A minor addition to the arguments below: if (as often happens) we call the people undergoing Initial Teacher Training Trainees (since, if they are taking up training, they are being trained), we put them into the passive. We describe their process as something done to them rather than something they do; the verb is linked to trainer in French, trahere in Latin. A train, a convoy of things being pulled along.
They are being trained.
If we call these people students, they are active – it’s derived from a present participle, and to add to all this, it’s the present particple of the Latin verb studire, which can mean “to be zealous, to be absorbed [by].”
Of course, we could take this further, and suggest that someone described in the passive of “to train” has somewhere in their etymological baggage the image of someone “being dragged,” whereas the student is someone who is enthusiastic for something, someone with a desire for active participation – perhaps someone so enthused – by their own teachers, perhaps, but also by the business of education – as to seek creative solutions for themselves: a risk-taker?
This is straying into Furedi territory again, and probably far-fetched, but does it suggest two very different images, and comes close to McGregor’s theory of X and Y models of employees – see this link or this. Are we in danger of assuming that trainees are feckless people who need dragging along? I would hope not; but we do need to be aware of the nuances of our language about the work we do.
nicktomjoe 