Being a Teacher in an Era of Uncertainty and Perplexity

Abstract

The ambitious challenges of the contemporary digital age require the development in each citizen of cognitive and affective capacities of a higher order, which allow expert thinking and effective communication, decision making in situations of uncertainty, problem-solving, and innovative proposals in economic, cultural, and political contexts, increasingly confusing, fleeting and complex. The text discusses the nature and meaning of a new school, a new pedagogical culture, and a new professional teacher to face the magnitude of these challenges: provoke, guide, and stimulate the passage of each learner from information to knowledge and knowledge to wisdom. More specifically, the formation of the “practical thinking” of contemporary teachers is analyzed and discussed as one of the key axes of their satisfactory professional development. What does this “practical thinking” mean in the initial and ongoing teacher training? Is it possible to develop “practical thinking” in the current Spanish institutions of teacher training?