Learning to teach in the 2020s: Four teacher candidates’ experiences amid challenging times

Abstract

While much research in the Covid-19 era has focused on student learning loss, little empirical work has yet been published that examines U.S. teacher candidates' experiences with learning to teach during the current pandemic era, and all of the social and political upheaval of the day. This autoethnographic case study centers four teacher candidates’ practicum and student teaching experiences, during which they collected observational and reflective data throughout the 2021–2022 school year. Together with their teacher educator, and employing a feminist labor theoretical lens, the candidates analyzed data and derived three overarching themes: Learning to teach as emotion work, labor structures as barriers to learning to teach, and an overall uncertainty about teaching as a profession.