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Transformative Problem-Posing Teacher Education: A Framework for Engaging with Teachers’ Beliefs Through Teacher Education in India

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Teaching and Teacher Education

Part of the book series: South Asian Education Policy, Research, and Practice ((SAEPRP))

Abstract

Despite growing realization around the central role of cultural beliefs in restricting pedagogical change in India, there remains little clarity on how to address such beliefs among Indian teachers. This chapter presents a rationale and framework for engaging with teachers’ beliefs within Indian teacher education. It draws from a review of global research and a few Indian teacher education programs that have attempted to engage with teachers’ beliefs. It proposes a theoretically ground yet practice-oriented framework that weaves insights from two approaches used in Western contexts for bringing change in adult learners’ beliefs and practice, but rarely before applied to Indian teacher education: Transformative Learning and Freirean problem-posing. Building commitment to learner-centered beliefs could be one way of developing Indian teachers as professionals and intellectuals able to determine the most effective context-specific practices best suited for helping all their learners succeed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Learner-centered’ pedagogy is being defined here as an approach that values every learner’s background, capacities, interests, and active participation, and designs learning experiences around these to engage learners in discovering new knowledge for themselves, in contrast to more teacher-centered knowledge-transmission approaches. The author’s understanding could be more aptly termed ‘learning-centered’ education, which is similar to the understanding contained in literature on learner-centered education (see Schweisfurth, 2013) and in India’s own educational policy frameworks (see NCF, 2005), but implies a greater focus on the underlying beliefs driving this approach than on the specific practices used, which may vary in different contexts (see Brinkmann, 2018).

  2. 2.

    The terms ‘teacher training’ and ‘teacher education’ are used interchangeably in this chapter, as in Indian education reforms, although there is an implicit difference between them. As suggested by Peters (1967), training usually implies the acquisition of a skill through some amount of drill, without necessarily developing a deeper understanding of the underlying cognitive principles involved—as involved in the educational process. Moreover, the chapter focuses predominantly on in-service TE, although insights from the proposed framework could equally be applied to preservice TE.

  3. 3.

    This chapter focuses on teachers in the government sector, which caters to nearly two-thirds of children enrolled in elementary schools—primarily from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (NUEPA, 2015).

  4. 4.

    An ideology is a set of beliefs that supports the dominance of certain groups in a society and the oppression of others, which may become internalized as natural, taken-for-granted, common-sense wisdom—a process Gramsci (1971) called ‘hegemony’.

  5. 5.

    I found very few examples of frameworks that explicitly blend Transformative Learning with Freirean Problem-Posing (e.g. Brookfield, 2001; Brown, 2004; Curry-Stevens, 2007), even fewer applied specifically to TE, and none within an Indian context.

  6. 6.

    Such as equality, knowledge construction, a sense of mission, and other beliefs listed in Table 12.1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Education Quality Consultant, UNICEF South Asia, New Delhi, India

    Suzana Brinkmann

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  1. Suzana Brinkmann
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Setty & Associates International, Washington, DC, USA

    Rohit Setty

  2. Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Radhika Iyengar

  3. University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA

    Matthew A. Witenstein

  4. University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA

    Erik Jon Byker

  5. Washington, DC, USA

    Huma Kidwai

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Brinkmann, S. (2019). Transformative Problem-Posing Teacher Education: A Framework for Engaging with Teachers’ Beliefs Through Teacher Education in India. In: Setty, R., Iyengar, R., Witenstein, M.A., Byker, E.J., Kidwai, H. (eds) Teaching and Teacher Education. South Asian Education Policy, Research, and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26879-4_12

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