Focusing on teacher education

The state of education is well known in Paki-stan. And many believe, and rightly, that any intervention that hopes to change the state of education in the country has to focus attention on teachers as well. What are the qualifications of those who become teachers in Pakistan (pre-service), and what is the in-service teacher training and support mechanism would be crucial questions for any reform that hopes to have a deep impact on the education sector in the country. But teacher education is a lot more complex than it appears to be. And it happens to be a fairly neglected area as well.
If your aim is to hit the bulls eye, some of the help manuals, especially from Zen literature, say that you have to ensure that in preparation stage, hitting the bulls eye does not become the sole objective that you focus on. In fact your preparation should focus on other things...getting the form right, making sure your other things are in order and all of your other movements, motions, stance and equipment are all in sync and you are in the 'zone' when attempting to target the bulls eye.
Targeting teacher education might have some similarities with this approach. It is true teachers need to have some understanding of the basics of pedagogical practices and they also need subject matter expertise as well. But where these might be necessary conditions, they are not sufficient. A teacher needs a lot more.
He/she needs to be able to connect with the students, needs to understand their world and their point of view, be able to reach their level of development, and have empathy with their situation. He/she also needs to have a much broader spectrum of knowledge, especially in the social sciences and humanities areas, to be able to communicate effectively with students, especially with younger students.
Over the many years I have been a student and then a teacher, which is most of my life, the good teachers I have come across have always been good at the subject that they were teaching, but they were a whole lot more as well. They were good at communicating their ideas, connecting with the students at their level, having empathy with the students and their worldview, and they were very knowledgeable about a whole host of other areas as well...well beyond their expertise. And finally, they were usually good role models as well, even in terms of human behaviour, their ethical codes and their outlook on life.
Given the above, the question of what teacher education should focus on becomes a lot like the aiming for the bulls eye bit. We have to ensure that everything is in place, all the pre-requisites are taken care of, and then we get to the logistics of the actual event. Teacher education, in other words, cannot be about pedagogy skills and subject expertise only. But this, it seems, is the way we are treating it right now.