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I am so excited that we get to talk as teacher-educators because I'm so concerned about our responsibility
to prepare teachers to go out into this world of standardization, and all these expectations,
and tests, and so forth. My goal is to help teachers be reflective, not to become technicians.
I am eager to hear how you're thinking about that, and how it influences what uou do as
teacher educators.
Reflection, to me, isn't a disposition. It is not just a skill or ability. I think that
to be an effective teacher, this disposition almost needs to be second nature, a natural
tendency, that a teacher is aware of her own actions and thinking. Also being able to make
connections with, theories, thoughts, and other information you learn from multiple
perspectives. Of course, if you just carry out the standards, you don't need to reflect.
It's just sort of a mechanical process.
Oh, it implies that if you do it, it will work.
Uh-huh.
There's one right way to do this. Learn it and you will be a wonderful teacher.
It is a guaranteed result?
Yeah, sure. All the children will be above average.
It is just parallel, the standardization of the children's learning and a one-size-fits-all
expectation of the teachers.
Yes that is, right. That is why I think our job is to figure out how to teach teachers
in a way that is parallel to the way we hope they're teaching children -- not a standardized
one-size fits-all approach.
I often tell teachers, "When you come to a class to learn more about teaching, you think
you will want information about something else, but probably the most important information
you need is about exploring yourself." That's a big part of your professional development,
your education as a teacher.
I couldn't agree with you more. It's starting with an understanding of yourself because
ultimately, I think, the task for teachers is to consolidate your knowledge with your
identity as a teacher. What Parker Palmer says is that they get to design an identity
for themselves, a real awareness of who they are and what they want to bring to the teaching
process. It is not just how you meet all these standards, cover the curriculum, and all of
that kind of daily activity. I receive hope from Parker Palmer that good teaching comes
from the identity and the integrity of the teacher. That is so different than how we
tend to think of it in the U.S., at least. We have standards, I think, built into our
teacher education programs, whether it is in college settings or out in the field. Opportunities
for people to self-reflect and think about who they are are very rare. Why did you react
in that way? What's important to you? What values have influenced what you're doing?
What would you hope would be the value that you're nurturing in that child by your response?
It is a very thoughtful and intentional approach to teaching, as opposed to trying to have
the right technique for child guidance.
If I, or you, were a teacher, instead of telling you what to do, I'd ask you, "Who are you?"
There are multiple ways of thinking and feeling - how did you play as a child, and how do
you feel about conflict among children? Some of you will not like that because that's not
how you are used to learning. Nobody asked you about you. They tell you what you're supposed
to do.
So, some of it is learning who am I, so I will notice when I'm behaving like me and
sometimes that's a good thing. The other one is "Who is this child?" Or "Who is this person
who is my colleague?" I've been remembering the way when I was first in a preschool doing
my practicum and I didn't know much about young children.
I knew more about me than I did about young children. I had a practicum supervisor, whose
name was Sue, and I felt I would never forget her because she was forever saying to us,
who were all really new preschool teachers. "Did you see what Johnnie is doing over there,"
and then we would look, but we wouldn't be able to tell.
So then she would describe it to us. Here we are learning to observe child behavior,
to reflect on it, to interpret it, and to take notes on it. I have practiced and practiced
doing that. Now I do it rather well, learning to pay attention to the other and to oneself.
You have to keep on going back and forth.
Back and forth.
It is what we would like the teachers of young children to be able to do, both with their
adult colleagues, with children, with their parents, and with everybody else in the world.
How can we respect each other and ourselves? This is critically important.
In what ways is reflective practice imbedded in your work with adults? With whom, when,
and how could this occur more often? Reflect upon a time when you felt that your students
or mentees really understood the notion of teaching as reflective practice. How, where,
and why did this occur? Reflect on the methods you used to mentor, educate, or work with
adults. Does it mirror the ways we teach them to work with young children? Why or why not?