Certainty and Uncertainty in Education - A Contemporary Challenge for Teachers

Abstract

This study is a reflection on educational reality based on certainty and uncertainty coordinates. Exploring the significance of the binomial reality, generated by the different degrees of certainty, perceived by the actors involved in teaching, the article proposes a few acting options, in order to develop an appropriate orientation of the teacher training process, in a contemporary society marked by the “certainty of uncertainty”. Embracing the unknown, coping with unfamiliar situations, reflecting constructively on one’s own mistakes, as part of a teacher daily activity, are generated by a genuine positioning towards uncertainty in education, raising it from the status of a problem to the hypostasis of an opportunity. Mapping uncertainty through resilience, building confidence in experiencing doubt, reshaping learning by daring to approach dilemmas and stepping out of inaction can be viewed as valid alternatives in developing a professional self in a changing environment. That claims a rethinking of teacher training in terms of developing abilities for sustaining appropriate responses and a proper understanding of the relationship between certainty and uncertainty in education, having the intention of building quality learning experiences. The concepts of choice and change are about to conquer the ideas of standards and stability in educational context as proofs of a renewed approach in order to delineate core drivers of human development in contemporaneity. That is why rethinking teacher training needs to focus on articulating the reflective practicing with experiencing a constant change, integrating the multiplicity of opportunities in a supportive learning environment for developing a global competence, in order to respond effectively to the contemporary challenges.