ABSTRACT
How do teachers learn to teach in a competent manner? Earlier argument suggests that teachers are guided by emerging professional concepts (of education, teaching and learning) and by their actual classroom exper iences. Over time, the ability to apply pr inciples associated with a favoured ideal of good practice firms up, boosted by novel insights and innovations during periods of training and further professional development. But the varying situations in which teachers learn how to teach are complex. They are complex because teachers’ professional expertise is-from the start-subject to multiple influences from central government legislation, from classroom and school communities and (initially) from the kind of help and instruction given on teacher-education courses. These latter courses are, themselves, prey to competing political, professional and academic demands. Course leaders must combine a top-down managerial approach (conforming to political legislation) with bottom-up school-based learning, via school-college partnerships, often exhorting student-teachers to integrate these various strands of influence through a form of reflective appraisal or critical thinking.
