Support and challenge in teacher education

The study described in this paper reports findings in line with previous studies that discern more support than challenge in the area of teacher education concerned with mentoring of student teachers by teachers. Thus, the teachers say that support was their main emphasis, and challenge a lesser emphasis when they worked with the student teachers. Their students, however, seem unaware even of the amount of challenge which the teachers thought they offered. The paper discusses these findings and puts forward an interpretation based on a comparison drawn from the field of colour perception. The paper's conclusion, in drawing attention to the effects which support and challenge might have on one another when they are in combination, endorses the view that it is important not only to study the nature of challenge and support in themselves but also to study the relationship between them.