Teaching Selves

Jane Danielewicz

Description

2001 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

This is a book about how identities arise, in particular, about how individuals "become" teachers, and how pedagogy in teacher education programs can promote identity development. Teaching Selves argues that being a teacher is not a matter of simply adopting a role but rather involves the construction of an identity as a teacher. Focusing on identity, the book tells the stories of six undergraduate students enrolled in a secondary teacher education program at a large state university. Through a qualitative study made up of interviews, observations, and teaching experiences with the subjects over a three-year period, the author explains the process of becoming a teacher, concentrating on the influences of education courses and other features of the teacher education program. Filled with students' stories and personal reflections from the author, Teaching Selves offers a personal vision of what is possible in a very public endeavor—the education of new teachers.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Identity and Pedagogy

2. Aspiring Teachers

3. Seeing Themselves as Teachers

4. Selves at the Boundaries

5. Practicing Teachers

6. A Pedagogy for Identity Development

7. Teaching Selves

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• Education

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 19 juillet 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791490471
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

danl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page i
Teaching Selvesdanl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page ii
SUNY series,
Teacher Preparation and Development
Alan R. Tom, editordanl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page iii
TEACHING
SELVES
Identity, Pedagogy, and Teacher Education
JANE DANIELEWICZ
State University of New York PressCover art: Sherri Wood, art quilts, Cog, 1995
Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Albany
© 2001 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, address
State University of New York Press,
90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207
Production, Laurie Searl
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Danielewicz, Jane, 1952–
Teachingselves : identity, pedagogy, and teacher education / Jane Danielewicz.
p. cm.—(SUNY series, teacher preparation and evelopment)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-5003-1 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-7914-5004-X (pbk : alk. paper)
1. Teachers—Training of—United States. 2. College Students—United States—
Longitudinal Studies. I. Title. II. SUNY series in teacher preparation and development.
LB1715 .D32 2001
370'.71'073—dc21 00-054793
10987654321danl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page v
For John
who had enough patiencedanl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page vidanl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page vii
I was aware of the fact that identity is an invention from the very
beginning, long before I understood any of this theoretically.
—Stuart Hall, “Minimal Selves”
That all crossings over are a way of knowing, and of knowing we
don’t know, where we have been....
—Robert Haas, Sun Under Wood
Talking about pedagogy, thinking about it critically, is not the
intellectual work that most folks think is hip and cool.
—bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress
I don’t feel it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main
interest in life and work is to become someone else you were not in
the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you
would say at the end, do you think you would have the courage to
write it?
—Michel Foucaultdanl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page viiidanl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page ix
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Chapter One Identity and Pedagogy 7
Chapter Two Aspiring Teachers 21
Chapter Three Seeing Themselves as Teachers 35
Chapter Four Selves at the Boundaries 65
Chapter Five Practicing Teachers 111
Chapter Six A Pedagogy for Identity Development 131
Chapter Seven Teaching Selves 181
Notes 199
Works Cited 205
Index 211
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Acknowledgments
This book about how identities arise explains the continuous process of how
others, through words and actions, make us who we are. I would like to
acknowledge some of the many people who have created me, the writer, by
contributing to the enterprise of self that this book represents.
As my husband John McGowan described it one day, I wrote this book
on the strength of my own convictions. He is the one responsible for letting me
know that such a thing was possible. For years, John has gone around telling
people about my inventiveness as a teacher. Though it took a long time before
his comments hit home, I am grateful for his repeated suggestion to write about
the occupation that fuels my everyday life—the practice of teaching.
Without my students and colleagues in the School of Education at the
University of North Carolina, there would not have been anything to write
about. They are the reason this book exists. Since I joined the faculty in 1992,
