Ani br I dge

2 THE NATURE OF HELP
The second premise that underpins this book has to do with the nature of help, as the relationship between teacher trainer/developer and teacher is most often perceived as a helping one.
As already stated, it is inappropriate to see the role of teacher as deficient, passive and subordinate and trainer/developer as all-knowing, active and interventionist. This more traditional role relationship exists in many contexts. Conventionally the beginning teacher, and certainly the trainee, is the recipient of the wisdom of classroom 'veteran' practitioners. In other contexts, it may be that the teacher is on the receiving end of the latest findings of research into teaching and learning. Either way, we have an information transfer that is one-way.
Discussing the role relationship inevitably gives rise to questions about 'the nature of help'. Earlier I mentioned that providing formulaic answers, top-down, tends to _.give the responsibility for change to the educator, not the teacher and that this closes off pathways to autonomy. It does so by encouraging in the developing teacher a certain 'learned helplessness' (Abramson, Seligman and Teadale 1978).
Fanselow (1990:183) sees 'helpful prescriptions' as ‘stop[ping] exploration, since the receiver as someone in an inferior position being giveh orders by someone in a superior position, may easily develop the "ours is not to wonder why" syndrome'. Trainers/educators need to become more aware of the options available to them in interacting with trainees and teachers.