ABSTRACT
Our friend Anna Richert writes eloquently about the significance of voice in learning to teach:
As teachers talk about their work and ‘name’ their experiences, they learn about what they know and what they believe. They also learn what they do not know. Such knowledge empowers the individual by providing a source for action that is generated from within rather than imposed from without…. Teachers who know in this way can act with intent; they are empowered to draw from the center of their own knowing and act as critics and creators of their world rather than solely respondents to it, or worse, victims of it. Agency…casts voice as the connection between reflection and action. Power is thus linked with agency or intentionality. People who are empowered-teachers in this case-are those who are able to act in accordance with what they know and believe. (Richert, 1992, p. 197)
As we have watched groups of individuals follow different structures for pre-service teacher education at Queen’s University in recent years, we have noticed that those who spend more time working in schools and ‘learning on the job’ tend to be those who have more to say about their teaching experiences, who are more positive about teacher education, and who are more willing to write about and share their experiences of learning to teach. This volume brings together a range of material illustrating the development of voice by those learning to teach. The collection begins with shorter pieces that illustrate the range of experiences that a new teacher encounters and examines. Longer pieces of writing follow to reveal details of the development of several individuals learning to teach. From time to time, the editors insert brief comments to indicate the
meanings that they see in specific passages. One of our goals is to keep our own words to a minimum, to help live our belief that the voices of new teachers deserve to be a central focus of pre-service teacher education.
