Reflections on Didagogy – the education of teacher educators

Henry Sauntson,

Teach East SCITT Director

 

• Why did you become a teacher?
• What are your core values and beliefs?
• What do you believe is the purpose of education?

These are questions I would ask of any teacher, but especially one who has a role in the education of other educators; what do you truly believe about what you are preaching? In his Satires, the Roman poet Juvenal coined the phrase ‘quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ (‘who will guard the guards themselves?’). Juvenal’s point was to raise questions about power, oversight and accountability in society, but we can perhaps extrapolate the idea to teacher development – who educates the educators? And, perhaps more pertinently, HOW and WHY do we educate the educators?

Thanks to the work of the Teacher Development Trust, we have a new word: didagogy – the discipline of teaching teachers, and the study and practice of how teachers learn most effectively (TDT, 2025). We already have pedagogy – the teaching of children, and andragogy (courtesy of Malcolm Knowles) – the teaching of adults, but we need something more. Hence, didagogy, drawn from the Greek didaktikos, meaning ‘apt to teach’. With a new term comes a new identity – a clear distinction between standard adult learning and the teaching of adults to become teachers specifically. A shared language is vital for all – shared understanding through shared vocabulary avoids the Tower of Babel. As the report states, ‘The word didagogy creates the space for a more nuanced understanding that helps us think and talk with precision about the specific discipline of teaching teachers. Didagogy acknowledges the complexity of teacher learning and, by having a term to reference, it recognises the importance of a clearly thought-out, research-informed, and practice-driven approach to teacher education. Naming this discipline is the first step in elevating its status, enhancing practice, and expanding the knowledge base.’

The creation of such a term injects new energy into the world of teacher development – the crafting of practitioners for the most challenging of professions; Lee Shulman himself once stated that ‘teaching is impossible’, but still we try. Like Samuel Beckett’s (the playwright, not the main character from Quantum Leap) oft-repeated maxim – ‘Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better’ – teaching is about trying. Trying every day to help pupils quell the tyranny of the urgent and achieve success – the progressive realisation of the worthy ideal.

Teaching, at its heart, must be seen as a humanistic endeavour, and so too should the education of the educators. We must move beyond training - ‘working through a set of mechanical tasks in a routine way’ (Ashby et al, 2008) where ‘understanding and intelligent awareness’ are not required (Tomlinson, 1995), and into education; a richer, rounder, more fulfilling concept. We must avoid the possibility of a shared language simply being a rubric of compliance – it must be used to promote change, with a model of didagogy that places the teacher at the centre, underpinned by reflection and humility. See this from Kim and Greene (2011, p. 14): [Core reflection] is about the opportunity to be who you really are or really want to be. Some people might call it self-actualization. Some people might call it authenticity, some might call it flow, but I’m not sure it’s any of those things exactly. I think it’s about being human, being very natural in responses, and being very present. Korthagen states that ‘the central goal of the core reflection approach is to overcome various habitual patterns in education that are counterproductive to deep learning and personal growth’ – as teacher educators we have the power to shape the world. Take the words of Paulo Freire: ‘Teacher preparation should never be reduced to a form of training. Rather, teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history. Critical reflection on practice is a requirement of the relationship between theory and practice. Otherwise, theory becomes simply "blah, blah, blah," and practice, pure activism.’

 

To teach is to embark on a quest for social justice; to engage in the most unique and organic of professional practices, where every step on that quest is contingent entirely on the immediate needs of the students in front of the teacher at any one time. To educate is to try; to reach. Frameworks exist to lay the foundations and ‘seal’ the observable surface of the effective teacher, but it is only the teacher themselves that can add their flourishes – flourishes that reflect their moral and ethical imperatives behind their actions. So much of the teacher’s quest is invisible, hidden from any instrument of observation beyond that of self-revelation through dialogue; the truth of the teacher, therefore, is in their own honesty and humility as they chart their course – the Standards as their compass – towards their goal of shepherding the calling of others (Ayers).

In their report, TDT reference Comenius’ Oath, taken by teachers in Finland. Such an oath elevates education beyond the boundaries of mere compliance and adherence to technicist, reductive statements and places it on a higher plane; teaching as a profession cannot be codified, so it must be exalted. It calls also to mind the need for a moral and ethical dimension in the educating of educators, beyond the restrictive bounds of performativity.  When working in initial teacher education we are faced with the challenge of supporting and developing someone who has to combine the roles of teacher and learner – they are learning to teach at the same time as teaching to learn, and so often there is an irony inherent in the fact that we use seemingly poor pedagogical methods – long sessions, lots of listening instead of doing, dense slides and reading materials – to instruct as to what makes good pedagogy; cognitive load, anyone?

