Reframing teacher education and teaching: From personalism to post-personalism

The literature on research into teaching provides different accounts of what is involved in becoming a teacher. Questions about “good practice” are generated for teachers in teacher education. This paper examines three paradigms of teacher education and teaching which are described as developmental, reflective and de/reconstructive to show that there are viable alternatives in deciding how to view the world of teaching. I argue that the three paradigms constitute two frames through which teaching can be practised and critiqued: personalism and post-personalism. The paper explicates the personalist and post-personalist constitution of the two frames. The first (personal) frame of teaching is discussed as being generated from developmental and reflective paradigms. The familiar journey from novice to expert is shown to work within developmental and reflective paradigms. A second (post-personal) frame is explained in terms of its deconstructive and reconstructive possibilities. The second frame is the lesser known alternative for teacher educators and teachers insofar as it questions and reframes the personal nature of much of the teacher development and reflection research. I offer a post-personal frame to the field as a viable means of teaching and research. Post-personalism builds on personalism by taking into account post-structural approaches to teacher education and post-structural literary theory. Parallels between the two frames of understanding teacher education and English teaching, based on literary theory, are drawn where appropriate throughout the paper.