Читать книгу Learning to Connect - Victoria Theisen-Homer - Страница 7

Theorists and researchers alike emphasize the weight of teacher–student relationships, but the field of teacher education lacks clear answers to a multitude of relevant questions about how teachers learn to form relationships. How are different teacher education programs approaching this work? How do programs take into account issues of race and racism when preparing preservice teachers to form relationships with all students? What practices seem particularly powerful for these teachers? How do new teachers carry relational learning into the field? And what factors might influence the degree to which teachers use what they have learned to form these relationships? In this book, I address these questions and shed further light on this critical aspect of teaching practice as it is implemented in teacher education programs.

To do so, this book focuses on two well-respected teacher residency programs located in the same city that intentionally tackle relationships and race but in very different ways. Teacher residency programs, which are expanding nationwide, offer a “third way” to educate teachers that attempts to improve upon the shortcomings of both traditional and alternative preparation programs.^[27] For example, residencies pair novices with excellent mentor teachers in extended field placements that last up to a full year, often interweave theory and practice in coursework, and employ a cohort model that supports collaboration and discourages traditional teacher silos.^[28] In these ways, teacher residencies are designed to resemble medical residencies, in a step toward further professionalizing teaching. Moreover, these features—particularly the extended proximity to students in supportive field placements—seem to make teacher residencies uniquely promising sites for student–teacher relationship development. Early research on residencies indicates they effectively recruit more racially diverse teachers, promote teacher retention, and ultimately improve students’ academic outcomes.^[29] However, limited scholarship documents the interworking of these programs, and none of it specifically attends to relationship development.

To explore relationship development in residency programs, I draw upon data from a 2-year ethnographic study of two such programs: one based in a well-established progressive independent school (Progressive Teacher Residency, or PTR), the other in a relatively recent no excuses charter school (No Excuses Teacher Residency, or NETR).^[30] I selected these two programs because both espouse distinct missions and have an intentional and explicit focus on the development of teacher–student relationships, something that is not common among teacher education programs. They each also have excellent reputations within their respective circles (no excuses or progressive).^[31] In many ways, these two programs reflect the potential of “mission-driven” residency programs to help novice teachers learn to form meaningful relationships with students.^[32] However, they approach this work very differently, offering an illuminating contrast that exposes the complexity of relational work and the way it is deeply intertwined with context.^[33]

In the first year of this study, I embedded myself in these two programs. I observed coursework and activities, interviewed faculty and residents, and collected documents along the way. The stark juxtaposition between No Excuses Teacher Residency (NETR) and Progressive Teacher Residency (PTR)—which one of my colleagues referred to as “whiplash”—enabled me to see aspects of each approach to teacher education that I might not have otherwise identified. Then in the second year, I followed two white residents from each program (four in total) into their first full-time school sites.

Although I intentionally interviewed residents of color to shed light on their responses to residency coursework, I chose to follow white teachers into their first classrooms because not only do they represent the vast majority of the teaching force, but research also suggests they have more work to do to form meaningful relationships with students of color.^[34] In the process, I got to know the four focal teachers, which allowed me to better understand how they brought their biography, personality, and goals into their work. Focusing on these teachers also allowed me to discern how they carried their program learning into the field and whether school factors influenced their ability to connect with students in line with their training.

There is much to learn from the portraits of the two different residency programs in this book, especially when presented in relief. Over the years, numerous similar teacher education programs have molded themselves off the example set by both these programs. Thus, while both NETR and PTR demonstrate idiosyncrasies, they are both largely reflective of the no excuses or progressive approach to relationships, teacher preparation, and education overall. And because both standpoints represent influential educational ideologies, vestiges of which continue to permeate a range of schools across the United States and abroad, it is worth exploring how these programs structure relationships at the fundamental level of teacher education. For readers unfamiliar with these educational approaches, I describe them briefly here, but will render each approach in much more depth throughout the chapters.