Pain and pleasure in partnership between normal school teachers, student teachers and university teachers

Abstract

The triad of teacher, student teacher and lecturer has not always been a mutually beneficial liaison. Lecturers have expressed frustration with the constraints of schools and classroom programmes to incorporate approaches they wish to develop with students; teachers have expressed annoyance at the "child banking" nature of some interactions with lecturers and students. Some teachers have felt that their own valuable craft knowledge and skilful teaching practice has been ignored or is seldom acknowledged; students have often been left in the awkward position of having to learn from, and collaborate with, two powerful but sometimes opposing mentors.

This report focuses specifically on teachers' perceptions of the state of their partnership with lecturers and students at the School of Education, University of Waikato. The research questions also illuminate the teachers' concepts of "genuine partnership" and how such partnership can be fostered. Some significant mismatches are revealed between teachers' concepts and lecturers' concepts of what it means to be professional. This report argues that an open dialogue (in various contexts) on what it means to be professional and the fostering of collaborative research may go some way towards achieving a collaborative triad which is mutually beneficial.