I agree with this article. I think that we are not only engaged in the act of teaching or playing the role of the teacher, but we are also engaged in the evaluation of teaching. As teachers we are constantly analyzing the information that we are presenting, looking at the effectiveness of the delivery and evaluating the outcome. I had a professor who was a retired teacher of 30 plus years and she once said that she never felt like she was a real teacher until she had taught 10 years. She explained that this was because it was in her 10th year that she finally was able to plan, execute and evaluate her lessons (teaching) as a single processs and not just pieces. I thought this was profound. In a time where results are mandated and their immediacy are critical, we often think of teachers as masters of the art of teaching right out of the box. Our profession is unlike any other, yet the results that are demanded give no regard for this uniqueness of situation.
Teaching as a scholarly pusuit involves finding stability in a profession that has none. We teach different students, who come to us with different educational and socioecomonic backgrounds. Our schedules rotate based on staffing needs not on student needs. We are asked to take on greater responsibilities within the district we teach due to reductions in staffing. We are constantly moving from subject to subject and often from grade level to grade level. In essence, we are trying to become scholarly teachers on a collidescope of change. The image that comes to mind is that of two rival log rollers trying to throw each other off the same log. They rush forward, stop, start again, then change direction until one is tossed off into the cold river. I say all this to outline the difficulty of becoming scholarly in an environment that offers the teacher no stability but instead provides a rush of change.
In this atmosphere, I see myself as well as my fellow teachers moving more toward isolation and less toward collaboration. We talk to each other less and less as the demands of teaching force us to spend a greater amount of time trying to keep on top of the daily work load. We have less funds to allow us to attend professional development to the point of being denied free training because many districts do not want to pay the substitutes so that we can attend. Our in-school professional development is reduced to working on school improvement plans or refresher trainings on new state-mandated reporting requirements. We have little time to spend on increasing our knowledge as professionals. This includes time to talk to one another or collaborate with other professionals outside our physical walls.
I agree most of all with the articles deduction that teaching is an endless exercise of inquiry. Part of this inquiry must be the ability to be make mistakes. I believe this so much, that I have, since my first class, put right in my syllabus that students are encouraged to make mistakes, be wrong and start again. Although not everything is included in this as part of my practice (like quizzes and tests) the majority of projects and assigments have a framework of trial and error built into them. Students must be able to discover things for themselves and thus we must prescribe to the belief that teaching is about guiding students toward the discovery and not just tell them the answer. Critical thinking is something that requires students to "learn" to be right and not just be right. This type of framework allows students to reach an answer that best fits their analysis and may result in different conclusions. However, isn't that the way life is...more gray than black and white?
I will end with a quote from a college professor that has stuck with me since 1989..."If you answer the question then you have learned one thing, but if you question the answer then you are faced with a magnitude of possibilities followed by more questions and the learning is quite possibly endless."
Teaching as a scholarly pusuit involves finding stability in a profession that has none. We teach different students, who come to us with different educational and socioecomonic backgrounds. Our schedules rotate based on staffing needs not on student needs. We are asked to take on greater responsibilities within the district we teach due to reductions in staffing. We are constantly moving from subject to subject and often from grade level to grade level. In essence, we are trying to become scholarly teachers on a collidescope of change. The image that comes to mind is that of two rival log rollers trying to throw each other off the same log. They rush forward, stop, start again, then change direction until one is tossed off into the cold river. I say all this to outline the difficulty of becoming scholarly in an environment that offers the teacher no stability but instead provides a rush of change.
In this atmosphere, I see myself as well as my fellow teachers moving more toward isolation and less toward collaboration. We talk to each other less and less as the demands of teaching force us to spend a greater amount of time trying to keep on top of the daily work load. We have less funds to allow us to attend professional development to the point of being denied free training because many districts do not want to pay the substitutes so that we can attend. Our in-school professional development is reduced to working on school improvement plans or refresher trainings on new state-mandated reporting requirements. We have little time to spend on increasing our knowledge as professionals. This includes time to talk to one another or collaborate with other professionals outside our physical walls.
I agree most of all with the articles deduction that teaching is an endless exercise of inquiry. Part of this inquiry must be the ability to be make mistakes. I believe this so much, that I have, since my first class, put right in my syllabus that students are encouraged to make mistakes, be wrong and start again. Although not everything is included in this as part of my practice (like quizzes and tests) the majority of projects and assigments have a framework of trial and error built into them. Students must be able to discover things for themselves and thus we must prescribe to the belief that teaching is about guiding students toward the discovery and not just tell them the answer. Critical thinking is something that requires students to "learn" to be right and not just be right. This type of framework allows students to reach an answer that best fits their analysis and may result in different conclusions. However, isn't that the way life is...more gray than black and white?
I will end with a quote from a college professor that has stuck with me since 1989..."If you answer the question then you have learned one thing, but if you question the answer then you are faced with a magnitude of possibilities followed by more questions and the learning is quite possibly endless."