Browsing by Author "Swai, Calvin Z."

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    Teacher professional 'Development' in Tanzania: Contesting the orthodoxy
    (The University of Dodoma, 2019) Swai, Calvin Z.
    This paper challenges the orthodoxy of teacher professional „development‟ in Tanzania. It seeks to provoke conversations on the relevance of teacher professional „development‟ in the current post-modern era. Employing qualitative content analysis protocols, the paper draws on literature to generate state-of-the-description of Tanzania‟s teacher professional “development” landscape and the questions it advances. The Giroux‟s (1988) notion of a critical pedagogy of learning was utilized as an interpretive tool to make sense of the nature and practices of teacher professional „development‟ and how they shaped and continue to shape teachers and their professional identity, classroom teaching, and teacher learning for professional growth. Through this lens, the paper unpacks the identity of teachers implicate in the conventional teacher professional „development‟ alongside the image of teacher learning, the teaching profession, and school it conveys through its inherent practices. It correspondingly unearths the nature of relations produced by teacher professional “development” practices between teachers and educational officials and teachers and teachers within a school landscape. The paper suggests rethinking teacher professional “development” so to embrace the organic image of teachers as professionals but also to reflect on the growing demands of the work of teaching in a post-modern era.