Observation And Reflectionra Historical Study On American Thought Of Teacher Education In The Latter Half Of The20th Century

American basic education has experienced two major change during the latter half of20th century. Affected by artificial satellite of the Soviet Union blast off in the1950s,all sectors of the community in America began to rethink the issues of education,and then, American elementary education began to the first change based on Neo-Traditionalism.In the1980s,affected by the development strategy of through the education guarantee national hegemony from Reagan-administration,American elementary education launched the second huge reform based on academic excellence orientation.The reform key of elementary education is the teachers.There are different ideas for the issues of teachers training existing around the federal government, state government,instructors of school of education in comprehensive university, instructors of liberal arts college and academic department,headmasters,and the basic education teachers.Meanwhile, some sociologists, politicians, psychologists,and economists also presented different points of view on the issues of teacher education.Through the analysis of research reports from teacher education institution and foundation, works on teacher education and policy texts of reform,American thought of teacher education is divided into_three cognitive logic:subject-knowledge rationality, profession-practice rationality, society-value rationality. The three different rationality attempted to answer the three questions on teachers:what kind of knowledge should teachers study? How do teachers teach well? Whose knowledge is more valuable?Through answering the three question,the three orientations sparked debates.In the debate of whether teaching is the profession or the art,subject-knowledge rationality and profession-practice rationality presented different opinions on teaching,teachers and teacher education. And social orientation pay more attention to the function of value bearing of school and teachers,people with society-value rationality tend to regard school and teachers as the power of promote social change.Through the longitudinal investigation on self-development of the three different value orientations during the latter half of20th century, it’s found that each different value orientation was also presenting different interpreting paths on the research of teaching and teacher education.Academic orientation’s concentration transferred from academic knowledge possessing of teachers to deregulation to technicality of teachers.In the1950s-70s,affected by positivism thoughts,the ideas of professional orientation interpreted teacher education and technicality of teachers with obvious technical rationality orientation.But in the1980s-90s,it turns to a interpretation path coalescing theory and practice,affected by postmodernism.The ideas of social orientation consistently attach a kind of critical stance to school,teacher and teacher education.Merely, entering1980s the whole teacher education curriculum revealed a general developing trend that the ideas of social orientation were merging into the whole teacher education process.With transverse debate and dependence and longitudinal self-development,American thoughts of teacher education during the latter half of20th century revealed the characteristic of one hundred schools contend.At the same time,based on observing American thought of teacher education developing process during the latter half of20th century,the research would reflect on subject construction,cultural circumstance construction and universitisation of teacher education for it’s sustainable development.