Teacher Education for Authentic Learning

In order to elucidate a philosophical perspective on teacher education, it is necessary to establish the central purposes of education and the role of the teacher in fulfilling them. This, itself, is a complex philosophical task, partly because the idea of education is contested and there are competing versions that need to be taken into account. In addition, not all of the functions that educational institutions serve are, from some perspectives, strictly educational, yet teachers as members of those institutions will necessarily be involved with them. Hence, in addition to specifically educational activities, schools and universities may be involved in more general socializing, even indoctrinatory, activities regarded as being socially desirable at some point, but that do not meet strict educational criteria. Notwithstanding that a student looking back might think of everything that they experienced at school or college as “part of my education” (which might include, e.g., being...