The Language of Consciousness and the Landscape of Action: tensions in teacher education*

The recruitment crises which have buffeted the world of teacher education over the last few years have provided an opportunity for central policy‐makers to launch alternative structures and consider different patterns of responsibility. Within such a climate it is important that policy‐makers and others understand the distinctive contribution that higher education and schools make to both pre‐service and in‐service teacher education. The paper briefly reviews the situation and argues that teacher educators in universities and colleges do, and should, offer student teachers something different from what teachers alone can offer: a perspective that shapes consciousness in schools and classrooms and provides students with a variety of frameworks for making sense of what is happening. The development of a capacity for critical reflection should be supported by the development of competent and confident practice: these are complementary concerns which, in the present climate, are set in tension in a way that threatens the quality of experience that student teachers should expect in their period of preparation for a career in teaching.