Abstract
Using the critical lens of Paulo Freire (1921–1997), this chapter explored the dual transformational and standardising imperatives of tertiary education, focusing on teacher education. It proposed that initial teacher educators should reconsider the process of creating teachers and, by implication, other graduates, by engagement with relational agency, a human-focused understanding of the social, cognitive and emotional connections between teachers and learners. The chapter begins by considering the processes by which teachers are accredited in Australia, suggesting that a reductive emphasis on standards is insufficient for creating teachers as relational agents who must address the ‘inertia’ outlined by the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2017). It then locates relational agency in the discourse of the teacher education and twenty-first-century skills. The chapter concludes by outlining, in relation to the WEF’s three interconnected features stymying the ‘development and deployment of talent’, strategies for reconsidering teacher education and proposing that relational agency be further explored in relation to teacher education and tertiary education more broadly.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
This is based on my 13 years of experience as an ITE academic at the University of Adelaide.
References
Australian Government Department for Education. (2019). The Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group. Retrieved from https://www.education.gov.au/teacher-education-ministerial-advisory-group.
Australian Research Council. (2020). Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). Retrieved from https://www.arc.gov.au/excellence-research-australia.
Beck, J. (2009). Appropriating professionalism: Restructuring the official knowledge base ofEngland’s‘modernised’teaching profession. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(1), 3–14.
Beekman, M., & Gal, O. (2019). ‘Return to community of scholars or suffer consequences’, The Australian, October 2, 2019, p. 28.
Bourdieu, P. (2010). Sociology is a martial art: Political writings by Pierre Bourdieu. New York: The New Press.
Churchward, P., & Willis, J. (2019). The pursuit of teacher quality identifying some of the multiple discourses of quality that impact the work of teacher educators. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 47(3), 251–264.
Coleman, W. O. (Ed.). (2019). Campus meltdown: The deepening crisis in Australian universities. Redland Bay: Connor Court.
Connell, R. (2019). The good university. What universities actually do and why it’s time for a radical change. Monash University, Clayton.
Darling-Hammond, L., Burns, D., Campbell, C., Goodwin, A. L., Hammerness, K., Low, E. L.,… Zeichner, K. (2017). Empowered educators: How high-performing systems shape teaching quality around the world. Somerset: Jossey-Bass.
Enomoto, K., Warner, R., & Nygaard, C. (2018). Innovative teaching and learning practices in higher education. The Learning in Higher Education Series. Faringdon: Libri.
Freire, P. (1971). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.
Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom. Ethics, democracy and civic courage. Critical Perspective Series. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Freire, P. (2005). Teachers as cultural workers. Letters to those who dare teach. Boulder: Westview.
Freire, P. (2017). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin Random House.
Stewart, P. (1964). Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. at 197 (Stewart, J., concurring).
Henry, A. (2016). Conceptualizing teacher identity as a complex dynamic system. Journal of Teacher Education, 67(4), 291–305.
Hil, R. (2012). Whackademia: An insiders account of the troubled university. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
Hil, R. (2015). Selling students short. Why you don’t get the university education you deserve. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin.
Hil, R. (2019). Whose future? Or why we need to think more expansively about the future of Australian higher education. Australian Universities Review, 16(1), 55–58.
Loughran, J., & Menter, I. (2019). The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 47(3), 216–229.
Matteson, M. L., Anderson, L., & Boyden, C. (2016). ‘Soft skills’: A phrase in search of meaning. Libraries and the Academy, 16(1), 71–88. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2016.0009.
Mayer, D., Dixon, M., Kline, J., Kostogriz A., Moss, J., Rowan, L.,… White, S. (2017). Studying the effectiveness of teacher education: Early career teachers in diverse settings. Singapore: Springer.
McCallum, F., & Price, D. (2016). Teacher Wellbeing. In F. McCallum & D. Price (Eds.), Nurturing Wellbeing Development in Education. From LittleThings Big Things Grow (pp. 112–132). New York: Routledge.
Mockler, N. (2013). Teacher Professional Learning in a Neoliberal Age: Audit, Professionalism and Identity. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(10). http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2013v38n10.8.
Owen, J. (2017). The new work smarts. Thriving in the new work order. Foundation for Young Australians in conjunction with Alphabeta. Report for the New Work Order Series, Sydney.
Performance-based funding for the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. (2019). Report for the Minister of Education June 2019. Commonwealth of Australia.
Reeves, J. (2018). Teacher identity work in neoliberal school spaces. Teaching and Teacher Education, 72, 98–106.
Robertson, S. L., & Sorensen, T. (2018). Global transformation of the state, governance and teachers’ labour: Putting Bernstein’s conceptual grammar to work. European Educational Research Journal, 17(4), 470–488.
Shaull, R. (1971). Foreward. In P. Freire (Ed.), Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.
Singh, P., Allen, J., & Rowan, L. (2019). Quality teaching: Standards, professionalism practices. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 47(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2019.1557925.
Smyth, J. (2012). Problematising teachers’ work in dangerous times. In B. Down & J. Smyth (Eds), Critical voices in teacher education: Teaching for social justice in conservative times. Series: Explorations of Education Purpose, Volume 22. London: Springer.
Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG). (2015). Action now: Classroom ready teachers. Retrieved from https://www.studentsfirst.gov.au/teacher-education-ministerial-advisory-group.
Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. (2019). Statistics report on tertiary education quality and standards agency registered higher education providers, October 2019. Melbourne: Australian Government.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Williams, T. (2019). Integration is the key to the future, The Australian, 11 September 2019, p. 27.
World Economic Forum. (WEF). (2015). New vision for education: Unlocking the potential of technology. Retrieved from http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_NewVisionforEducation_Report2015.pdf.
WEF. (2016). New vision for education: Fostering social and emotional learning through technology. WEF, Geneva: With the Boston Consulting Group. Industry Focus paper.
WEF. (2017). Realizing human potential in the fourth industrial revolution: An agenda for leaders to shape the future of education, gender and work. WEF, Geneva: White Paper.
WEF. (2019). System initiatives: Shaping the future of education, gender and work. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/system-initiatives/shaping-the-future-of-education-gender-and-work.
Acknowledgements
An early draft of this chapter was presented at the University of Adelaide’s Festival of Learning and Teaching. The author thanks Dr. John Willison for his critical review of the book chapter. Thanks are also due to Associate Professor Mathew White and Professor Faye McCallum for their technical editing of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Westphalen, L. (2020). Transforming Higher Education Teaching for Twenty-First-Century Skills. In: White, M.A., McCallum, F. (eds) Critical Perspectives on Teaching, Learning and Leadership. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6667-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6667-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-6666-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-6667-7
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)