However, whatever the context of practice, and irrespective of how replete with expansive possibilities, it is always possible to have the experience but miss the meaning (Ellis, 2010), for undergoing an experience is simply never enough (Bullock, 2011, p.38). Britzman’s (2003) critical ethnographic study of how two STs struggled to create meaning from their experiences underscores this point further. These, and other examples, prompt one to question whether experience alone is the best teacher (Goodwin, Roegman and Reagan, 2016). Experience may well provide a gateway to greater understanding; nonetheless, it is just a gateway. If one is to pass through such a gateway, and in so doing gain access to new and richer understandings, then experience needs to be mediated. But what is the nature of that mediation? Britzman et al. (1997, p.22) suggest that such mediation is not only a cognitive process involving the articulation of ideas; it is also an affective one involving ‘making sense of the myriad feelings one has about ideas and one's work'. Boaler (2003, p.12) argues that the development of knowledge about teaching is a complex activity ‘involving action, analysis and affect’. In similar fashion, Hébert (2015, p. 369) cautions against ‘a bifurcation of the rational and intuitive realms’, a view supported by Edwards and Thomas (2010, p.404) who also critique context-free models of reflective practice for perpetuating the assumption that ‘knowledge is a set of portable linguistic propositions to be acquired (by the mind) and used (by the body in action)’. Merely striking a cognitive chord is not enough –
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there needs to be something far more provocative to ensure that ideas are not dismissed as being merely of passing interest (Dewhurst and Lamb, 2005, p.913). Shulman (2005b, p.22) is even more explicit in this regard:
I would say that without a certain amount of anxiety and risk, there’s a limit to how much learning occurs. One must have something at stake. No emotional investment, no intellectual or formational yield.
If cognition is invested with emotion and feelings in the ways just proposed, then what are the implications of this cathected cognition for a TE’s pedagogy? Harnessing effectively the interplay between the cognitive and the affective would seem to require, on the part of a TE, a certain way of being in the teacher-education classroom – a way of being that rests on a high degree of ‘relational expertise’ and the exercising of ‘relational pedagogy’. Relational expertise ‘includes being alert to the standpoints of others and being willing to work with them towards shared ethical goals’ (Edwards, 2011, p.38); and there is arguably no higher shared ‘ethical goal’ than that of becoming a teacher. Cheng et al. (2009, p.326) frame this way of working in similar terms with their concept of ‘relational pedagogy’, which involves ‘valuing a student as a knower’ and thereby endeavouring to work with the grain of a ST’s beliefs, rather than against it, in a process that is both holistic and active.
However, both relational expertise and relational pedagogy would appear to encompass complex skills, since they hinge on a TE being constantly on ‘the lookout for signs of students’ incipient interests, strengths and capacities’ and then actively exploiting these ‘to help guide students to new terrain’ (Hansen, 1999, p.177). Hansen refers to this process as ‘intellectual attentiveness’, which is underpinned by the strong moral imperative of taking very seriously each ST’s ‘distinctive and evolving set of capacities, inclinations, dispositions, and attitudes’ (ibid, p.180). Jaber, Southerland and Dake (2018) advocate a similar approach, which they capture through the use of the term ‘epistemic empathy’, namely ‘the act of understanding and appreciating someone's cognitive and emotional experience’ and therefore placing oneself in a position to understand ‘learners’ perspectives and identify with their sense- making experiences’ (p.14). For Palmer (2017, p.11), a good teacher possesses ‘a capacity for connectedness’; that is, an ability to ‘weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves’. But although these relational aspects of pedagogy can undoubtedly play a significant role in helping STs to see into practice through the schematisation process outlined in 2.6.4, the difficulties in guiding them to glimpse alternative vistas and negotiate new terrain should not
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be underestimated. This obtains in particular when one considers the underlying power of beliefs.
Borg (2011, p.370) provides a very useful definition of beliefs as ‘propositions individuals consider to be true and which are often tacit, have a strong evaluative and affective component, provide a basis for action, and are resistant to change’. For Feiman-Nemser (2001, p.1016) the images and beliefs that accompany STs in their pre-service education ‘serve as filters for making sense of the knowledge and experiences they encounter’ and may act as ‘barriers to change by limiting the ideas that teacher education students are able and willing to entertain’. At root this is because we tend to see only that which we value (Mason, 2002, p.7) and, as a result, ‘fail to be sufficiently sensitive to possibilities’ (p.xi), often reacting on the basis of ingrained habits rather than responding in more nuanced ways (p.8). Thus, with reference to seeing into practice, there exists an ever-present danger that a particular belief is confounded with knowledge, forming a basis for decisions without our realising it (Lakoff, 2014). But how can we change something of which we are not even aware? And there is another dimension to beliefs, which amongst the professions is unique to teaching. This ‘uniqueness’ is derived from having spent thousands of hours as pupils observing that profession in action. This is not something that could be applied to medicine or law. Lortie (2002) refers to this experience as the ‘apprenticeship-of-observation’, which Darling- Hammond (2006a) and Bullock (2011) describe as an overarching issue in ITE.