoting children’s well-being across children’s services. This theme is also noted as increasing international relevance. Our narrative research springs from the experience of designing and delivering the first course within initial teacher education in Scotland to focus on the application of attachment theory to the role and identity of the teacher – particularly, in supporting children vulnerable through experiences of trauma and adversity. We capture students’ ‘real time’ learning moments through reflective journaling during school experience within the analytic ‘Doing, knowing, being and becoming’. Emergent themes include: looking behind and responding to behaviours, making links with ‘lived lives’, understanding teachers’ potential as attachment figures and ‘secure base’, understanding the relevance of adult attachment theory and resilience/self-care to teachers’ emotions and their own attachment experiences.     

Responding Creatively to Challenges in Teacher Education: four women teacher educators tell their stories

This paper reports on a study that has mapped the stories of a group of women teacher educators. While the focus is on the period of change during the last 10 years from primarily teachers’ colleges to university‐based teacher education, the broader context of the individual women's lives is explored as well. The stories are mapped against each other and against relevant literature. In this way the study considers the challenge of change on the experiences of these women teacher educators. This study has been informed by feminist theory and has been constructed within a framework which is both narrative and collaborative. As Acker notes ‘one advantage of narrative is that history makes itself evident in the world of its actors’. In this way the intersections of the personal histories and biographies of the teacher educators within the social context in which they work are examined. These women teacher educators’ stories demonstrate similarities and differences in actions and reactions to the challenges they have faced in the last decade in teacher education. The similarities and differences are due to individual histories, career experiences and the character of the institutions in which they live their professional lives. In presenting this paper, the key focus is on reporting how the forces inherent in the changing nature of the educational environment have impacted on these teacher educators in such a way as to present challenges for each in the way they have developed in their profession as teacher educators.     

From stories of staying to stories of leaving: a US beginning teacher’s experience

This narrative inquiry traces a beginning teacher’s unfolding career over a six-year period in a diverse middle school in the fourth largest city in the USA. The work revolves around two conceptualizations: ‘stories to live by’ and ‘stories to leave by.’ How these identity-related phenomena surface and play out in an entry-level teacher’s experiences become revealed. The stories of experience lived and told, and relived and retold, illuminate the influence of context on beginning teachers’ knowing. The interwoven nature of educators’ lives also forms a major theme. In the final analysis, the beginning teacher’s ‘stories to live by’ are no longer able to sustain her in her urban teaching milieu. Shifting occurs and ‘stories to leave by’ prevail.     

“That's more like how they know me as a person”: one primary pre‐service teacher's stories of her personal and ‘professional’ digital practices

In contributing to debates about how student‐teachers might draw from personal experience in addressing digital literacy in the classroom, this paper explores the stories that one primary student‐teacher told of her digital practices during a larger study of the role of digital literacy in student‐teachers' lives. The paper investigates the ‘recognition work’ this student‐teacher did as she aligned herself with different discourses and notes how themes of ‘control’ and ‘professionalism’ seemed to pattern her stories of informal and formal practices both within and beyond her professional education. The paper calls for further research into how student‐teachers perceive the relevance of their personal experience to their professional role and argues for encouraging pre‐service and practising teachers to tell stories of their digital practices and reflect upon the discourses which frame them.     

Knowledge Navigators and Lifelong Learners: Producing graduates for the information society

In recent years, there has been considerable attention, at least at the policy level, to the need for graduates to be ‘lifelong learners’. Although this concept means different things in different cultural contexts, there is more or less general agreement that graduation really only marks the beginning of the graduate's need for continuing personal and professional learning, and, moreover, that it is the responsibility of universities and other institutions of higher education to equip their graduates with the skills and attitudes to help them to continue learning throughout their lives. The emergence of an information-rich ‘knowledge society’ has made this even more of an imperative. The rapid and pervasive spread of information and communication technologies, coupled with increasing globalisation, the democratisation of knowledge production—once assumed to be largely the preserve of universities—and what has been dubbed the ‘information explosion’ collectively mean that most citizens of advanced industrialised countries are, or will soon become, ‘knowledge workers’. Accordingly, many graduates, whether they work in educational or other contexts, are likely to be involved in ‘knowledge-intensive’ activities, for which they need to be prepared. But what does this mean in practice, and what are we to do about it? In 1990, the late Dr Ernest Boyer, in his book Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, proposed a fourfold division of academic work into what he labelled the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of application ; the scholarship of integration ; and, finally, the scholarship of teaching . The paper suggests that each of these four aspects of scholarship has a direct counterpart outside the university, and that, accordingly, they might be taken as a way of considering the attributes of graduates as well as of academics. The paper suggests a necessary symmetry between the teaching and other scholarly work carried out within the university and the development of such abilities and predispositions in graduates from a variety of fields who might not otherwise consider themselves to be destined for ‘scholarly’ work.     

