From Reflective Practice to Practical Wisdom: Toward a Post-Foundational Teacher Education

Overview & Synopsis

The author situates this paper within ongoing debates in related areas such as reflective practice, critical pedagogy, practical wisdom and critical theory. First, the author identifies some of the problems in the present notions of reflective teaching and progressive teacher education. The analyzes and compares the traditional-technical and interpretive literature on teaching and teacher education. None of these conceptions deal with teaching and teacher education in a reflexive way. Some problems the author identifies are located in the history of the concept "reflective teaching" and its interpretive underpinnings. Others emerge from particular applications within teacher education itself. The author critiques challenges the prevalent conceptions of interpretive reflective teaching, and proceeds to offer a critical framework for further reconstruction of the theory and practice of reflective teaching. The final section offers an alternative conceptualization of teaching and teacher education as a post-foundational and moral-political philosophy. Interpretive textual analysis is used to explore the literature. (Contains 1 figure.)