This title brings together contributions from around the world that analyse and reflect on the way curriculum is configuring and reconfiguring that world.

During the last 20 years, governments around the world have paid increasing attention to the recruitment, preparation, and retention of teachers. Teacher supply and teacher quality have become significant policy issues, taken up by policy-makers at the highest levels. This is because teachers are now seen by many governments as the ‘lynch-pin’ of educational, economic and social reform. This volume grew out of a recognition by the Editors of the growing significance of teacher education policy and a curiosity about international trends and differences. The book brings together nine papers from leading academics around the world: from the UK (England and Scotland), the USA, Australia, Singapore and Belgium, plus a joint paper comparing Namibia and the USA. Taken together, the papers reveal the complexities and contradictions of international trends. On the one hand, they demonstrate that there is indeed a common direction of travel along the lines encouraged by international bodies such as the OECD. At the same time however, the papers also reveal important differences among countries in terms of how they are addressing common aspirations as well as some apparent contradictions within the policies of individual nations. This book was based on the special issue of Teachers and Teaching.

"An alternative proposal for the education of librarians, emphasizing general knowledge and intellectual rigor and discouraging careerism"--Provided by publisher.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Use of Children's Literature in Teaching reveals the impact of politics, professional guidelines and restrictive measurements of literacy on the emerging identities of young teachers. It places renewed emphasis on the importance of creative teaching with children's literature for the empowerment of teacher agency to enhance the learning of their students. Framing the debate alongside the issue of teacher autonomy, Simpson describes results from a two-year study, which brings together information from interviews, surveys, document analysis and digital stories from Australia, Canada, the UK and the US to assess the role of children's literature in pre-service teacher education. Through cross-cultural comparison, this research captures the different levels of connection between politics, education systems, higher education and pre-service teachers. It exposes how politics, narrow views of professionalism and program structures in teacher education may adversely affect the development of pre-service teachers. This book presents a strong case that reading and responding critically to literary texts leads to better educational outcomes than basic decoding and low-level comprehension training. As such, this book will be of great interest to researchers and scholars working in the areas of teacher education and literacy and primary education. It should also be essential reading for teacher educators and policymakers.

These essays follow a veteran teacher educator and school reform activist as he tries to understand an enterprise he calls "mysterious and immeasurable." By focusing on the authentic experiences of teaching and learning that he has lived over the past 15 years, Bill Ayers reconsiders, argues, reflects, and searches for ways to break through the routine and the ordinary to see teaching as the important and extraordinary work it is. Covering a range of issues—standards, equity, testing, professionalism—this book shows us teaching as an achingly personal calling, and ultimately as a social and a political act. With these essays, Bill Ayers invites teachers into a wonderful conversation about the meaning of teaching as craft, as art, as vocation. He reminds us that an active kind of hope is at the core of teaching,seeing things both as they are and as they could be.

Ensure Conversations About Collaboration Get Results. This book lays out the theory and practice of Collaborative Professionalism. Through five international case studies, the authors distinguish Collaborative Professionalism from professional collaboration by highlighting intentional collaborative designs and providing concrete examples for how to be more purposeful with collaboration. Additionally, the book makes Collaborative Professionalism accessible to all educators through clear take-aways including: Ten core tenets, including Collective Efficacy, Collaborative Inquiry, and Collaborating With Students. Graphics indicating how educators can move from mere professional collaboration to the deep and transformative work of Collaborative Professionalism. Analysis of which collaborative practices educators should start doing, keep doing, and stop doing Collaboration can be one of your most powerful educational tools when used correctly, and turned into action. This book shows you how.

Thriving as a Professional Teacher explores the tensions and balance between developing the classroom you know will be best for the children you teach, and facing external pressures such as Ofsted, performance management, Teacher Standards and the need to prepare children for SATs and other tests. The book locates the professional in the political context before outlining the key challenges faced and experienced, and laying the foundations necessary for the professional to thrive. An expert team of contributors analyses the differences between professionalism and 'professionalisation', and emphasises the importance of promoting a collaborative, sharing culture to give you the knowledge needed to challenge and contest competing agendas. Topics covered include: understanding the impact of policy upon teachers and the teaching profession; developing a professional identity as a teacher; building resilience and a sense of wellbeing as a teacher; building and sustaining creativity in the curriculum; safeguarding young people; examining the impact of globalisation on educational practices. With case studies, opportunities for reflection and clear chapter summaries woven throughout, Thriving as a Professional Teacher will help you to form a sustainable identity and to create a teaching and learning environment in which both teachers and students can thrive. It is an essential read for both trainee and practising teachers.

In India, teacher professionalism is increasingly discussed in academics and in government as a sort of panacea to current education problems. While the debate on teaching as a profession is old, the idea of teacher professionalism has its origin in the West in the 1990s. Though the literature emerging from the West is not irrelevant in itself, there is a need to contextualize it in view of the history, culture, and society of India. This book discusses the idea of teacher professionalism in India, in light of associated concepts of profession and professionalization. Besides defining teacher professionalism in order to figure out its emerging contours, the book offers a definition of education after going through its philosophical and sociological perspectives. The book also reconstructs the development of schooling in India's post-independent state of Orissa.

This book suggests reforms to improve legal education and responds to concerns that law schools eschew the study of justice.