The "Teach for" Policy Enacted in Teach For Australia

• In Event: The Teach For All Teacher Education Experience in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil

Abstract

Objectives or purposes

This paper examines the evidence and particularities of the ‘Teach for' policy and its enactment in the Australian context since the commencement of Teach for Australia (TFA) in 2010. In 2014, Deakin University became the second Australian university contracted to deliver an award bearing degree for TFA. The evidence is situated in a comprehensive literature review that includes Australian literatures and qualitative data generated from policy analysis and interviews. The participants in this research belong to the first of three cohorts who commenced their initial socialisation into the teaching profession through a ‘permission to teach’ authority in a fractional .8 position, as they were concurrently completing a two-year graduate entry nationally accredited, secondary Master of Teaching degree.

Theoretical framework

The theoretical work that underpins this curriculum problem research is informed by complexity theory and policy analysis, an approach used previously by a core group of researchers in other large-scale teacher education research (see Mayer, Dixon, Kline, Kostogriz, Moss, Rowan, Walker-Gibbs, White, 2017). We argue, following Davis and Sumara (2006) that teacher education systems are adaptive and therefore education can be thought of as sites of learning which emerge from experiences that trigger transformations in learners and within teacher education.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

The qualitative study was designed around three questions:

How do pre service teachers learn to teach in a course that is largely located outside the university system?

What elements of the teacher education curriculum are supportive of learning to teach?

How does collaboration across institutions (schools and university and not for profit organisations such as TFA) affect pedagogy and curriculum?
Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials

The research was conducted during the first years of the TFA program taught degree in 2014 – 2015. As well as the documentary evidence, data was generated from 42 TFA pre-service teachers, TFA program staff, Deakin staff and school mentors involved in TFA program. The interview data includes: individual semi-structured interviews of 17 TFA pre service teachers; focus group interviews of  TFA pre service teachers and individual semi-structured interviews with TFA program staff, school mentors and Deakin University TFA program staff.

Findings and scholarly significance of the study

TFA we argue is part of the rise and failures of market orientated neoliberal political agendas staged in the public policy arena to redress inequality and is negatively impacting Australian education. The redefining of the TFA associate as ‘heroes’ and ‘heroines’, the super persons who will lead Australian education from the plight of poverty is drawn into sharp focus. The ‘technicisation of professional knowledge and a growth of cultural fakery around education’ (Connell, 2013) is propelled by personal narratives that deflect rather than reflect learning to teach as a social process for nurturing pedagogical growth. Issues of survival become the norm. ‘Cultural fakery’ (Connell, 2013) delimits the possibilities for nurturing capacities in practice and for Australian students most in need.

Authors

• Julianne Moss, Deakin University

• Bernadette Mary Walker-Gibbs, Deakin University

• Mary Dixon, Deakin University

• Danielle Hitch, Deakin University

• Matthew Thomas, Deakin University

• Kate Johnstone, Deakin University

• Jill Loughlin, Deakin University

• Trevor Mccandless, Deakin University

• Robin Bellingham, Deakin University