Michael Dyson

A Journey to Transformism in Australian Teacher Education: Reconceptualising Teacher Education in the 21st Century Michael Dyson

This book presents an alternative way of perceiving both formal schooling and teacher education. It challenges the educational community to examine the current practice of education and suggests a transforming alternative. Using the methodology and writing style of auto ethnography, the author has investigated an internship, in which interns were given room to negotiate their role, make mistakes, form relationships, and come to know the work of teachers. They were encouraged to become thinkers and were nurtured in their state of ¿becoming¿ by mentors. As a result of this study a new model of teacher education, known as ¿The Transformism model¿,is suggested. This involves the evolution of student teachers from a ¿me view¿ perception to a ¿worldview¿ perception. This model is not about training people to be teachers but is about the education of teachers through the adoption of adult learning and the incorporation of ¿Choice Theory¿. A new form of educational politics and practice is proposed where people come together in community; share their beliefs and knowledge, their likes and dislikes, their differences and their similarities in openness and with hope for a better world.