Folk pedagogy in the context of teacher training

Abstract

Starting from actual conceptualizations and importance of folk pedagogy for educational practice the paper discusses the importance of this phenomenon in the context of teacher training, and explores the possibilities of raising the students' awareness and changing folk pedagogy during initial teacher education. Folk pedagogies refer to intuitive, often implicit beliefs and theories of people about teaching. An insight into current conceptualizations indicates the following specifications: unique content, expressed in the form of implicit and tacit knowledge, relatively stable convictions of various origins, are immanent tendency of all people to influence educational practice directly, but are subject to reflection and changing. There is no common stand regarding the ways to raising and changing the awareness of students - future teachers. Yet, in this area, significant suggestions and initiatives come from T. S. Barrett, J. Minstrell and B. Torf. They considered ways of raising awareness and changing folk pedagogies and how they can contribute to better initial preparation and further professional development of future teachers. Our conclusion offers practical suggestions, among which especially singled out is the need to include the contents about folk pedagogies into the study curricula of teacher colleges and conceptualizing professional practice in schools based on current knowledge about folk pedagogies.