The TDT report outlines very succinctly that CPD is viewed as a ‘transactional process’ far too often – sessions, inputs, workshops et al; such an approach assumes that ‘learning is linear from input to impact’, at the expense of acknowledging that teacher professional learning and development is highly complex. The report calls to attention conditions for teaching, practices of teaching and, in my view most importantly, teacher identities.

Mutton et al. posited the view that the conception of teacher as a professional encompasses three aspects of teacher professional knowledge – situated understanding, technical knowledge and critical reflection – and that in learning to teach, there many challenges inherent therein; firstly, the range of knowledge needed, such as the knowledge of learners and their learning, the knowledge of subject content and curriculum aims, and of teaching as a practice; secondly, they highlight the importance of interpretation and judgment, and reconciling the competing concerns and complexities of classrooms; thirdly, the aforementioned culture of performativity that so often comes with the use of observation as an assessment tool. When these are factored in alongside the fact that expertise and effectiveness revealed in the practice of more experienced teachers is hard to articulate, and that the critical questioning of these teachers to understand more their schema for teaching demands a high level of not only sensitivity on the part of the curious novice, but also self-awareness – human qualities all.

The teacher must, therefore, balance a number of competing concerns and weigh them against their own ideologies and core beliefs:

• Covering the necessary content to ensure progress through the curriculum
• Ensuring that learning is being fostered, not just coverage
• Motivating students to engage and participate whilst maintaining momentum of lessons
• Nurturing a supportive, respectful and civil classroom community,

All the while attending to their own social, emotional and cognitive needs as human beings. It would be wrong to assume that simple frameworks and ‘rules of thumb’ statements are enough to help the teacher educator educate the educator.

If we take the final point outlined above, teacher educators must know their students, and everything that makes them who they are as individuals – their wide-ranging (and often entrenched) preconceptions about education, their diverse starting points, their approaches to learning from experience and working with a mentor, not to mention myriad other concerns relating to their personal and professional lives.

Teachers need to know how to work collaboratively (in the true sense of the word, not just lip-service thereto), be open and honest, reflect with humility, facilitate and engage in purposeful dialogue with pupils and colleagues alike; they need to be politically, culturally, environmentally, scientifically and emotionally aware; they need to see teaching as a lifelong profession, not just a year-long ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ game; all this, and so much more.

So then, the didagogue must be aware of all of these things, pay meet adoration to them, and also encompass their own set of the above; this is why an acknowledgement of didagogy as a branch of adult learning is essential to ensure a richer understanding of the art, craft and science of teaching and teacher learning. Brian Eno once said that ‘craft is what enables you to be successful when you're not inspired’, so we mustn’t neglect the craftsman-like elements of learning to teach, but we must also remember the artistry and agency that comes with the freedom of self-expression; the ITE provider – the didagogues – can instill this in their novice charges from the outset with a more humanistic approach to their curriculum and pre-service teacher support.

So, what are the implications of didagogy for aforesaid ITE providers?

Well, firstly we must take the preconceptions, developing thoughts and emerging ideas of pre-service teachers seriously, and do as we instruct they do – adapt to the changing and contingent needs.

Secondly, we have to carefully consider how we structure access to our didagogic curricula, and present the realities of teaching alongside the ambitions thereof; we must model our own thoughts, beliefs and educational philosophies – not as something to adhere to per se, or as a panacea or form of martyrdom, but as an example of how to be unique.

Thirdly, we must promote and support models of critical reflection, social justice and basic humanity, fostering pre-service teachers to take a thoughtful, deliberative, context-rich approach to their own learning and expanding their frames of reference beyond simply ‘two schools’. We consider what Procter-Legg et al. (2025) refer to as ‘personal utility’ and ‘social utility’ as motivational pillars for teacher retention, underpinned by a belief in equity. New teachers need to be enabled to explore ways in which they can make their own knowledge useful to others; education should not be a vehicle driven by quantifiable outcomes, or as instrumental vocationalism and technical compliance; we must go beyond the economic and competitive mechanisms and embrace the human side of education and educators, and instead focus on helping new teachers understand their role in encompassing the knowledge and understanding that students need in order to intelligently live their own lives, and develop a sense of moral seriousness and responsibility – we focus on helping them help students engage in shaping their own futures.

 

Teachers are more than mere technicians, reliant on procedures and practices drawn from codified knowledge in a set of statements; they have the right to develop ethical deliberation around those matters that constitute ‘school life’, and consider the human qualities and capabilities they wish to nurture in those for whom they provide learning experiences.

As the TDT report says, ‘effective didagogy involves working with teachers to shape learning, helping them understand their own beliefs and drivers and creating explicit opportunities for reflection and improvement’.

Didagogy is more than just a new term or a fresh look; it is a moral imperative, an ethical debate and a call to arms.

 

https://tdtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/What-is-Didagogy-25sep-digital-new3.pdf