Endings, Beginnings and Becomings

Abstract

The stories that surround us regarding teachers, school and education are as constant as they are enduring. There exists an unbroken legacy of teachers, mainly male, represented in fiction from perennial texts such as Goodbye Mr. Chips (1934) and The Browning Version (1948) to the popular To Sir with Love (1967). This pattern continues with the seminal films of the eighties and nineties, Dead Poets Society (1987) and Mr. Holland’s Opus (1994) and more recent and radical representations of teachers in texts such as the play The History Boys (2004) and the films Half Nelson (2006) and 187 (1997), as well as in television programs such as Teachers (2000) and most recently Glee (2009). Texts about teachers and teaching endure as a popular genre, and as each generation is compelled to reinvent the school story for themselves the fables and tales of school life are never far from our screens, stages or the pages of our novels.

Teacher education, like any education is an ideological education. It promotes particular images of power, knowledge and values by rewarding particular forms of individual and institutional behaviour.

Britzman (1986, p. 443)