Book Description

Teachers possess a wealth of untapped wisdom and valuable experience. Whether it’s in matter of educational policy, curriculum development or textbook selection, teachers carry a trove of information and insights to share. Traditionally, teacher development has been driven by administrators of schools, and it often takes the form of a ‘mentor’ teaching the staff of a school. But what happens when teachers across different locations collaborate and learn together? This volume documents such an initiative, sparked off by the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought people together online. It underscores the power of teachers debating, discussing, and learning from each other. Based on an Indian experience, the book addresses a range of issues teachers and educators face across the world — encompassing pedagogy, classroom management, school culture and teacher development. A unique story of community building and teacher education, this book also contains key outcomes and insights which take us through their action research projects and showcases a model of teacher development that can be adopted by interested readers. Above all, it brings out the crying need for a teacher’s voice to be heard — for far too long, teachers have been mere implementers of decisions taken by policy makers or managements of schools. By means of networking communities such as the one described in this book, the transformation of teachers going from whispers to resonance is greatly amplified. An important intervention in the domain of teacher development, this volume will be of great interest to students, researchers and practitioners of education, teacher education, and sociology of education. It will also be useful for teacher trainees, academicians, teacher educators, policymakers, schoolteachers, curriculum developers, teacher training institutes, and universities offering teacher education programs.