Abstract:
Decreased mobility of teaching staff has generated an Australia-wide teaching profile with an average age of 42 years (the average length of a teaching career is nine years!). The aging teaching force seriously concerns educators promoting policy implementation and classroom change towards the next millennium
Amalgamation of teacher education institutions with universities under the tertiary unification program of the late 1980s has resulted in Education Faculties displaying a similar age profile to the teaching cohort they seek to replenish and sustain at levels appropriate to the needs and demands of the various State education systems.
This atmosphere of positive policy change provides a unique opportunity to observe the impact of established attitudes on provision for gifted and talented students across primary and secondary schools.
This paper describes a small scale comparison of the attitudinal response to gifted and talented students held by a group of teachers working in a medium sized K-12 school and a group of teacher educators working in a large Australian university. The paper concludes that: attitudes developed during training are modified then confirmed in practice; and that, length of service in a defined educational field has significant impact on attitudes to change.
Amalgamation of teacher education institutions with universities under the tertiary unification program of the late 1980s has resulted in Education Faculties displaying a similar age profile to the teaching cohort they seek to replenish and sustain at levels appropriate to the needs and demands of the various State education systems.
This atmosphere of positive policy change provides a unique opportunity to observe the impact of established attitudes on provision for gifted and talented students across primary and secondary schools.
This paper describes a small scale comparison of the attitudinal response to gifted and talented students held by a group of teachers working in a medium sized K-12 school and a group of teacher educators working in a large Australian university. The paper concludes that: attitudes developed during training are modified then confirmed in practice; and that, length of service in a defined educational field has significant impact on attitudes to change.