The International Terrain of Teaching and Teacher Education: How can Teacher Educators Prepare Teachers for a World We Cannot Envision

Abstract

In this paper we attempt to describe a global research terrain of teaching and teacher education. In situating a discussion of this work across an international terrain, we question whether local discourse can be anchored to universal assertions. We ask how considering teaching and teacher education from a global perspective can, as Maxine Greene (Greene M (1995) Releasing the imagination: essays on education, the arts, and social change. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco) argues, release the imagination as we work to improve the experiences of children and youth in school through the education of their teachers. We start with our observation that regardless of country of origin, authors most frequently cite American authors. Using Greene’s notion of seeing large, seeing small across the terrain of teaching and teacher education we came to realize that we must take seriously the approaches to globalization that allow us to see generalize yet particularize the terrain because used alone we may miss crucial insights. We also see that it is not enough to cite the work or works of scholars from other countries. Rather, we must come to see and understand how those ideas fit within the local context and, in turn, how it can inform the global community.