Education as a Consilient Problem: Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and the Left–Right Spectrum (LRS) in Times of Disruption

Twenty-first century teachers enter a profession that is simultaneously disrupted and disrupting. This chapter explores the problematic relationship between preservice teachers’ personal identities and professional identities in relation to the Left–Right Spectrum (LRS) and contemporary disruptions. The chapter acknowledges this relationship as a wicked problem but invites its reframing as a consilient problem—one that recognises the importance of epistemic diversity in education and the ‘reconciliation of opposites’ as an important challenge and opportunity for teacher improvement during times of disruption. The chapter elucidates the consilient problem of teacher identity with a mixed-methods survey of approximately 700 Preservice Teachers (PSTs) from an Australian university. The results reveal important relationships between sector demographics (e.g., gender and discipline) and value-orientations (e.g., collective-individual and intuitive-rational) that are expressed and contested in the social issues that accompany disruption. The chapter invites teachers and initial teacher educators to a more reflexive and relational conversation about the LRS. It frames this conversation as essential to the realisation of the professional standard to ‘know students and how they learn’ and to ‘recognise diverse backgrounds’. We argue that the achievement of this standard relies on its application to school students, preservice teachers, teachers, and teacher educators, alike.

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Re-imagining Teaching Improvement: From Early Childhood to University

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978-981-99-7745-1

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