Sustaining Rural Schooling through Place-consciousness in Teacher Education

There is some nice rural education work coming out of Australia. The most recent piece, by Simone White and Jo-Anne Reid, looks at the need for teacher education institutions to incorporate place-conscious pedagogies into the teacher preparation curriculum. Placing Teachers? Sustaining Rural Schooling through Place-consciousness in Teacher Education has been released by the Journal of Research in Rural Education. Here's the abstract:

This paper explores two seemingly disparate areas of social inquiry: teacher education and the sustainability of rural communities in Australia. It suggests that these may be usefully understood in close connection with each other, and that healthy rural communities may be supported via reform of the ways in which teacher education prepares graduates for teaching in rural schools. In making this argument we claim that consideration and consciousness of place are important for all teacher education curricula, not merely that on offer in rural and regional centers. We call for metropolitan-based teacher education institutions to consider curriculum practices that take a more active role in fostering healthy and productive rural communities through place-conscious approaches to pedagogy (Gruenewald, 2003). At the center of this call is a concern to ensure the provision of high-quality education for children in rural families and the need for well-trained teachers who are personally and professionally equipped to address the educational needs of their communities.

By the way, I've been really impressed by the job that Kai Schafft has done as editor of JRRE. We're fortunate that Kai has taken over so ably from Ted Coladarci. Ted would be a tough act for anyone to follow, and Kai has done a terrific job!