Curiosity killed the SAT: The role of research in redirecting performativity in initial teacher education

Abstract

Some see research as an esoteric, other-worldly, practice only to be completed by those unable to do anything ‘real’. Others – including some academics working in universities – see it as ‘just another thing to do’, a burden on already overworked staff, used as an excuse to set even more performance goals. Within initial teacher education, the challenges of research are often exacerbated by the performance and audit pressures related to professional standards. Nevertheless, some teacher education programmes have given research a central place, with students being systematically trained in action research or research-rich reflective practice – as in the Oxford internship scheme in the UK or the ACE scheme in Israel. Other programmes are described as ‘research-informed’, or as ‘drawing on’ (rather than participating in) research. But debates on the relationship between research and teacher education have rarely portrayed the direct link between academic staff, students of initial teacher education, and school pupils, as researchers. This chapter links the activities of all three groups, through the process of research. It focuses on the virtue of curiosity: the drive to discover, to make sense of the world, common to all people. Teacher education that is driven by curiosity will in turn be modelling the curiosity to be promoted in schools. Encouraging curiosity is a way of undermining or redirecting the performativity so well represented by chasing exam results, such as the UK's SATs (Standard Assessment Tests for 7-, 11- and 14-year-olds) or the USA's SAT (Scholastic Assessment Tests for 18-year-olds). Hence, curiosity can be used in such a way as to kill the power of SATs and other external performance-drivers, and can help return teacher education to a more holistic and virtuous practice.