EDC2002

The teachers' world

Ms A Forsyth

6 points - 3 hours per week - Second semester - Clayton - Prerequisite: EDC2001

Objectives Upon successful completion of this subject, students should have developed the skills and confidence to reflect on their own understandings of teachers and their work; be able to analyse and articulate their own experiences and the ways in which these shape their views about, attitudes towards and understandings of teachers, teaching and learning; identify the role played by individual and collective experiences in the development of cultural, gender and social values and attitudes towards teachers and teaching; understand the place and role of teachers in modern society and the ways in which historical, political and sociocultural factors such as social status, class and gender shape the world and work of teachers.

Synopsis This subject will provide students with an opportunity to reflect on representations of teachers and teaching and how their own image of themselves, schools and families and the important relationships that exist between these images contribute to their formation of views of and attitudes towards teachers, teaching and learning. The subject will highlight the values, expectations and images of teaching and teachers which students possess and which are formed, and continue to be formed, by their personal experiences as an individual, as a member of a family and wider community. Students will examine the place and roles of teachers, especially, but not exclusively school teachers, in modern society. The main focus will be on Australian teachers, but reference also will be made to teachers in other cultural settings. A number of perspectives will be presented, including the social status and class of teachers, the formation, growth and regulation of teachers, their relationship to the state and different employers, gender relations in teaching and teachers' membership of and participation in school and education communities. The subject will adopt a multidisciplinary approach, calling on historical, literary and multimedia sources, as well as those of the social sciences, to take students into the world and work of teachers.

Assessment Participation in workshops: 10% - Interview/report: 50% - Essay (1800 words): 40%

Recommended texts

Connell R and others Making the difference Allen and Unwin, 1982
Hargreaves A Changing times, changing teachers Cassell, 1994
McRae D Teachers, schools and change Heinemann, 1988
Welch A Australian education: Reform or crisis Allen and Unwin, 1996

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