December 3 | International Portal of Teacher Education

Dec. 03, 2010

Dear subscriber,

MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

We are delighted to be sending you another issue of The MOFET ITEC Portal resource list with some significant trends from the latest articles published in academic journals focusing on teacher education, pedagogy and instruction.

Please notice we offer the learning activities for teachers & administrators:

December 15, 2010 - Higher Education and Teacher Training in the 21st Century: Current Challenges and Leading Trends. (Free of charge webinar) Click here to sign up

January 12, 2011 - Teens and Technology: Understanding and Combating Unhealthy Tech Use. (Free of charge webinar) Click here to sign up

T and T & ICT: A study tour in Israel – join us in a unique study tour, where you will get acquainted with the process of preparing a generation of future teachers, as well as will the tools and skills with which they are equipped in order to enable them to cope with the challenges of the new era.

Wishing you interesting and enjoyable reading,

The MOFET ITEC Portal Team

December 3, 2010

International Portal of Teacher Education

Please note: a complete list of recent additions to the portal follows the Featured Items.

December 2010

Featured Items

Listening to Strangers: Classroom Discussion in Democratic Education

The author argues that the practice of speaking and listening to strangers is crucial to democratic citizen formation. The author outlines a discursive approach to the cultivation of enlightened political engagement in schools. The author argues that schools are the best available sites for this project because they have the key assets: diverse schoolmates, problems, strangers, and curriculum and instruction. The author concludes that schools in societies with democratic ideals are obligated to cultivate enlightened and engaged citizens. Helping young people form the habits of listening to strangers, at that very public place called school, should advance this work.

Understanding the Teacher Job Search Process: Espoused Preferences and Preferences in Use

This article focused on the processes that teachers use to find a job and how they came to work in particular schools. Participants were individuals currently completing teacher education programs and looking for their first teaching job. The author concludes that teacher applicants’ practical understanding of the job search was informed by their social and cultural background and emphasized characteristics such as familiarity when making career decisions.

'The Beauty of America': Nationalism, Education, and the War on Terror

In this article, the author draws on qualitative research conducted with Palestinian American high school students to explore school as a key site for nation building. The author describes how U.S. nationalism and national identities are produced collectively within and through everyday racialized and gendered discourses and practices inside one school. Furthermore, the author examines the ways these productions of everyday nationalism articulate with U.S. imperial ambitions in relation to the war on terror. The author argues that legal citizenship did not protect the Palestinian American youth in this study from being seen and treated as outsiders. The authors concludes with recommendations for educating teachers.

Rethinking Education and Emancipation: Being, Teaching, and Power

The purpose of this article is to specify the grounding concepts and principles that should inform a contemporary emancipatory education. Hence, the article describes two central principles for a renewed emancipatory pedagogy across educational contexts: the recognition of an essential equality between students and teachers and a liberatory agency that uncovers and builds on students' effectivity as beings against domination. This article has important implications for educational researchers and practitioners concerned with social justice, transformation, and the struggle against oppression.

Understanding Narrative Relations in Teacher Education

In this article, the authors offer a theoretical framework, drawn from Judith Butler's politics of the performative and Adriana Cavarero's narrative relations, for understanding the dynamics of using narratives of practice in teacher education. The authors conclude that by understanding the irresolvable tension of desire to have one’s story told, a teacher has a better chance of recognising her own vulnerability and that of her students, and of teaching at the starting place of ethics.

Reverence and Listening in Teaching and Leading

The authors propose the revival of reverence and reverential listening in teaching and leading in schools. The authors take Woodruff's philosophical and historical analysis of reverence and extend it to education, particularly for teachers and school leaders. The authors’ purpose is to show what reverential listening is and how it can be part of best practices in schools. The authors conclude that small acts of reverent kindness, like the acts of reverent listening accomplished by teachers and leaders in schools, can be transformative.