Читать книгу Learning to Connect - Victoria Theisen-Homer - Страница 10

This book explores the complex, textured, and human side of relationship formation in teacher education programs and schools. It is primarily organized in three parts, each featuring three chapters. Parts I and II offer multifaceted portraits of NETR and PTR, respectively. Considering these programs holistically illuminates the intricate fabric that informs relational learning and the way each program makes consequential trade-offs in pursuit of its coherent mission. Because racial competence is critical for forming relationships with students across racial differences, I devote a chapter in each of these two parts to exploring how each program addresses issues of race and racism. The profound contrasts between these two programs are made more explicit in Part III, which considers how residents carry learning into the field from each program and the implications of each approach.

Part I of the book (Chapters 1–3) explores relationship development in a no excuses setting. Chapter 1 provides background on NETR and explores its strikingly instrumental vision of relationships and the discrete coursework that supports this; in the process, it considers the tensions that emerge between maintaining personal authenticity while establishing authority and the call for efficiency in messy human interactions.

Chapter 2 describes NETR’s coursework on race and inequality, addressing its heavy emphasis on “the culture of power,” and the ways that teaching students to “navigate” this system in schools could possibly perpetuate it. And Chapter 3 focuses on the residents: the explicit expectations they must follow, their aligned student teaching experiences, and their less structured tutorial experiences with a small group of students; while this latter experience feels more salient to residents, its application for no excuses teaching is uncertain.

Part II (Chapters 4–6) depicts relationship-building in a very different educational environment, PTR and the unique school it inhabits, which I call Xanadu. Chapter 4 depicts the immersive experience of learning to teach at Xanadu, where teaching and relationships are student centered and reciprocal, focused on critical thinking and self-advocacy; however, learning in this unique space may not sufficiently prepare residents for the range of schools the program intends to serve. Chapter 5 explores the challenges of confronting issues of race and racism in this sheltered and privileged space. The PTR director seeks to challenge oppression through curriculum and pedagogy, but the white homogeneity of the resident cohort, the privileged group of students residents serve in fieldwork, and the lack of an explicit mission or framework around this work limits how far the director can push residents to challenge racism.

Chapter 6 centers around PTR residents’ fieldwork experiences and how they absorb profound lessons about teaching and classroom management from their teaching placements at Xanadu, but struggle in their spring public school placements because education in these sites is not coherent with PTR’s philosophy; this has the ironic effect of dissuading most residents from teaching in public schools.

Finally, Part III (Chapters 7–9) explores how residents carry their distinct lessons on teaching and relationship development from their preparation program into the field. Chapter 7 serves to transition from the portraits of programs to the cases of teachers in the field: it compares the different educational and relational approaches in each program outlines ten relational competencies for teachers, reviews research on the impact of teacher education in beginning practice, and introduces interactional culture as a framework for studying relationships in school contexts.

Chapter 8 features cases of the four focal residents (two from each program) and how they attempt to connect with students in contexts that are both similar to and different from their programs; across contexts, residents display program learning in all aspects of their teaching, but the teachers in schools with less coherent cultures end up feeling less able or willing to implement all of their relational tools. In the final chapter, Chapter 9, I consider the implications of each program’s approach to relationships and how this played out in the classroom, and conceptualize how teacher education programs, schools, and teachers themselves might better support more humanizing teacher–student relationships in schools.

Through rich portraits and cases, careful analysis, and aspirational discussion, this book illustrates how teacher education programs currently train teachers to connect with students, especially across cultural differences. It challenges readers to reflect on their own relational practice, or that enacted by programs or schools with which they are affiliated, with the idea that we all can, and should, do better.