ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a study of how newly qualified teachers (NQT) experience and reflect upon challenging situations in school, and what is supportive in dealing with such incidents in terms of knowledge and relational circumstances. Based on the experiences of three NQT, I discuss the implications that this might have for teacher training. The findings indicate that colleagues are of great importance for dealing with the feelings of inadequacy and resignation that take hold after such situations. Beginning teachers also find support in applying “common sense,” learning how skilled teachers they remember from their own time as pupils worked and in “putting oneself in the pupil’s shoes.” They look to how these elements form the basis for reflections and how to be prepared for challenging situations in the teaching profession. Teacher training is perceived as being remote from actual practice and of little relevance in these challenging situations. The newly qualified also call for practical examples from the education institutions and their teaching-training supervisors. The NQTs in this study go so far as to wonder whether diversity and scope in the pupil groups are taboo topics in teacher training.
