It is not unusual to hear teacher students express that ideas about what is considered good  teaching and learning are less decisive for good education than the question about what can be realistic aims for the education considering the given constrains surrounding it. Much of the same point of view can be found in an enquiry among teacher students carried out at one of the largest teacher educations in Norway (Klassekampen, 10. Marc 2010). This view can be seen as part of a neoliberal rationality where “the content and purpose of education become subject to the forces of the market instead of being the concern of professional judgment and democratic deliberation” (Biesta 2009: 31). A neoliberal rationality has had an impact on the language, discourse and practice of education throughout Europe over the past two decades, for example in documents on education by the European Commission (Biesta 2009, Aasen 2003).

The aim of this paper is to discuss the possibilities to strengthen a dialogical teaching in the teacher education. This approach harnesses the power of talk, to stimulate and extend teachers students thinking and advance their learning and understanding. The teacher students opinions about ideas and values as less decisive for good education than the question about what can be realistic aims, may affect important teacher qualities as critical attitude and creativity. Dialogic teaching emphasis the teacher as learner and relates to teaching across the curriculum  and the teacher educator needs to relate to the teacher students opinions with curiosity, which is not always easy considering that ideas and values constitute the core of the teacher education (Alexander 2008).

The main question of concerning dialogical teaching in this the paper will therefor be: How can the teacher educator through dialogical teaching meet teacher student’s statements on good practice understood as mainly concerning pragmatic issues, linking the statements to a theoretical framework, and by this promoting the question what is good practice?

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