School, a space to learn how to teach: visions from the secondary teacher training programs

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an analysis of field experiences curriculum of eleven teaching training programs for secondary education in Chile. Theses programs represent different training models. The results show that the term “practicum” refers to a variety of purposes, activities and connections to other components of the curriculum. It is possible to distinguish three ways of conceiving the school as a training area for learning how to teach. The first, asks the student to read the school as a “text” which will make intelligible the theory in educational foundations courses, while the second displays the school as a “context” that provides inputs to exercise specific teaching skills, typically associated with teaching. In the third, the school was conceived as a stage to perform the full range of skills associated with teaching-learning process and develop a teacher identity.