Lessons 11 to 15: Challenges Embedded in our System of Education

11. Sending teacher candidates to schools for practicum experiences and sending faculty to observe them does not establish partnership or collaboration with schools.

12. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the practicum is not a setting for experimentation and risk-taking. The more appropriate setting is the teacher education classroom, where the teacher educator can explicitly demonstrate experimentation and risk-taking.

13. Teacher education tends to pay greater attention to the content of the school curriculum than to pedagogy, yet how teachers teach is at the heart of the changes many teacher educators would like to see in schools.

14. Many teacher educators seem unaware of or inattentive to research in teacher education.

15. If teachers at all levels of schooling do not share their pedagogical thinking and encourage students to explore the nature of learning, then we will continue to produce members of society, including politicians, who fail to understand the complexities of teaching and learning.