I studied for my economics degree and education diploma on a four-year teaching scholarship from the NSW education department in the mid-1960s. To protect their investment, I was required to do three weeks of practice teaching at the end of my first year of economics to determine my interest and aptitude for the profession.
Although training to be a high school teacher, I was allowed to undertake this practice in a primary school. Perfect, my father was a principal. For three weeks, I became his "apprentice", as I took my first tentative steps towards becoming a teacher.
By the third week, dad felt confident enough to let me fly solo for a morning. That night he asked how I went. "George Lucas was a problem," I replied, "he wouldn't pay attention and talked loudly in class, so I gave him 1000 lines to write." "What," he exploded, "1000 lines? You should start with 50!"
Learning on the job was how beginning teachers were trained in the late 19th century. "Sitting with Sally" the approach was called. This began to change when Sydney Teachers College opened in 1906. Both my father and I are graduates.
In the 1970s, these training institutions were upgraded to Colleges of Advanced Education and awarded teaching degrees. Academic study and teaching practice occurred in parallel over three years.
In Newcastle, the inspiring pedagogy department head, Trevor Fullerton, blended theory and practice, and the program was considered world best practice. During their course, trainee teachers were in the classroom in week three of their training, undertaking microteaching. This involved focusing on a specific skill with a small group of pupils. They were later given video feedback and verbal analysis of their teaching.
As the preparation of teachers was further integrated into the university curriculum during the last quarter of a century, the crucial link between theory and practice was lost in teacher education.
Graduates now enter the classroom after four years with little understanding of how to be an effective teacher. It seems to be a global problem. Visiting the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, I asked the professors how they integrated theory and practice. Laughter was the response.
In Australia, the teacher education curriculum has become highly theoretical. For example, at one university, a subject outline for Research with Young Children reads: "Contemporary educational paradigms and pedagogies advocate theories of learning that conceptualise education as a process of participatory research, where children are active agents and teachers are facilitators and co-constructors of meaning." Did you understand that?
The NSW Education Department told an ongoing NSW parliamentary inquiry this month: "graduates need better training in classroom management, teaching the gifted and students with special needs". Perhaps universities should focus more on these areas and less on woke gender theory, cultural identities, and sociological perspectives?
Australia's education ministers are now so concerned that they agreed this month to prepare a national teacher workforce "action plan", overseen by Professor Mark Scott. They also decided to change the practicum component, so student teachers are placed in classrooms at the start rather than the end of their degree.
Federal education minister Jason Clare said: "initial teacher education is screaming out for reform. We want to make sure that teachers are better prepared for the classroom. First-year undergraduates should be embedded in the classrooms 'right off the bat', for practical training and final-year students should be paid to work in schools as interns."
This is supported by Universities Australia, which has proposed a shakeup of the professional qualifications of teachers. "We can help create a degree apprenticeship system, where student teachers have the opportunity to do more training in schools," chief executive Catriona Jackson said.
A model of such an approach to teacher education is already operating in our region. The St Philip's Teaching School, overseen by visionary school network CEO Graeme Irwin AM, has adopted an apprenticeship model in partnership with Alphacrucis University College in Sydney. The six local St Philips Christian College schools sponsor student teachers and employ them as paid teacher's aides for one or two days a week, mentored by experienced teachers. Concurrently, the students study for their education degree face to face and online. As a result, trainees spend 350 days in a classroom before graduation - five times longer than the practicum in a typical university education degree.
Such a program brings us back full circle to how teacher training began as an apprenticeship system, but now with the addition of a tertiary qualification, which still needs to be made more relevant to the practice of teaching.
Newcastle East's Dr John Tierney AM is a former senior lecturer in education at the University of Newcastle and a former chair of the board of St Philip's Christian College
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