Teacher candidates talk: listen to the unsteady beat of learning to teach

If we are to change the pedagogy of teacher education, then teacher educators need to listen carefully to the students they teach. Drawing on a longitudinal study where prospective teachers talk about their learning across a 2-year teacher education program, this article seeks to illustrate and to interpret interview comments from five prospective teachers about their learning experiences. Data analysis highlights the diversity of needs expressed by prospective teachers and how a teacher educator adapts his or her teaching practices in response to their comments. The relationship between student-teacher voices and the reflecting practitioner’s voice is at the center of this article. Ahermeneutic stance is used to examine the circular nature of learning to teach and the role of a teacher educator in it. Teacher education is continuous, and to change it, teacher educators need to change the ways in which they guide new professionals as they begin to feel and adapt to the unsteady beat of learning to teach.