Abstract
Writing from the perspective of both an instructor in a teacher education program at University of Toronto and more importantly as a mentor for teacher candidates in the classroom, hosting for over twenty years student teachers from six universities in Ontario and New York, the paper explores the master-apprentice relationship within the practicum placement in schools - drawing philosophically on Martin Heidegger's reflections on apprenticeship, Donald Schön's pragmatic emphasis on studio work and Lee Shulman's focus for training on developing subject related pedagogical-content-knowledge, to resituate the significance of what many educators and student-teachers say forms the core of teacher education. Subtle changes in teacher education over the last thirty years, set against dominant themes of professional autonomy and agency within sweeping educational and economic reforms such as the neo-liberal accountability and austerity movements, are sketched in order to follow their arc or trajectory into possible futures. Using a Foucauldian genealogical approach, the author aims to show how we could think and act differently in our practices and governance of teacher education.
