2. Popular Assumptions
1. Teaching comes naturally.
2. The main strategy to win
the students is to be liked
by them, and if you are
kind and caring, then
students will respond
accordingly.
Is
that so?
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3. Prof. Mary Kennedy:
The Problem of
the “Received Wisdom”
(Kennedy, 1999, p. 54)
“According to received wisdom, teaching is fundamentally a self-evident
practice. What to teach should be obvious if you know your subject, and what
to do at any given moment should be obvious from the situation.Therefore
learning to teach consists of two main parts: you learn the subject you intend to
teach through college-level liberal arts courses, and you refine your technique
and personal style through experience in your own classroom. Most versions of
the received wisdom end here. Some versions add a small role for teacher
education, acknowledging that there might be some benefit from studying child
psychology or perhaps research on teaching. But the role of teacher education
is still considered to be relatively modest.”
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4. “Teaching is such a difficult practice!”
~David Labaree
(MSU Faculty 1998-2003)
• The problem of client cooperation. The student must be willing to
learn what the teacher is teaching.
• The problem of compulsory clientele. Students are present under
duress, otherwise students may be doing something else rather than learning
algebra, literature, biology, etc.
• The problem of emotion management. Teachers need to actively
establish and manage emotional relationships with students.
• The problem of structural isolation. Teachers are the only professional
in the room left alone to manage 30 kids on their own.
• The problem of chronic of uncertainty about the effectiveness
of teaching. The will and emotion in the teaching and learning process, the
effects of teaching, the conflicting purposes of education, confusing client’s identity.
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5. Even if you realize it that
teaching does not come
naturally, which conceptions of
teaching do you have?
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10. Learning to Teach
Continuum
(Feiman-Nemser, 2001)
Teacher Preparation
(Before Starting the Career)
Teacher Induction
(Early Teaching Career)
Teacher Professional Development
(Throughout Teaching Career)
Being
engaged in
sustained
critical
inquiry
towards
practice
“Good
teaching is
forever
pursuing
better
teaching.
It never
arrives!”
(Ayers, 2002)
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