Twenty-fifth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

This paper examines the experiences of student teachers as they prepare for work in schools. As austerity measures have increased pressure to rationalize the process of teacher education, student teachers have responded by developing a narrow sense of their pedagogical agency, and intensifying their use of instrumental reasoning to satisfy programs of study and deliver the curriculum (Weber, 1958). From a critical/interpretive perspective, we explore what it means to promote a more contemplative sense of agency for preservice teachers amidst the rationalized experiences of formal education. Biesta & Tedder (2007) define agency as the “capacity for autonomous social action or the ability to operate independently of determining constraints of social structure” (p. 135). Agency operates on a pedagogical view that when people actively participate in understanding and shaping the world around them, they learn to recognize their own potential as drivers of change and as energetic contributors in determining the direction of their lives (Basu & Barton, 2010; Klemenčič, 2017). In this emancipatory sense, agency requires contemplative opportunities for critical reflection and authentic self-appraisal. To create such opportunities, we took student teachers into the local environment and invited them to engage with something of genuine interest (Gruenewald, 2003; Sobel, 2005). Through this initial engagement and subsequent self-directed study, students were able to reclaim enthusiasm for learning and resist pressure to instrumentalize their teaching. Contemplation of place raised students’ consciousness of meaningful subject matter and teaching – rekindling their sense of pedagogical agency as active creators of educative experiences.