Sep 17 Entrance Slip: Reflective Teaching

    Grant and Zeichner's use of John Dewey's ideas around reflective thinking versus routine thinking, and the formers extension on the three principles, lay a foundation for a pedagogy which can adapt to teaching at all levels with all demographics. The three principles outlined are open-mindedness, wholeheartedness, and responsibility. 

    The first thing that resonated with me in the reading was the mention of conflicting interests from teacher educators. There are conflicting methodologies and practices desired for a teacher candidate to adopt from the university, the "teacher mentor", and the surrounding community. I have already experienced this in my volunteering, where the teacher I was working with had a practice I still fully don't agree with. The university's alternative, however, doesn't feel to fit correctly with the kind of teacher I wasn't to be. I realize that finding a balance requires teaching reflectively, in which case I hope to find some guidance through the three principles of reflective teaching.

    On page 111, the authors note that teacher candidates have been socialized with their twelve or more years of being students.  In EDST 401, we discussed a "Teacher ed in the present" by David F. Labaree, which called this the "apprenticeship of observation". In Grant and Zeichner and Labaree, the idea of divorcing oneself from the predispositions which come naturally from the apprenticeship of observation is necessary to become a reflective teacher. Without doing so, the teacher candidate carries with them unconsciously all the years of exposure to teaching styles which demand to be reexamined so that the good can be kept and some can be left behind.

Running in the mountains
For me, time and space to reflect

             1. Labaree, D.F. (2004). Teacher ed in the present: The peculiar problems of preparing Teachers. In Labaree, The trouble with ed schools (Read pp. 39-61). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.