Bullock (2016) reviews how teacher training was traditionally based on propositional knowledge taught in coursework and experiential knowledge gained during the Practicum.

The participant in Bullock (2011) as described in Bullock (2016) described the Practicum as a false apprenticeship. I agree with the participant in Bullock (2011) as described in Bullock (2016) because I had a similar practicum experience during my teacher education practicum in 2010 while as a teacher candidate at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada. My Associate Teacher was fairly new to teaching himself as he came to teaching late in his life as a second career. I was his first ever Teacher Candidate. I felt like he was my boss and indeed his evaluation reports were a bad experience. I felt that he selected me because he wanted to benefit from my working experience in Computer Science which was one of the subjects he was teaching and this made me excited at the beginning. The course was struggling under him and looking back I can see myself, new to teaching, being used as a tool in his classroom to see if I can enact some miracle.

When I arrived at my Practicum school, the lady in the Office took one look at me and I felt that she hated me instantly even though I had not said a word or done anything as yet. I found out that she does the calling for Supply Teachers so I immediately felt that my chances of getting called for supply teaching at this school were zero, and this school was my only hope. I felt that the teachers at the school ganged up on me to explain to me that my only hope of getting a teaching job is if one of the teachers die or retire and I should look around and see that they were all fairly young. These teachers were nice enough to explain to me that there are many jobs to be had in Tuktoyatuk in the Northwest Territories. I looked into it but because I am a strict vegetarian, getting food there would have been a problem for me. All of these contributing factors made me lose my home in Ottawa, Ontario and take the job in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Plus the wait time on the Supply List at that time was approximately 8 years and this was the time, before the Ford government changed it, where you must sit on the Supply List and wait your turn before you can ever be called for an interview. I know this based on first hand information because I applied to a school in Ontario and the Principal called me personally to tell me that as much as he would like to, he is not allowed to call me for an interview and I could sense the pain and frustration in his voice.

Bullock (2016) review of teacher education includes the point that the effects of the pedagogical context knowledge taught in teacher education programmes are so thin that they are “washed out” early once teachers enter into the field and begin working. I agree the effects of teacher education programmes are “washed out” early in their careers because it happened to me in Fort McMurray, Alberta. I took the job in Fort McMurray, AB because I needed a job desperately since I had been unemployed for 3 years, additionally, I was going to school while I have a family to support. So I took the first job that came my way and it was not in the classroom. As a result, all that I learnt at Queen’s University during my teacher education was “washed out”, however I learned other things. Also, even if that was not the situation, it would have happened during the stages of doing supply teaching or taking whatever you can get and doing anything and whatever you have to do at the start of your career to get that first job, and at that time I was told that could take years. But also I was tricked; maybe it might not have taken so long in my case because of my background. But that is another story for another time.

In reading Bullock (2016), I like the idea of craft knowledge in the discussion about teacher candidates’ professional knowledge being teaching the subject while working with the learners. I agree with this, as I know from first hand experience, and we could all agree with the idea that being an expert in a subject does not mean that you can teach it since at one time or another, we have experienced a subject matter expert being unable to teach the subject to students. In my experience of becoming a teacher, the most important thing for me was learning about students and how to work with students.

With respect to learning from experience, I believe in reflection-in-action leading to knowing-in-action because I do this during my long commute to and from work. I do a lot of thinking when I drive. Also, I sweep my classroom at the end of the day, and it has now developed in me that when something happens in the classroom, almost always involving students and on occasions involving the Administration, I would need to sweep the classroom to reflect on what happened, before I am able to move on and do anything else that day.

Some of the ideas contained in Bullock (2016) are action research as a recursive cycle of planning, acting, reflecting, revising. And learning to teach requires how to learn from experiences. Also the plan-act-observe-reflect spiral. And pedagogy is a relationship between teachers and students that cannot be isolated from teaching strategies.

I often wonder about experimentation in the classroom. I have a challenge of how to do this when we are not even allowed to take pictures of students. Currently, I take students to robotics competitions and I do field trips with students and of necessity we need to share these experiences with the school community to highlight and showcase our successes.  Even in these circumstances, I face challenges simply to share the photographs I have taken at the events. I know of some research I would like to do but how to collect data in the classroom feels to me like an impossible task. How could I ever be able to do experimentation in the classroom? Or conduct studies or ask students to do some questionnaires?

My notes on self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (S-STTEP / S-STEP) from Bullock (2016). Some of the terms and ideas: self-study of teaching and teaching practices, teachers examine their own teaching practice. Studying what is in one’s personal practice. Self-study is about understanding one’s own practices. Action research is about understanding the results of particular interventions in the classroom.

I agree with the assertion that learning to teach requires learning how to learn from experiences. Also I agree that action research is best suited for teacher practicum and S-STEP maybe better suited for course work because I can see how it is possible for me as a practitioner to do action research now.

I agree with the principle of learning to think pedagogically (Bullock, 2013), that is, thinking about the effects of a particular learning strategy on students’ learning. It is also my experience that teacher candidates may come to the teaching profession knowing the content of the curriculum, or more specifically, knowing the subject matter, for example, Physics or Computer Science without much knowledge of pedagogy and much less knowledge of what it is to think pedagogically. I would also argue, based on my present experience in the field of teaching, that many practicing teachers in the field of teaching may not have the ability to think pedagogically.

References

Bullock, S. M. (2016). Teacher Candidates as Researchers. In J. Loughran & M. L. Hamilton (Eds.), International Handbook of Teacher Education (pp. 379-403). Springer: Singaport.

Bullock, S. M. (2011). Inside teacher education: Challenging prior views of teaching and learning. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Russell, T., Bullock, S. M., Vilaça, M. T., Ferreira, F. I., Carvalho, A. A., & Flores, M. A. (2013). Developing Experienced-Based Principles of Practice for Teaching Teachers. In Back to the Future (pp. 207–218). SensePublishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-240-2_12