What a sobering thread. I feel compelled to add my point of view.
One of the most important functions of teacher education programs is to help the candidate shift from thinking like a student (perform a task as directed) to thinking like a teacher (consider many criteria to make decisions in the best interests of both the individuals and the group). Students are solitary while teachers must be leaders. Leadership skills are more than content knowledge and instructional skill. A professional disposition is the difference between an effective and an ineffective leader.
One dimension of leaders' (and all citizens') disposition is ethics. The in loco parentis role of teachers, with responsibility for the children's welfare, requires behavior above reproach. Oblivion to the effects of one's words or movement is intolerable. Subtle forms of discrimination are therefore important to illuminate, made all the more urgent by half a century of equity reforms for individual differences (the least restrictive environment for special education students; Title IX for girls' opportunitites; physical access; religious freedom). More recent reforms are not for equity but excellence in terms of standard achievement.
The bulk of Teacher Education Programs is geared toward Elementary Education, which requires far more courses than secondary education. As a group these candidates tend to be conservative and task-oriented: conservative in the sense of wanting to perpetuate the culture they are familiar with. Schools of Education tend to be the red state within a blue university.
They are also considered the bottom feeders, accepting all comers. Part of the reforms concern quality of teachers, and therefore there is the need to specifically articulate the criteria by which someone may be counseled to leave the profession. The illusive qualities of effective interaction are hardest because they are neither concrete nor possible to even perceive with consensus. Disposition standards are the effort to provide a common language for analyzing effective teaching.
FYI, these are the principles adopted by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) in 1992. More detailed explanations of each of them, including the knowledge, skills, and dispositions, can be found at
http://www.ccsso.org/projects/Interstate_New_Teacher_Assessment_and_Support_Consortium/ . They are the basis for most reforms in teacher education, including the new NCATE rules that many states require.
#1. CONTENT. Peservice teachers understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry and structures of the discipline(s) they teach and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.
#2. DEVELOPMENT. Preservice teachers understand the range of developmental characteristics of students including interpersonal, cultural, and societal contexts and use this knowledge to facilitate student learning.
#3. DIVERSITY.: Preservice teachers understand how students differ in their development and approaches to learning and can create and adapt instructional opportunities for diverse learners.
#4. INSTRUCTION & CURRICULUM. Preservice teachers understand the teaching/learning research base and employ a variety of instructional strategies, resources, and technologies which advance the learner into high level thinking skills.
#5 LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. Preservice teachers use knowledge and understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to foster active engagement in learning that nurtures and encourages the physical, emotional, social, moral, aesthetic, language, and cognitive growth and development in adolescents and young adults.
#6. COMMUNICATION. Preservice teachers use their knowledge of effective verbal, non-verbal, and media communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom and the community.
#7 PLANNING. Preservice teachers understand the interdisciplinary nature of curriculum and plan their instruction to foster well-rounded student learning.
#8 ASSESSMENT. Preservice teachers understand the importance of multiple assessments (informal and formal, formative and summative) and use a variety of appropriate assessments, some of which are performance based, to facilitate the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner
#9 PROFESSIONALISM. Preservice teachers reflect on and evaluate teaching in light of current best research and practice; seek opportunities for further growth; and maintain positive collaborative relationships with everyone in the educational community.
#10 COLLABORATION. Preservice teachers recognize the importance of the students’ families, cultures, and communities, and foster relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies to support the students’ learning and well-being.
Although rooted in progressivism and pragmatism, the current pedagogical model is more accurately a psychosocial constructivist approach, meaning that learning is influenced by the developmental characteristics of the student (physical, cognitive, linguistic, affective, social) and the circumstances of the student's life in and out of school (especially conditions of poverty and upheaval) that influence the student's capacity to find meaning in the ideas and experiences of school.
Most teachers, though, do not use such theoretical models to organize their thoughts. Instead, they think of being 'learner-centered'. This is more than an ideology du jour. It is strongly supported by research finding, neatly summarized by the American Psychological Association's How Students Learn by Lambert and McCombs. Specific teaching techniques compatible with a learner-centered approach have been exhaustively and empirically researched, i.e. cooperative learning and active engagement. This is not a matter of 'feel good' politics but is as scientific as social sciences can be for establishing some causal link between instructructional decisions and student performance.
Most education instructors are focused on technical skills of teaching reading, designing assessments, etc. For many, most of their instructors are not full time faculty but adjuncts sharing their real world applications, not theoretical PC. At the same time, we full-time teacher educators are consumed with documenting our efforts according to state and accreditation requirements. As professional schools, we are governed by certification requirements even more than academic ideals. These include the very dispositions the original post suggested were a personal choice of teacher educators.
It may be a bumper sticker cliche, but most teachers truly believe "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Most teachers who have objections to their professional circumstances complain of their treatment more than their materials. A little respect is not much to ask, and that is a disipositional issue.
