Teacher Education Quarterly, Fall 2006 Moral Dispositions in Teacher Education: Making Them Matter

Teacher education programs continue to face the challenge of meeting uniform and very specific national and state standards that are established by external accreditation bodies, not by teacher preparation programs themselves (see Darling-Hammond, 2001, for a review of standard setting in teaching). But many teacher educators seek to establish goals that are driven by locally-shaped values, beliefs, and priorities and that focus on candidatesí capacities to be good teachers in a broader sense. This includes how a teacher candidate is developing capacities to be responsive to students in multiple ways in a variety of contexts. Such capacities can be associated with the moral dispositions of teachers, which I discuss later. Establishing high standards for the moral dispositions of prospective teachers is an important mandate for teacher preparation programs, although standardizing their assessment is not possible. In this article, I first describe the tensions that exist between meeting prescribed standards and maintaining a focus on dispositional qualities of teachers. Then I discuss why it is vital to address these tensions, even if they cannot be fully resolved. My emphasis is upon responsiveness to students, which I suggest is an aspect of the moral dimensions of teaching. Finally, I propose potential ways of maintaining a focus on aspects of the moral dimensions of teaching in prac-tical and visible ways. Shelley Sherman is an assistant professor in th