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Critical Discourses on Teacher Development
J. SMYTH (Ed.), 1995
London, Cassell
ISBN 0 304 33402 2 (pbk), viii + 231 pp., no price given
What a timely text in a season fraught with disintegrating public respect and ever growing queues of newly graduated, unemployed novice teachers. In Australia, good teachers leave this profession in droves. Some never even get the chance to practice. My own sister trained as a teacher and could not get a job (except parking cars on a sessional basis when the international rock concerts were on) and, in disgust, turned her gaze elsewhere and retrained as a nurse. Teachers who are lucky enough to score a job, burn out quickly and, after a couple of years, leave in revolt to work for alternative employers who appreciate their efforts, commitment and talents. Department stores, government agencies and private enterprise snap them up because qualified teachers have (a) the capacity to put people at ease and (b) the written and communication skills to make their employer look good. Industry gains well educated professional employees. The schooling system is scourged and loses a brace of kinspeople.
Mentoring is suggested as a way of cheap and effective continuing teacher development. Excerpts from interviews with mentors and the mentored are in the Cochran-Smith and Paris chapter, intertwined with the practicalities of mentoring, allowing the reader to actively interpret and judge the presented dialogue...