Improving teacher education in rural Mexico: The challenges and tensions of constructivist reform

In this article I examine the challenges facing constructivist approaches to educate rural teachers using an innovative program in Mexico. Constructivist approaches seek to help teachers learn new ways of thinking about teaching and learning, acquire better knowledge of different subject matters, form learning communities allowing teacher participation in the development of norms to facilitate shared understandings and dialogue, and develop democratic structures of authority in schools. But the urgency in Mexico for fast and massive educational change in a system with ingrained traditions of control and centralized hierarchical authority, and a disregard for the complexity of educational change processes may bring about a superficial implementation of the teacher education reform thus threatening the success and integrity of the constructivist approach, and introducing confusion and relativism among teachers and administrators.