my work with prospective teachers has been electrifying. I recall clearly the first
day of the first course I taught in the basement of Peabody Hall. Though I was
a seasoned veteran, I had never encountered students like the twenty-six
undergraduates who sat before me—intense, driven, committed, and eager (even
desperate) to know how to be teachers. For me, it was a teacher’s heaven. The
first group was not an anomaly; each subsequent year I encountered more
wonderful students. I have tried hard to live up to their high expectations of good
teaching, which is how the pedagogy I describe in this book got started.
My passions are not limited to teaching; I also love to talk (and to talk
about teaching). I thank my colleagues in the School of Education for being
such engaged conversational partners. Working with Dwight Rogers on an
interview and observation project sparked the idea of doing something
similar with my own students. But not only the idea transferred. Dwight’s
interviews are splendid. His informal instruction in the art of interviewing helped
me develop skills crucial to the essence of this book. George Noblit, through
good example, a bit of proselytizing, and sheer force of personality, has kept
ethnography (and those of us who want to write it) alive and well in the
School of Education.
xidanl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page xii
xii Teaching Selves
But it was Alan Tom who made the book real, gave it physical form,
made me stop talking and start writing. Though we had many conversations, I
remember one day in May, years ago, sitting in the front window of a café on
Franklin Street. While I was gazing out at the spring-green trees and the
lightdappled lawn of the quad across the street, he was talking about my book.
Hands chopping through air, cutting planes in imaginary space, he would say,
“Here’s a chapter.” Then talking and gesturing a bit more, he would add,
“That’s a chapter.” By the time we had finished our coffee, I had a book in my
head. Eventually, everything came to pass, just as he said it would. But to write
the book, I needed his vision first.
Of course the manuscript would never have become a book at all without
the generous guidance of Priscilla Ross, editor in chief at SUNY press. I hope
the book lives up to her expectations. Many thanks goes to Laurie Searl who
managed the production of my book with care and patience.
There is no adequate way to thank the six students whose stories make
this book alive, genuine, important, relevant, vital, compelling, and worth
reading. As testimony to their pursuit of teaching lives, this book is my gift in
exchange for their hours of talk, prodigious energy, simple hard work, serious
introspection, and abiding affection. Though I cannot reveal their identities, I
hope the book reads true to them. Our work together has forged life-long
bonds, and I look forward eagerly to hearing the stories of their futures.
Writing this book has not been a solitary affair, not in the least. My
writing group has been nothing short of fabulous. Its current members—Judith
Farquhar, Megan Matchinske, Marisol de la Cadena, and Joy Kasson—have
read every page of every draft. As I wrote, they were always in my heart and
mind. Their familiar faces, a gentle, waiting audience, would often float into my
mind’s eye. Sometimes, imagining the table where we sat and shared our work
was provocation enough to write on a slow day. My book bears the distinctive
imprint of each of these women, who, through their motivating comments,
judicious critiques, and simple love, made it the best one I could have written. Its
limitations are purely my own.
I am grateful to William Andrews and to Laurence Avery (chair and
former chair) for their steady support and to the English Department for granting
me a research and study leave. Thanks goes to Ruel Tyson and Peter Filene at
the Institute for the Arts in Humanities (and to the other fellows) for a faculty
fellowship and a productive semester. I am indebted to Mr. and Mrs. William
J. Armfield IV, for offering their mountain home (complete with back porch
rockers) in Roaring Gap, North Carolina, as a writer’s retreat open to Fellows
of the Institute. Janie Armfield’s generosity prompted me to take several trips;
I always returned to Chapel Hill with a great deal more of the book written,
plus renewed energy to carry on.danl0.qxd 4/2/01 11:25 AM Page xiii
Acknowledgments xiii
My friends are the backbone. Without Lynn York, neighbor and fellow
writer on the block, my life during the past few years would not have been half
as much fun. We have spent hours talking, shared children and chores, laughed
loudly over nothing much, and even written together. I am especially grateful
to Lynn’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Van York, who lent us their house at Hilton
Head for resting and writing. In addition, the Yorks’ generosity enabled me to
complete final segments of my fieldwork.
Laurie Langbauer, teaching companion and literary theorist extraordinaire,
gave me the courage to move in the direction of writing personally. The
autobiographical sections after each chapter allowed me to connect in an immediate
and visceral way to the work of writing my students’ lives. In addition, Laurie’s
ideas about theory and her