Of sheep's pluck and science exhibitions: the professional life of Mother Bernard Towers RSM (1883–1963)

An examination of the professional lives of women science teachers presents an opportunity to consider ways in which women became ‘knowledge purveyors’ and to reflect on the extent to which they challenged contemporary boundaries about what science women should know. An analysis of the life of a woman science teacher who was also a ‘professed’ religious illuminates the complexity of a professional life shaped by an overlay of vocation and employment. Mother Bernard Towers's teaching life extended over the greater part of the twentieth century. As a science teacher she was influenced by changing understandings of the gendered science curriculum and the cultural and religious environment in which she lived. At the same time she challenged contemporary constraints on the teaching of science to girls, helped her pupils gain access to high‐status ‘hard’ science options and expanded the kinds of science that they could expect to know.     

Growing scholarly teachers and educational researchers: a curriculum for a Research Pathway in pre‐service teacher education

This paper advocates the development of high‐level research capability in some students in their undergraduate Bachelor of Education course. The rationale for this viewpoint is presented in relation to three questions: ‘What is educational research?’ ‘Why should universities develop high‐level research capability in some pre‐service teacher education graduates?’ and ‘What type of curriculum can support the development of high‐level research capability in some pre‐service teacher education graduates?’ The first two questions are addressed broadly. The latter question is addressed with reference to an existing Research Pathway within a Bachelor of Education course. The paper concludes with the identification of a priority issue for subsequent iterations of the Pathway and a reflection on the shift in my role as a teacher in this Pathway from ‘teacher researcher’ to ‘scholarly teacher’.     

Immigrant teachers: stories of self and place

Teachers’ lives have been the focus of much recent research on teaching, and we now have rich, detailed understandings of how teachers develop a ‘teaching self,’ in the context of concrete details of biography, school settings, relationships and educational systems within which teachers work. What we lack is a sense of the teacher in a place—a specific location that holds meaning, that matters to those who inhabit it. The concept of ‘place’ has been neglected in contemporary education, yet it seems to be an important one for postmodern times. This article will examine the stories of immigrant teachers in Israel, people who have undertaken to teach in a culture different from the one in which they themselves were educated. Teachers who have made a transition from one cultural setting to another are likely to have developed an awareness of teaching and schooling in the new culture that other teachers may not have. Their stories reveal what it means in the chosen culture to tell one’s story and give an account of one’s career and work as a teacher. The stories of seven immigrant teachers, in dialogue with the researcher’s story, highlight losses and gains in the journey toward a new teaching self, and reveal something of what the process of finding or making a place for oneself—both in the new culture and as a teacher—is like.     

The Career Experiences of Teacher‐education Graduates

In an effort to gain more detailed information about the career patterns and professional experience of beginning teachers, teacher‐education graduates from the University of Canberra were studied. Data was obtained using a survey administered to a random sample of graduates who had completed their teacher‐education programmes in the academic years 1986 to 1991. The survey instrument focused on employment histories, teaching and non‐teaching career experiences, career support structures and the suitability of the University's preservice teacher‐education programmes as preparation for careers. Analysis of the data revealed that over two‐thirds of the graduates were currently employed as teachers. A little over half of the respondents stated that they would choose teaching again if making a career selection. The major problems encountered by these beginning teachers generally involved classroom management and understanding ‘the system’. Most thought that the support structures to help them with such problems were inadequate, generally recognising peers as the main means of support in early days of teaching. In response to questions about the value of their preservice programmes, the graduates placed most emphasis on the practical value of courses, the importance of practice teaching and the role of courses which provided a knowledge base for the later teaching of curriculum content.     

Learning from MacIntyre about Learning: Finding Room for a Second-Person Perspective?

In this article I try to bring into relief the background significance of learning in Alasdair MacIntyre's writings. After briefly adverting to his own manner of learning from other thinkers, I begin by outlining what he sees as essential to learning in early childhood (§I). Next, I spell out what I take to be important implications for learning, mainly in the context of schooling, of his conception of ‘practice’ (§II). Turning then to the ‘revolutionary Aristotelianism’ of his later work, I elucidate the kind of transformative learning that he deems necessary because of dominant tendencies in late modern societies (§III) and because of key features of human lives—including fallibility, narrativity and ‘final end’—that he analyses in his most recent book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (§IV). I then consider his conception of how one person's learning can be aided by another, suggesting that this conception would be strengthened by the incorporation of a second-person perspective (§V). I link the absence of such a perspective to what I see as his underestimation of the salience of the teacher–student relationship and his consequently diminished account of teaching—a largely Aristotelian-Thomist account whose strengths in other respects I acknowledge (§VI). I conclude by asking whether this line of criticism, if valid, might not indicate a lack in MacIntyre's conception of personal relationships more generally—despite the great import that he grants to them, for weal or woe, in all human lives (§VII). [The present article is included in wider discussion of issues bearing on learning and teaching in my Persons in Practice: Essays between Education and Philosophy (Wiley, forthcoming)].     

