The School Curriculum Ten Years Hence - UCET: Universities ...

phases of schooling, the processes of allocation of school places and
the financing of schools can each be seen to impose restrictions
which are at best artificial and at worst arbitrary of the lived
experiences of teachers and learners.
2.3 The education of teachers
While many of the principles outlined in 2.1 also apply to the
curriculum for teacher education (initial and in-service), there are
some specifics which are especially important.
All beginning teachers must be entitled to study models of learning
and motivation and learning for young people. They should also
have structured and systematic opportunities to develop their
interactive skills, include significant awareness of negotiation.
Furthermore, there needs to be a clear focus on individual learning
and the significance of the teacher knowing individual learners.
Beginning teachers need also to have a keen awareness of the preand
post-schooling settings - both institutional and private - in
which young people are learning. So, for example, student
involvement in early excellence centres can be a very powerful
experience, creating not just a better understanding of the meaning
of potentially abstract concepts such as social inclusion, but creating
also an existentially powerful personal experience for the student.
At the post-school end, involvement in a local ‘Connexions’ setting,
could have very similar benefits.
The teacher education process becomes post powerful and effective
when there is a genuine synergy between the personal experiential
dimension of placement and the scholarly activity of studying the
reports and accounts of researchers and practitioners.
3. Training or Educating?
Many of the principles outlined during the discussion had as an
underlying concept an awareness of the distinction between
education and training. Both school education and teacher
education must inevitably include elements of both, however the
balance was in some instances felt to have become one which
underplays a broad and humanistic commitment to education, both
in schools and in much teacher education. Patterns across the UK
are not uniform in this respect and indeed much might be learned
from more interaction between the four jurisdictions of the UK and
of the Irish Republic in this respect. The idea of teachers moving
between these nations both during initial training and later in their
careers found significant support in the group (not least in the
context of free movement of labour in Europe). In general it was