The main point of this article is that more credence should be given in teacher education to performative dimensions of teaching. I agree with David Carr that the requisite capabilities are probably best learned in actual schools. I employ Turnbull’s conception of performativity, which speaks of tacit cultural learning. Following Wilfred Carr I go back to Aristotle, and to debate between Gadamer and Habermas, before arriving at the view that expert teaching practice should be in the spirit of phronesis. The (...) article then proposes that school-university collaboration should be the standard motif of teacher preparation, the context within which the spirit of phronesis can be realized and modeled. (shrink)

This paper considers the way in which Christian Religious Education (RE) teachers articulate the difficulties and challenges they experience both in school and with their peers as they navigate their way through their Initial Teacher Education. The paper offers a unique exploration of the relationship between elements of the three discourses of faith identity, emerging professional identity and the requirements of a performative teacher training context. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 184 student RE teachers across three universities. It became clear (...) that all students interpreted the Standards and policy guidelines ambiguously, as being value-laden or value-free. The idea of the 'good teacher' as someone who was, by very definition, neutral and objective immediately made the faith position of students problematic. This is a key point in relation to the notion of performativity and education and the disproportionate impact it made on Christian students. It appeared as though many Christian students were concerned to stress that although their faith was personally important for them it was not something that contributed to their understanding of a 'good teacher'. (shrink)