Taking a Philosophical Approach to Initial Teacher Education

• In Event: The Relevance of Humanities-Based Approaches to Teacher Education

Abstract

During this panel I look forward to contributing some thoughts on taking a philosophical approach to the research and practice of initial teacher education. This approach emerged from my struggle to reconcile the emerging language of professionalism with my lived professional reality as an educator, and a subsequent growing concern for student and newly qualified teachers. If I had trouble making sense of the restricted, defensive, impersonal version of the educator expected of me, how on earth was somebody starting out coping with this? How are they to make sense of a life in this world as an educator amidst a flood of policy, curricular documents, and research findings? I will share how in my own research I approach initial teacher education philosophically in order to create a new discursive environment, and how bringing this mode of engagement to the lecture hall can support student and early career educators in making sense of their educational selves.

Philosophy can help strengthen teacher education through engagement with and in philosophical thinking as research. As an approach, philosophy seeks to see and understand that which is, that which persists, and that which emerges. In this way the theoretical richness of philosophy of education has been drawn upon to inform the practical and systemic dimensions of initial teacher education. Furthermore, taking cues from questions arising from our social and educational reality, a philosophical approach invites student teachers to think differently, to engage with diverse sources and have a conversation with our educator selves. As Mary Midgley (2019) wrote, philosophical thoughts “do not compete with the sciences” rather they try “to work out the ways of thinking that will best connect these various visions… with each other and with the rest of life” (p. 6). To illustrate this dual potential I will draw on my monograph (Author, 2023), which both engages philosophically with the policy and practice of teacher education and invites those interested and engaged in teacher education to think philosophically about the under-considered norms underpinning how they live and work together.

In dwelling thoughtfully with these ideas the more latent aspects of our educational work – the everyday, almost intuitive practices by which we engage with our colleagues and students – are made visible. In the discourse of initial teacher education there seems to me an avoidance of the educational self, of who the student is as an educator and what their capabilities might be. It is in this orientation of appreciation, of drawing attention back to that which we have always already known and thinking about it anew, that I offer and encourage a philosophical approach to teacher education. Engagement with educational policy conceived as a form of philosophical research invites focused attention and imaginative response. Stepping back in this way, becoming involved in thinking, reading and writing slowly, and paying careful attention to detail, affords a valuable vantage point from which to embark on a career as an educator.

Author

• Elizabeth O’Brien, Maynooth University