A Road Less Travelled: Becoming a Rural Teacher Educator

Abstract

In this chapter I seek to bring two relatively under-theorised research fields together: namely rural education and teacher educator professional learning to investigate and better understand the work of becoming a rural teacher educator. I argue that if teacher educators are important to ensuring teachers are well prepared to meet the needs of all students, then rural teacher educators are key to better serving the needs of rural students, their families, and contributing to the sustainability of rural communities more broadly. I do this work by drawing from what Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) describe as an ‘inquiry stance’ and through a recursive process examining my own professional learning journey in becoming a rural teacher educator through a self-study inquiry. I use and share my findings from my earlier doctoral studies and return to the ways in which I was ‘unprepared’ as a beginning teacher to teach in a small rural community. I revisit these key themes that emerged now from the vantage point of my research work more recently as a teacher educator. I conclude the chapter with a series of reflections on the ways in which this expanded self-study contributes to the growing knowledge base of becoming a rural teacher educator; professional learning and the implications this work might have for redesigning teacher education curriculum for rural teachers.