ABSTRACT
Is a teacher’s role essentially expertise in teaching itself, regardless of the content; or is it rather to be the transmitter of valued knowledge? The chapter from which this extract is taken argues that there has been an overemphasis in the preparation of new teachers on how to teach, with too little attention paid to the content to be taught. It argues for a more equal balance to be achieved between developing expertise in teaching techniques and the organisation and management of classrooms and developing expertise within the subjects to be taught. In the extract below, Lee Shulman lays out a taxonomy of the different types of knowledge required by the teacher, who must, he argues, not only know how to teach, but also what to teach and why. We shall return to the discussion of teachers’ knowledge of curriculum content in Part 4 of this book on the curriculum.
