How many curricula teacher education institutes teach? Toward a new taxonomy

How many curricula teacher education institutes teach?
Toward a new taxonomy

University of Malaya (UM) speech

Joint seminar on teacher education

January 7^th, ۲۰۱۶
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Introduction 1:
An overview of the TE university,  which has, quickly grown into a mega university with an  exclusive and exclusionary mission of training teachers for all stages of public schooling in Iran, that is elementary and secondary…. This is unlike Malaysia that teacher education is a shared responsibility of all government universities and teacher training centers.
This is a predominantly undergraduate university now which promises to have a noticeable share of graduate students in the near future.
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Introduction 2:
Teacher education should aim at teacher identity... Identity formation    with a specific frame of reference constitutes the foundation of any teacher education program, as is the case for any education program in general. It is the normative aspect or the distinguishing character of the program.
Therefore the question of what kind of identity is not only an inevitable but the most relevant and revealing question that could be asked about any teacher education program.
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In CFU, we have opted for “reflective practitioner” as the identity type or the ideal type of teachers, which after Shon denotes teachers who are moral, perceptive, courageous and insightful professionals who are not only mentally prepared but are also competent enough to continuously seek and invent better and more responsible solutions for context specific pedagogic problems, and possibly registering new heights in the professions’ knowledge base either individually or collectively. They are to be assisted in turning into an authentic pedagogy connoisseur.
I sometimes have referred to this identity as the grand or Meta competency being pursued by the program.
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Where does curriculum come into play? Obviously curricula are, by definition, mediums for making an imaginary educational aim come through in a calculated manner.
Late Elliot Eisner, the renowned educational theorist, speaks of a variety of curricula that is taught in any educational setting. His variety (taxonomy) is comprised of 3 types which are known as: explicit curricula (the planned formal document), implicit curricula (what gets taught or learned unintentionally or inattentively) and null curriculum ( what is excluded or not taught which has a consequence) which all together determine the scope of learning experiences or the real achievement attained at the school level… the dynamics of the three

This taxonomy is coached in a descriptive frame and wishes to raise the consciousness of policy makers and practitioners alike. Said differently, it is a conceptual- analytic framework for having a better understanding of what actually transpire in the school setting: “three curricula that all schools teach“. Anyone who comes across this topic, learns to look deeper into educational contexts and to refrain from a simplistic account of what is going on in such context, leading to the conclusion that as Dewey has reminded us there is a lot more going on in school settings than we think is the case (the greatest educational fallacy is not to realize this fact).

To be sure, there are other taxonomies capturing different concepts of curricula offered by different scholars with specific purposes in mind (see for example the classification of levels of curriculum initially introduced by John Goodlad in a famous study called SOS in the 70’s and later followed and expanded by his associate Frances Klien.)
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My suggested taxonomy could be understood better if compared with that of Eisner… serving as a comparative organizer
…. Conceptual analytic which sophisticates perception, similarity
…. Prescriptive not descriptive, difference
…. Not linked to education in the limited sense of general education, difference
…. Linked to a specific rationale or professional identity/ character embraced by a framework for teacher education irrespective of the subject to be taught… “coaching” the student teachers to become reflective practitioners and practice accordingly… difference

The taxonomy with a “nested” relationship to each other, circles with common centers and expanding radius outward

• Direct: learning taking place within a conventional teaching learning plan … corresponding to the explicit curriculum
• Indirect: a single learning goal, like ICT orientation, followed as the secondary function of other courses throughout the program in addition to the courses directly attending to the goal… no correspondence

• Non-formal: a single learning goal pursued and reinforced through voluntary extra- curricular activities … no correspondence or the implicit curriculum?

• Unstructured: learning massages stimulated by the natural living at the very environment encountered by the students, either in the university or in the school where they spend time for practice teaching… the silent voices that are heard loud and clear in the living space. the reinforcement of values in an effective and yet unobtrusive and way taking place at a subconscious level)no correspondence, hidden curriculum( in Phillip Jackson’s sense)