Teacher education: aims, contents and strategies

Abstract

earing in mind that teaching profession learning is a process that takes the teacher’s lifetime, teacher education in analysed as long continuum that compromises four basic critical periods, because of the influence potentiality they have on the development of conceps and professional competence in teachers: pre-education phase, initial education phase, induction phase, and inservice training. When one asks "what kind of teachers are to be prepared?" ou, in other words, "what aims, contents and strategies are to integrate teacher education?", the reason of questioning arises from our paradigmatic supposition, i.e.. from of teaching, school, and of what think the education process should be. So, first, the present study analyses the orientations or conceptual alternatives which, according to Feiman-Nemser (1990), have given structure to teacher education in the general education context: academic, practical, personal, technological, and social/critical orientations. Second, it comments the current theoretical standpoints in Physical Education teacher education, namely, the behaviourist paradigm, the occupational socialization theory, and the critical theory; it analyses the controversy between "performance pedagogy" and "critical pedagogy". Advocating the idea that the different conceptual orietations on teacher education ar e not mutually exclusive, this study argues, lastly, that the real problem in Physical Education teacher education consists in the necessity of regarding the teacher as an expert with a deep scientific and pedagogic knowledge, a professional who performs a principles, and two is capable and willing to develop continuously and ameliorate the efficiency of his work, pursuing professional dignity.