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AS TEACHER EDUCATORS, in the first class of each semester, we tell our university students, "There is no such thing as a stupid question" and "Chances are that others have the same question and are relieved you asked it." Bain, in What the Best College Teachers Do, describes a good classroom as "an interactive atmosphere in which students could ask questions without reproach or embarrassment, and in which a variety of views and ways to understand could be freely discussed" (2004, 142). In our classes, we try to convey and model dispositions of trust and openness, hoping that our students-future-teachers-will in turn be trustful and open with the children they teach.
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) mandates that dispositions of teacher candidates be evaluated. Recently, dispositions have been included in the accreditation standards for teacher education units (NCATE 2006). Teacher educators are increasingly focused on developing ways to nurture early childhood teacher candidates' dispositions and gauging the dispositions of preservice teachers. This article addresses the central role of dispositions in teacher education.
The word dispositions crops up frequently in a wide arena of professional literature. For more than 20 years, Lilian Katz has been alerting the early childhood community to the importance of dispositions in the teaching and education of young children (Katz &Raths 1985; Katz 1993a; Katz 1995; Katz & Chard 2000). Now, increasingly, teacher preparation programs recognize their central role in modeling and gauging teacher dispositions in college teaching and learning. Consequently, higher education faculty are mindful of the nature and role of dispositions.
The nature and role of dispositions
Katz defines disposition as "a tendency to exhibit frequently, consciously, and voluntarily a pattern of behavior that is directed to a broad goal" (1993b, 1). Dispositions comprise habits of mind rather than mindless habits (Katz 1995).
More recently, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education defines dispositions as the values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities and affect student learning, motivation, and development as well as the educator's own personal growth. Dispositions are guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values such as caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice. For example, they might Include a belief that all students can...