Abstract:
The focus of this chapter is the transition from student of teaching to teacher of students. This transition is perhaps the most ubiquitous journey that teachers undertake, and yet, when we delve betwixt and between the positions of student and teacher, schooling and education, teaching and learning, we uncover far more complexity in the concept of learning to be a teacher than might currently be considered. In this chapter we deliberately attempt to reframe the journey of becoming a teacher from a conception that the process is a linear, progressive movement from novice to expert teacher to a journey that explores untold variations in pathways; recognises multiple starting points; and contemplates ultimately what might be possible for any person intent on learning teaching. We draw insights from complexivist philosophy and poststructural social theory to problematise the teacher-subject and consider the process of becoming a teacher in a more distributed, relational way. The intent is to generate ways of thinking beyond the conventional novice to expert explanations of becoming a teacher and explore instead the ‘ongoingness’ of developing a new professional self that is already implicated in the dynamic and evolving contexts of contemporary schooling.
