28 MAY, 2013
Educators all, Good evening.
Let me begin by saying thanks to you for making the decision to attend this launch. You could have been anywhere else but you chose to be here instead. This, in my view, is testimony of a shared interest in teacher education and in particular, an acknowledgement of the value of our association, the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Teacher Educators.
The beginning of this Association goes way back to November 2011 at the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago conference where Joann Neaves and I re-connected after some time. The conversation inevitably turned to teacher education, its current state and our concerns about the field. The thought of starting an association came up and we decided to meet early in the new year, 2012, to discuss the idea.
On March 01st, 2012, a group of us came together for our first meeting. The group consisted of:
4 members of staff of the UTT – J Neaves; S Pajotte; C Bowrin; M Thomas
4 members of staff of the UWI – P Worrell; S. Lochan; B Mitchell, Sherma Joseph, S. Harry;
2 members of staff from the USC – F. Baldeo; J. Mc Leod-James
1 member of staff from CREDI – Ave Mann-Cross; and
1member of staff from TTUTA – Lisa Ibrahim-Joseph
The composition was deliberate. The intention was to form a group that was representative of the teacher education fraternity in Trinidad and Tobago. Attempts were therefore made to contact members of other institutions, but without success. It is our hope though that they will be included in the general membership. We consider ourselves fortunate to have had a member of TTUTA as part of our membership from the very beginning with the added bonus that Lisa Ibrahim-Joseph is an educator herself.
Our first meeting was mainly explorary, but at the end of two hours, we were all convinced that there was indeed a need for such an association and since then, we have met at least once a month for over a year. We lost individual members along the way, but for the most part, the core remained and but for the USC, we are still representative of the major teacher education institutions in the country.
During that year, we worked assiduously to produce our Mission and Vision statements. As stated, our Mission is to seek to
promote a culture of constructive dialogue among stakeholders in the education system about issues related to teaching and teacher education and to advocate for policies and programmes for teacher educators and teachers, informed by research relevant to the culture and context of Trinidad and Tobago.
Linked to this is our Vision
A critical voice for professionalism and quality
in teacher education towards enhancing the
education of learners in Trinidad and Tobago
We developed our goals aligned to our Mission and Vision, identified Core Values and created our motto. We have also begun to shape our constitution. All of our meetings were characterized by mutual respect, collegiality, valuing of the individual voice and appreciation of the collective vote. These are the very characteristics which we intend to promote in the Association.
In addition, we became incorporated under the Companies Act 1995 of Trinidad and Tobago on May 28th, 2012. Today, then, is our first anniversary as a teacher education association and we chose to mark the significance of the occasion by officially introducing ourselves to you, members of the education fraternity and placing ourselves on the landscape of education in Trinidad and Tobago.
We tousled at length with the issue of the significance of the Association – was there a place for an association like ours in our presence context? What can we offer? What impact can we make? We understood that we needed to be crystal clear about these issues from the onset. We had to have meaning and purpose. Out of our deliberations, we were able to identify a number of functions we could serve. It became clear to us, for instance, that through the Association,
- Opportunity can be created for teacher educators to engage in professional conversations through which to come to common understandings, to work out shared beliefs and ideologies; to articulate clearly what teacher education entails and more specifically, to come to terms with who is a teacher educator and what is his/her importance in the educational arena
This becomes important because it is taken for granted that we all share the same beliefs – even though, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no open dialogue involving teacher educators across institutions and organisations; no professional conversations on critical matters.
The Association
- can also either create or provide access to fora for teacher educators to come together to address, respond to – register their views on matters of national significance in so far as they relate to education. We propose to host conferences; symposiums; panchaits; post our views on the social network; draft position papers.
Today, there are many initiatives critical to teacher education which are being undertaken and the teacher educator does not appear to have a significant voice. Teacher educators, as is the norm with teachers, both of whom are significant to successful implementation of any educational initiative, are still, in large measure, being spoken for and I dare say, in some instances, dictated to.
Of equal significance, is the
- engagement in activities geared towards the professionalization of the field, which in turn can lead to our earning the respect which is due. We can participate in professional development activities, put systems in place to foster our professionalism and agitate for the development of a council for teaching and teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago.
It is also our intention to re- discover the history of teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago – to carefully trace that history, collate, document and disseminate to all stakeholders in the teacher education field. We acknowledge the necessity to know and understand the past so as to provide for ourselves the moorings on which to build. In essence, we acknowledge the significance of the Sankofa message which underscores the necessity to look back in order to go forward. In addition, with respect, we acknowledge the work of the many who have gone before. However, the intention is not to dwell there, but to move teacher education forward in an attempt to break the tendency to engage in circuitous activities that seem somehow to inhibit growth and development in the field. Our first initiative in this area was the mounting of a symposium at the School of Education Biennial Conference in April of this year – the theme of which was Re-visioning Teacher Education in Trinidad and Tobago
Research is another major focus of the Association. The intention is to engage in continuous research in the field so as to provide insights into what is happening and to establish the basis for making further policy decisions. Research will also facilitate the building of local and regional knowledge in teacher education and lead to the contribution to the store of knowledge in the field internationally. In an effort to keep abreast of what is happening in teacher education on the global front, participation in international conferences becomes necessary. In keeping with this belief, two of our members attended the Association of Teacher Educators of the USA 2012 summer conference in Boston. The theme of that conference was Living and Learning across a Lifetime
As we move forward, one of our initial steps is to build a strategic plan which is to serve as a guide to all the Association’s activities over the next three to five years. We aim to engage the members of the Association in the development and ratification of the plan. In conjunction with this is the conduct of a survey within the field to gauge the validity of a teacher education association in our context and to ascertain the needs to be addressed.
The structure of the Association is to include special interest groups with the aim of granting members the opportunity to actively participate in projects undertaken. In addition, there is the plan to produce a newsletter twice yearly as well as to conduct annual general meetings so that members are kept abreast of the activities of the Association. In addition, the development of a web-site is in progress and it is to include a discussion forum which offers another space for members to keep in touch and have their views aired.
The issue of membership formed a major part of our discussions and hours were spent determining the nature of the membership. In the end it was decided that all educators engaged in teaching or teacher education, in different spheres of operation at all levels of the system represent significant groups which impact or are impacted by teacher education. We acknowledged that there is a symbiotic relationship among the groups and to ignore that could work against the successful attainment of our goals.
We are not unaware of the challenges which we will have to face. In my view, one of the major challenges is the culture of silence practised for so long by teacher educators in the system; another, as pointed out by Swennen and Klink, is that not much attention has been given to teacher educators as ‘a distinct professional group’ and that teacher educators remain the marginal, if not the absent, topic in discourse on education.
But we are more buoyed by the possibilities than we are daunted by the challenges. It is because of this that we have come thus far. It is this optimism which led us to today and to such an occasion like this when we take the opportunity to introduce ourselves to you and to mark our official entry into the field of teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago. This is just the beginning and there is so much to be done. We do not for one minute believe that we can do this alone. We are in no doubt that we need the full force of the education fraternity behind us. We are hopeful that you share our belief that teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago is worthy of deeper focus and attention – that it is a field too long left ungoverned, given its significance in the realm of education; given that teacher educators serve, as Grossman (2013) points out, the all important function as conduits of professional socialization and professional knowledge, as boundary spanners between schools and teacher preparation institutions and organisations, and as agents of change in the broader educational landscape. It is also our that, as a result of that shared belief, that you feel moved to accept our invitation to join with us as we attempt to address the many issues which abound.
In a real sense, today simply represents possibility but it is a possibility that can become a reality if we, as a community of committed educators, determine that it should be so.
It all really lies in our hands.
