Reflection and Teacher Education

There can be little doubting the importance in teacher education of the notion of reflective practice. One of the most widely cited authors in the field is Donald Schon. In English teacher education, some have seen Schon's work as justifying a move toward school-based training in an attempt to bridge the alleged gap between the theoretical and practical aspects of teacher education (Furlong et al., 1988, p. 123). In this paper this view is challenged; it is suggested that Schon's work, once placed within the context of a Wittgensteinian description of language, can be reinterpreted to support a wider notion of teacher education and professional development.