Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do
Edited by Linda Darling-Hammond and John Bransford (Jossey-Bass, 2005)
While many books and articles have had a profound effect on my work, inspired me, or changed the way I think about education, one accomplished all three of these things early in my career and continues to be a book I reference for both scholarship and practice: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do. Edited by Linda Darling-Hammond and John Bransford, this text presents a comprehensive overview of impactful teacher preparation and learning throughout the career.
This book positions the teacher as the most influential in-school factor for student learning. With this elevated positioning comes elevated responsibility. The authors present “adaptive expertise” as the pinnacle of effective teaching. They demonstrate how teaching requires deep knowledge not only of subject matter but also of pedagogy and students. With this expertise, which develops first in initial teacher preparation and continues throughout their work in the profession, teachers can effectively teach diverse learners. However, due to the complexity of students and classrooms, teachers must be adaptive in applying their deep knowledge.
This text is full of information for teacher educators, school leaders, professional developers, policy makers, and teachers. Although it is almost 20 years old now, the book’s ideas are highly relevant today. It compelled me to think more deeply and more broadly about education than I had ever before, thereby enhancing my understanding of and respect for exemplary teaching and further motivating me to be the best teacher educator I can be as I support current and future educators.
This article appears in the February 2024 issue of Kappan, Vol. 105, No. 5, p. 7.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Seth A. Parsons
SETH A. PARSONS is a professor in the Sturtevant Center for Literacy at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. He is the co-author of Accelerating Learning Recovery for All Students: Core Principles for Getting Literacy Growth Back on Track and Principles for Effective Literacy Instruction .
