Curriculum Theorizing and Teacher Education If teacher education, as a fi eld of study, is to contribute to the revitalization, remoralization, and repoliticization of education, this book argues that it needs to be alert to questions of teachers’ intellectual and political freedom and to concerns about the legitimacy of what we do in teacher education, in the name of education. Anne Phelan demonstrates how curriculum theorizing can serve such an educational project by engaging concerns about subjectivity (human agency and action), society, and historical moment, thereby widening the fi eld of insight in teacher education and informing debates about new trajectories for policy and practice. Exploring teacher education through ethical, political, and aesthetic vocabularies drawn from the humanities, is vital at a time when the dehumanizing infl uences of performativity, standardization, and accountability are evident in education systems across the world and when we are in danger of losing the things that we most value and are the least measurable – relationships, independent thought, and ethical judgment. Curriculum Theorizing and Teacher Education will be of interest to teacher educators who are practicing, researching, or (re)designing teacher education, as well as policymakers who are curious about new possibilities for framing the “problem” of teacher education at provincial, state, and federal levels. Anne M. Phelan is Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Theorizing Education Series Series Editors Gert Biesta, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Julie Allan, University of Birmingham, UK Richard Edwards, University of Stirling, UK Theorizing Education brings together innovative work from a wide range of contexts and traditions which explicitly focuses on the roles of theory in edu- cational research and educational practice. The series includes contextual and sociohistorical analyses of existing traditions of theory and theorizing, exemplary use of theory, and empirical work where theory has been used in innovative ways. The distinctive focus for the series is the engagement with educational questions, articulating what explicitly educational function the work of particular forms of theorizing supports. Books in this series: Making a Difference in Theory The theory question in education and the education question in theory Edited by Gert Biesta, Julie Allan, and Richard Edwards Forgotten Connections On culture and upbringing Klaus Mollenhauer Translated by Norm Friesen Psychopathology at School Theorizing mental disorders in education Valerie Harwood and Julie Allan Curriculum Theorizing and Teacher Education Complicating conjunctions Anne M. Phelan Curriculum Theorizing and Teacher Education Complicating conjunctions Anne M. Phelan First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 A. Phelan with R. Sawa, C. Barlow, D. Hurlock, K. Irvine, G. Rogers, F. Myrick, N. Forghani-Arani and V. Vratulis. The right of A. Phelan and contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-415-81963-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-38707-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Acknowledgments vii Series editors’ preface ix List of contributors xi Introduction: teacher education for the sake of the subject 1 PART I Complicating conjunctions 11 1 The subject of judgment 13 2 Lessons in study 27 3 Violence and subjectivity in teacher education 41 WITH RUSSELL SAWA, CONSTANCE BARLOW, DEBORAH HURLOCK, KATHERINE IRVINE, GAYLA ROGERS, AND FLORENCE MYRICK PART II Disturbing relations 59 4 Power and place in teaching and teacher education 61 5 Teacher as stranger at home 82 WITH NEDA FORGHANI-ARANI 6 At the edge of language: truth, falsity, and responsibility in teacher education 95 WITH CONSTANCE BARLOW, DEBORAH HURLOCK, GAYLA ROGERS, RUSSELL SAWA, AND FLORENCE MYRICK vi Contents 7 Portfolios as public spaces in teacher education 116 WITH VETTA VRATULIS PART III Figuring the teacher 131 8 The teacher as idealist 133 9 Virtues of a heartless teacher 145 10 Desacralizing “teacher” 157 References 171 Index 187 Acknowledgments I would like to gratefully acknowledge the series editors, Drs. Richard Edwards, Julie Allan, and Gert Biesta for the opportunity to be a part of Theorizing Education . I wish to recognize the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding much of the research that gave birth to the essays in this volume. So, too, the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia for generously funding the fi nal editorial stages of the project; in this regard, I express my sincere gratitude to Anne Hales, graduate research assistant, for her conscientious proofreading and formatting of the manuscript. This book is full of voices, stories, and lives. I am deeply appreciative of those aspiring teachers, teacher mentors, and teacher educators who have been willing to share their experiences of learning to teach and teaching with me. I have been fortunate also in having such thoughtful collaborators and colleagues whose insights live between the lines and on the pages that follow. For his willingness to listen, to pose questions, and to encourage, I am forever thankful to Paul Winkelman. For that, and for so much more, I dedicate this book to him. The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to use reprints from the following: Phelan, A., Sawa, R., Barlow, C., Hurlock, D., Myrick, F., Rogers, G. and Irvine, K. (2006) “Violence and subjectivity in teacher education,” Asia-Pacifi c Journal of Teacher Education, 34, 2:161–179. Phelan, A. and Vratulis, V. (2013) “Cry freedom: Portfolios as public spaces in teacher education,” in Teresa Wilson-Strong and Kathy Stanford (eds) The Emperor’s New Clothes: Portfolios in Teacher Education, New York, NY: Peter Lang, pp. 113–130. Phelan, A. (2001) “Power and place in teaching and teacher education,” Journal of Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies , 17, 5: 583–597. Phelan, A., Barlow, C., Hurlock, D., Myrick, F., Rogers, G. and Sawa, R. J. (Published in 2006 under 2005 edition of journal) “On the edge of language: Truth, falsity and responsibil- ity in teacher education,” Journal of the Canadian Association of Curriculum Studies , 3, 2: 103–126. This page intentionally left blank Series editors’ preface In this fourth volume in the Theorizing Education series, Anne Phelan’s Curriculum Theorizing and Teacher Education provides a timely set of refl ections on teachers, teaching, and teacher education. It comes at a point when teacher education is increasingly “under siege,” with curricula continuously controlled and scripted and geared toward teaching as technical support for raising test scores (Sleeter 2008: 1947). This has rendered teachers and teacher educators inarticulate, or at least favoring, in Bernstein’s (1999) terms, horizontal discourses involving tacit, commonsense understandings, over vertical – scientifi c “know why” – discourses (Beach 2011). The absence of vertical discourses remove teachers’ and teacher educators’ capacity for criticality (Sleeter 2008; Apple 2001) as well as their abi- lity to make equitable judgments (Alexandersson 2011). Phelan uses theory to great effect – to raise questions about the judgment, objectifi cation, and often violence visited upon teachers; to offer a playful cri- tique of the autonomous teacher of contemporary policy; and to help recog- nize some of the lies and deception that may be practiced within professional contexts, albeit innocently (Nietzsche 1979). Amid the playfulness of Phelan’s theoretical analysis, there is a recognition of the damage that is done, and she highlights some devastating cases in which individuals have been unable to endure the pressures associated with being a teacher in public. Phelan’s text is enriched by empirical examples, including some drawn from a case study of confl ict. These are given provocation through her engagement with a wealth of theory; through this engagement, she offers some new and challenging ways of thinking about power and place, about the nature of practi- cal experience, and about difference. This book is highly relevant to the series in taking as central contemporary questions that are educational ; Phelan does this in a highly refl ective and refl exive manner, writing “obtusely” (Barthes 1977) to question common-sense under- standings. She illustrates, in her analysis, the complex ways in which the “classic romance narrative” Thomson (2013: 173)