In 1993, Smith & Laslett published Effective Classroom Management: a teachers’ guide. Whilst the book sought to debate issues surrounding the interface between theory and practice, to some degree it was practical in its orientation. Its basis was in four rules for classroom management: get them in, get them out, get on with it, get on with them. Subsequently, this went on to form the starting point for much teacher education, including for pre-service teachers (PSTs). The book contributed to the perennial issue of classroom or behaviour management; something that exercises all involved in education, from government to those ‘at the chalk face’.

The four rules proved to be helpful in many respects for they noted, for example, the ways in which aspects such as transitions (get them in; get them out) create spaces for ‘problem’ behaviour or ‘mismanagement’ to occur. Pointedly, this framework also offers a metaphor for understanding that undertaken in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) (the empirical) and what should be done in ITE (the normative). They can, therefore, be used as a means to deconstruct education of PSTs. For example, the ways in which government positions ITE is often couched in terms of the means whereby PSTs might be drawn into the profession, manoeuvred through initial ‘training’ or ‘education’ and exited from such programmes into the workforce (e.g. DfE, 2010). Empirically, then, there is an element of ‘preparedness’ which is central to understanding the outcomes of ITE. In turn, normatively, the four fields also provide a heuristic to examine what should happen in ITE policy; they provide a means where we might examine desired intent and thus ensure that the theoretical is not lost in the debate.

With this in mind, this paper does three things. First, it examines, empirically, using the four rules, ITE in Scotland and Alberta, Canada, the ways in which policy seeks to ‘get students in’, ‘get them out and into the workforce’, ‘get on with teaching future teachers’ and how ITE should ‘get on with students’. The paper examines the ways in which policy in both jurisdictions relies on positions that are, in some respects, contradictory. For example, there is an appeal to instil in PSTs a desire to continue to learn throughout the career-span, yet there exists, again in both locations, a need to ‘fill teacher vacancies’ and thus ensure that PSTs can ‘hit the ground running’ and ‘be competent’. Empirically, then, ITE can be positioned as a means to support workforce planning. ITE is thus contradictory: on the one hand it is expected to produce teachers who are ‘the finished article’; yet on the other, it acknowledges that this is too tall an order for ITE alone, as evidenced by policy which cites teachers as requiring career-long professional learning.

Second, using policy from both Scotland and Alberta, the paper sketches a proposal as to what ITE should be about. Duly, the paper marks out the ways in which the two jurisdictions should attempt to create professions located in career-long, professional learning and development that understand and acknowledge tensions between ITE and later teacher-education phases. Finally, the paper makes a tentative proposal as to what ITE might hope to achieve and how this might contribute to a well-developed workforce, so that both locations, and indeed other jurisdictions, might orient initial teacher development.

The above utilises a methodology based upon Adams (2016) heuristic which posits that policy can be discerned in three realms: the realm of the frame; the realm of the explanation; and, the realm of the formation. The first realm uncovers wider political matters and the impact these have on the orientation of social and public policy. The latter notes that policy formation occurs at the local level through conversational moments; individuals are positioned by, and position others through, the discursive. Adams’ heuristic centres on the interface between: the positions pronouncements, and conversations offer and present to those involved; the language used in arriving at positions that are taken up, resisted or amended; and, imported storylines. This paper considers the middle realm: the explanation. Here, the ways in which attempts to position policy through public pronouncement are delivered through policy directive, mandate or missive are examined in the context of ITE in Scotland and Alberta. The paper, thus, utilises discourse analysis to identify how, nationally (in Scotland), and provincially (in Alberta), ITE is discussed and positioned empirically; that is, as a description of what happens during the ITE process. By understanding the relationships between the positions offered by the documents, the language used there-in, and the storylines brought to bear, the paper signals the orientation for such policy explanations. Similarly, other sources, such as political speeches and professional missives are considered for the contribution they make to the debate about ITE, and, particularly, its relationship with ongoing teacher professional learning and development. This uncovers the ways in which ITE is positioned empirically: the policy explanations considered direct initial teacher education towards particular features, goals, aims and objectives. Following this, the paper then uses Sanderson's (2009) ideas of intelligent policy-making to illuminate how ITE might be positioned normatively; that is, as a statement about what should happen. Such ideas are presented as a contest to simplistic evidence-based policy making and concern themselves with understanding the contingent nature of policy-positioning. Through an examination of normative constructions of ITE, the paper moves to tentatively define what ITE might hope to achieve in Scotland and Alberta, and how this might influence work in other jurisdictions.

The paper concludes by identifying three aspects of ITE that require further deliberation if it is to both: position PSTs favourably in terms of entry into and exit from courses; and, the ways in which ITE orients its work so that PSTs are suitably positioned vis-à-vis the profession both whilst in their initial education and subsequently. In turn these aspects are: the practicum; professional partnerships; and, theory. Each of these are noted as fundamental to the development of normative positions for ITE for each is a defining feature of the ITE landscape. That these have endured for some time is not the central point; rather, what is, is the position that all three centre on the relationship between being a student teacher and being a teacher and the fluid nature of this relationship.

Adams, P. (2016). Education policy: explaining, framing and forming. Journal of Education Policy, 31(3), 290–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2015.1084387. Department for Education (DfE) (2010). The Importance of Teaching. London: Department for Education. Sanderson, I. (2009). Intelligent policy making for a complex world: Pragmatism, evidence and learning. Political Studies, 57(4), 699–719. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2009.00791.x. Smith, C. J., & Laslett, R. (1993). Effective Classrom Management: a teacher’s guide (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.