Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/capj20

Transforming teacher education or transforming

the school: a dangerous dilemma?

Gert Biesta, Keita Takayama, Margaret Kettle & Stephen Heimans

To cite this article: Gert Biesta, Keita Takayama, Margaret Kettle & Stephen Heimans (2023)
Transforming teacher education or transforming the school: a dangerous dilemma?, Asia-
Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 51:3, 213-215, DOI: 10.1080/1359866X.2023.2207290

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2023.2207290

Published online: 15 May 2023.

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ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION
2023, VOL. 51, NO. 3, 213–215
https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2023.2207290

EDITORIAL

Transforming teacher education or transforming the school:

a dangerous dilemma?

It is quite remarkable that in many countries, teacher education has become the new
focus of attention of policy-makers and politicians. Or perhaps this is not that remarkable
if we look at it from the perspective of the “one-level-up” hypothesis. After all, if the
ongoing – some might say: relentless – pressure on schools to improve their performance
is not yielding the results that policy-makers and politicians want to see, then the problem
must be located “one level up,” that is, with the quality of teacher education. One could
argue that shifting the focus from schools to teacher education is logical, particularly if
one falls for the widespread but problematic belief that teaching is the most important in-
school factor influencing student achievement.
After all, if school improvement stalls, it must have something to do with teachers, and
since teachers are educated in order to become teachers, the quality of teacher education
appears quickly as the main culprit – or in terms of policy: as the main target of policy
interventions. It is interesting to see that the logic of “one level up” has its limits because
policy-makers and politicians very seldomly conclude that the problem lies with educa­
tional policy and educational politics. At most, they blame the way in which policies have
been taken up or implemented. But the idea that the policy or the surrounding politics
itself is the problem is hardly ever considered.
Where it concerns teacher education, there are generally two strategies for improve­
ment. One strategy, which is popular in many countries, is that of attracting the “right”
candidates to teacher education programmes. This may sound reasonable and fits well
into a policy rhetoric that complains about the quality of students who opt for a career in
teaching. But one could well argue that a search for the “right” or the “best” candidates for
teacher education actually displays a disbelief in the power of education itself. It almost
suggests that teacher education can only be successful if it is able to attract the right
students. But this claim is as problematic as saying that schools can only improve if they
are able to attract the “right” students. (This is notwithstanding the fact that these
selectionmechanisms are of course ongoing and may provide very different “evidence”
about what the most important factors influencing student achievement actually are.)
The other avenue for the improvement of teacher education is, of course, about what
happens in teacher education programmes themselves. These are questions of the
curriculum, the pedagogy, the relationship between practical and theoretical compo­
nents, the role of standards and professional values, the intellectual climate, the role of
study, inquiry and research, and so on. Teacher educators know that these aspects matter
and also know that there are ongoing challenges about meaningful curricula, relevant
pedagogies, a productive relationship between practical and theoretical components,
and the critical engagement with standards, values, and wider trends in society. One

© 2023 Australian Teacher Education Association

214 EDITORIAL

could say that this is the ongoing challenge that teacher educators engage with on a daily
basis: to prepare their students for the complex realities of their future workplace.
While this is definitely the most meaningful way to think about bringing about good
teacher education, it relies on the assumption that teacher education should prepare
students as best as possible for their future working lives. Another way of putting this, is to
say that the ambition is to make sure that teacher education has an optimal fit with the
educational settings where students will work once they have graduated from their
teacher education programmes.
But when we look at the question of teacher education in terms of the “fit”
between teacher education and the work in schools, there are actually two differ­
ent avenues for achieving such a fit. One is to work on the quality of teacher
education so that it “fits” the practice of teaching. Or in less functionalistic terms:
so that teachers are well prepared for what they may encounter in their future
working lives.
But the “fit” can also be achieved by changing the school, and particularly by changing
the school and its routines in such a way that it actually requires less from teachers. Put
simply: the more what happens in schools becomes standardised and a matter of pre-
defined protocols, the less need there is for teachers to be able to act thoughtfully and
inventively in always new situations and circumstances.
An open curriculum demands more from teachers than a closed one. A small set of
learning outcome demands less from teachers than an array of possible educational
yields. Students who “behave” according to set rules require less relational expertise
and skilfulness than students who are allowed to bring their selves into the classroom.
Teaching on the basis of what the “evidence” prescribes requires less from teachers than
teaching that seeks to be responsive to the situation.
Put differently: to educate a chef for a restaurant where customers can ask for any food
they want, is a more complicated task than educating a chef for an à la carte restaurant
and educating such a chef is more difficult than training workers in a fast-food chain. And
this is not because the food in fast-food restaurants is by definition of a lower quality than
the food in an à la carte restaurant – that is an empirical question. But it is because a fast-
food restaurant is completely “protocolled,” both for customers and for workers, so that
very little can go wrong – but also very little can happen.
One could argue that making schools “fit” teacher education so that the education of
teachers becomes less challenging and complicated, is just a theoretical option, and not
something that speaks to the reality of what is currently going on in education policy and
teacher education policy. We are, however, not entirely convinced that this is not already
happening. And we are definitely not convinced that the simplification of schools is not
happening at all.
On the contrary, in many countries we see an ongoing narrowing of the curriculum, an
ongoing narrowing of what “counts,” and, as a result, also an ongoing narrowing of what
is expected from teachers. From there it may only be a small step to begin to think very
differently about the improvement of teacher education.
That is why it is important to remain vigilant about the potential and actual simplifica­
tion of what is going on in and around schools, as it only needs “one level up” for this to
result in a simplification of teacher education itself. That is why the papers in this issue are
helpful and important because they all push in the opposite direction by highlighting the
 ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 215

intellectual, political, and practical complexities of what goes on in schools and how
teachers and teacher educators encounter and engage with these complexities.

Gert Biesta
The Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh,
UK
Centre for PublicEducation and Pedagogy, National University of Ireland at Maynooth,
Maynooth, Ireland
gert.biesta@mu.ie http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8530-7105
Keita Takayama
Graduate School of Education, University of Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9888-0047
Margaret Kettle
School of Education and the Arts, CQUniversity, Brisbane, Australia
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4060-4226
Stephen Heimans
University of Queensland, Australia
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4573-9461