What does it Take to Change Minds? Intellectual Development of Preservice Teachers

Bibliographic Data

ID4308936
AuthorsLola Hill (Deakin University, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume51
Issue1
Pages50-62
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Teacher Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-4871 • E-ISSN: 1552-7816
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/002248710005100106
OpenAlexW2059408441
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited6

In this article, I describe a teacher education program in educational psychology at an Australian university and its success in promoting elementary and secondary preservice teachers' intellectual functioning in terms of developing their critical and reflective judgment; tolerance of doubt, ambiguity, and complexity; awareness of self-agency; and so forth. The findings are relevant to teacher educators generally because the intellectual functioning of preservice teachers is a determining factor in the quality of their learning and teaching in all areas. Programs resulting in gains in intellectual functioning are significant because traditional instruction rarely achieves such gains (Shearn & Davidson, 1989). In visiting perhaps 100 elementary classrooms over more than a decade in Australia, I have witnessed innumerable interactions between teachers and children in which the teacher appears not to have grasped the meaning or consequence of a child's intellectual offering. I speak not of the inevitable moments when distraction or preoccupation interferes with a teacher's ability to listen and respond adequately to a child, nor of situations when the child's meaning is unclear, but of interactions in which a child's expression of thinking is clear, unambiguous, and significant, yet falls into the void, uncomprehended, unacknowledged, and unused. That particular opportunity to engage the child in further learning is lost. In the short term, the child may not appreciate his or her own achievement; in the longer term, the child may question whether the effort required to engage intellectually with a teacher is worthwhile. I do not believe that these teachers deliberately neglect children's interests. We do not educate our teachers to engage with children intellectually. Like Splitter and Sharp (1995, p. 65), I distinguish between schooling and education. Unlike education, schooling is not renowned for its attention to inculcating reflective and critical thinking and judgment in its learners. Most teachers, I hazard, are more schooled than educated. Consequently, most are not practiced at joining in thoughtful dialogue about substantive issues. Sadly, many appear disinclined toward it. Schooling has left its mark. Intellectual development is a journey requiring effort; it is not an inherent gift one does or does not possess. One chooses whether or not to embark on the journey and applies one's intelligence, among many other personal qualities, to the journeying. Teachers must embark on that journey with reclaimed intrepidity and gusto if they are to meet their learners in genuine intellectual endeavour. If we want teachers to be educators, then we must educate them. We must provide them with opportunities, support, and challenge to become reflective, critical, and creative thinkers, to grow intellectually, to engage in a process of constant transformation. I use the term intellectual development to mean that process of adult post-formal-operational development theorists including Perry (1981); Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986); and King and Kitchener (1994) describe. The above developmental models describe adult intellectual development as a process of growth from a state of relative psychological rigidity toward increasing flexibility. Perry (1988) describes adult intellectual development as a visible, even explicit broadening of the mind (p. 150). It is a reorganization of intellectual structures stimulated by cognitive disequilibrium resulting in increasing awareness, comprehension, and ability to deal with the complexities, uncertainties, and ambiguities of one's intellectual and social life (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). Models of intellectual development describe how the capacity for reflective judgment develops. Although there is a substantial body of work concerning the nature of reflective teaching (e.g., Schon, 1991), there are relatively few attempts to explore and monitor intervention programs designed to enhance reflective judgment in preservice teachers

Agency (philosophy) · Curriculum · Developmental psychology · Mathematics education · Meaning (existential) · Pedagogy · Sociology · Teacher education · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Psychology · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

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