Mobility,place and affect in transnational teacher education graduates’ accounts of their first year teaching

In this article, we consider how mobility, immobility, embodiment and affect appeared in research with 13 beginning teachers who were ‘bonded’ graduates of a twinned (Malaysia-New Zealand) teacher education programme. We discuss the teachers' accounts of moving place, and being placed in new schools; ‘moving selves’, or experiencing a changed sense of self as new teachers; ‘moving students’, or seeing shifts in students' educational outcomes; and being moved by (responding affectively to) student learning and behaviour. Our study highlights the need in internationalised teacher (and higher) education to pre-empt challenges inherent in moving ‘home’ or to new places to work.     

‘The Rag-bag of All the Subjects’: English in a London Grammar School, 1945–1963

Evidence from a recent study of English teaching in three London schools in the post-war era suggests that changes to curriculum and pedagogy, commonly attributed by historians to the 1960s, were well underway in the 1950s. Major changes associated with ‘New English’ occurred when teachers began taking the lives and experiences of their pupils as material for English lessons. However, changes in an all-boys grammar school followed a different path. Using oral history methods combined with mixed documentary evidence (including teachers’ records and pupils’ work), we reconstruct the experience – the aims and beliefs – of a left-wing grammar school teacher, and we show how, under the influence of F. R. Leavis and the Scrutiny movement, he made response to literature a central activity at a moment when the place of English was uncertain, and the subject lacked academic prestige.     

Teacher Educators: hidden professionals?

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what ‘teaching’ means in 21st century learning environments. These changes also require teachers to be supported in learning to ‘teach’ in different ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and to the contexts in which they work throughout their career. In this article, it is argued that a more integrated and collaborative approach to teacher education is needed with better understanding of those who take up the roles of teacher educator across a teacher's career. With a particular emphasis on ‘teacher educators’ working in school to support teachers' career-long professional learning it is argued that currently many do not recognise themselves as teacher educators nor are they recognised by those they work with as teacher educators. Drawing on an empirical study carried out with mentors in schools in Scotland, it is suggested that these teacher educators may be ‘unrecognised’ and remain ‘hidden professionals’ because of the identities they construct for themselves, the values and priorities that they or others attach to their roles or because of the institutional structures and cultures in which they work. It is concluded that it will be difficult to recognise and value these ‘hidden teacher educators’ and the distinctive contribution they can make to teachers' career-long professional learning without further clarification by them and others of the roles and responsibilities they hold.     

Time,things, teacher,pupil: engaging with what matters

This article presents an empirical study of everyday life in school and a methodological attempt to emphasise children’s views and to find ways other than representation to analyse them. The empirical portion took place in a Finnish elementary school in which the author was the class teacher. The ten-year-olds in the class engaged in an unstructured classroom diary activity in which they freely wrote their observations, thoughts and stories. The study takes a relational materialist approach to the children’s writings focusing on various moments and gatherings in the classroom as assemblages and illustrates how time, things, teacher and pupils are co-produced in them. Temporality and materiality are also considered in relation to research methodologies. Research with children is reconceptualised based on the focus on mattering. The analysis is enacted as a non-linear and nomadic process through retelling and responding to the children’s texts. It highlights particular situations, unstabilities, ‘tiny’ things and the complexities of children’s lives in educational environments.     

Stories of family in working-class graduates’ early careers

How do young graduates view the role of immediate families in influencing/supporting them as they start their working lives and how do those reflections affect how they think of themselves as graduates? Social, political and economic changes have led to many young people being dependent on family for longer, but how does this play out in their reflections? This article addresses these questions by reporting upon findings from qualitative research with 14 young people from working-class backgrounds, who were part of a larger study of recent graduates. Figured Worlds theory illuminates data, with a consideration of the role that family plays in the ‘space of authoring’ and understanding of ‘positionality’. Findings capture vivid stories of the enabling but also limiting role of family. In our analysis of data, we borrow the words ‘salience’ from Holland and her co-authors and ‘distinction’ from Bourdieu, which help capture different depictions of family. Both articulations of ‘salience’ and a search for ‘distinction’ emerge in how graduates’ stories respond to family. We argue for a greater appreciation of the differing family resources of working-class graduates, and reject an emphasis on what they may lack, compared to their peers, which has tended to be the case in some media and policy commentary. There are implications for educators to foster student reflexivity about family sensitively, and to be aware of how family backgrounds may influence graduate career paths and students’ awareness of wider inequalities.