A Different Kind of Teacher for a Different Kind of School

The current 'old school' paradigm of teaching and learning is based on students sitting passively in rows, completing a required syllabus in the order they are told to do so, and with very little choice. Assessment systems sort children and reinforce the status quo, promoting learning for 'some'. In the 'new school' paradigm, schools will no longer be places young people go to watch their teachers work. They are learning centres, with student engagement at the forefront and personalized approaches focussing the instruction on the needs of the learner. In this dynamic learning environment, a new approach to classroom and school leadership is vital. The implications of learning for 'all' are profound for teacher education. Schools of Education mostly place our students in schools as they are, not in schools as they need to be. That means we are replicating and perpetuating obsolescence. In this chapter, I offer a conceptual rationale for the change ahead and propose an internationally developed framework for teacher education to cut across the silos of individual states and provinces governed by individual regulators but where practices may not necessarily be driven by the knowledge base. The work is centred on implementing a Deweyan philosophy of education. We need a different kind of teacher for a different kind of school.