Anecdotes And Afterthoughts Literature As A Teacher S Curriculum

This qualitative journey explores how literature informs and challenges my under¬standing of teaching and learning. Insights, questions, and conflicts are revealed through a series of essays in which my evolving teacher identity is illuminated through literature and imagination. Hopefully reading this portrayal of literature, which has been a source of educational insight and imagination for me, will be of use to other educators as they reflect on their own teaching. The primary works of literature used to facilitate this journey are: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Les Miserables (1862), and American Idiot (2004); Light in August (1932), Seinfeld scripts (1991-98), and Frankenstein (1818); and The Odyssey, Night (1960), and The Souls of Black Folk (1903). By delving beneath my exterior ‘teacher mask,’ a collage of images, anecdotes, reflections, aspirations, and fears is exposed. As a resource for pre-service teachers or a reflective exercise for veteran teachers, this study aims to benefit educators by providing a new pathway through which to better understand their intrinsic identities as teachers. Each chapter concludes with “Recommendations for Reflection” that readers are encouraged to consider individu¬ally and/or collectively. The spirit of daydreams allows me to integrate literature, autobiography, and imagi¬nation through inventive and inspired discourses with literary figures, using au¬thentic quotations as content for original commentaries that further examine the intrinsic nature of teacher identity. My hope is that this journey will inspire other educators to further reflect on realities and possibilities of what it means to be a teacher.

Podsiadlik integrates educational philosophy, literary analysis, and reflective practice to examine ways in which grief can illuminate the nuances and complexities of a teacher’s life and work.

This is the second book in the series Transformative Pedagogies for Teacher Education. Like the first book in the series it is geared towards practitioners in the field of teacher education. This second book focuses on action, agency and dialogue. It features chapters by a collection of teacher educators, researchers, teacher advocates and practitioners drawing on their research and experiences with teacher candidates to explore critical issues in teacher education. The book will be useful to teacher educators working with teacher candidates in different contexts, particularly diverse contexts. Given demographic shifts and the need for educators to respond to growing diversity in schools, educators will find valuable strategies in Transformative Pedagogies in Teacher Education: Critical Action, Agency and Dialogue in Teaching and Learning Contexts they can implement in their own practice. In addition to valuable strategies, authors explore different approaches and perspectives in teacher education in the preparation of teacher candidates for a changing world. Critical notions of education are posited from different perspectives and locations. This book will be useful for schools, school boards and districts engaging in ongoing professional development of teachers. It will also be of value to school leaders and aspiring leaders in principal preparation programs as working with new teachers and teacher educators is an integral part of their role.

The purpose of this Dignity of the Calling is to share other stories of faculty entry into higher education. These stories focus on the deeply personal nature of the new academic. Framed around the idea of curriculum being contextual and how life experience guides what we do, this collection of memoirs, recollections, and personal narratives allows the reader to share these lived experiences. Although I was a teacher prior to the entering the professoriate, I was not ready for the gargantuan professional and personal transition to higher education. I was not prepared for minutiae of forms, deadlines of inter-office programs, personalities, and most of all for the human and sometimes illogical relationships among colleagues. I was caught offguard by the nuanced thinking of students; and most of all, I was, at times, overwhelmed by the time constraints of research, teaching and service on me and my family. However, I survived, and I believe I thrived in in my small slice of the academic world.

Teachers are not automatons. An educator's personal values, concerns, and aspirations cannot be cleaved from one's professional life without impacting the quality and relevance of the teaching experience. This book examines spaces where the personal and professional intersect, thereby deepening our understanding of the nuances and complexities of a teacher's work. It draws readers into places of vulnerability-moments of grieving. As a teacher's curriculum-as a curriculum of life-grief has much to teach about sympathy, compassion, and resilience. 0Educational philosophy, literary analysis, and reflective practice are used to explore ways grief can help us better ascertain the scope and depth of the educators we are and have the potential to become. Pieces of literature used include works by Pat Conroy, Charles Dickens, Stephen King, Rabindranath Tagore, Virgil, Franz Wedekind, and Virginia Woolf. Also included are ideas from a diverse set of educational philosophers, social and cultural commentators, poets, and more. Chapters conclude with "Topics for Reflection" for further individual and/or collective reflection and discourse. 0Educators at all stages of their careers will benefit from this study that demonstrates the impact personal grieving can have on remembering, recovering, and reidentifying with one's mission and vision. As a resource for pre-service or veteran teachers, the text celebrates the power of introspection to transform our work, our lives, and the lives of our students. It is equally relevant for parents, coaches, mentors, and anyone who takes on the kinds of teacher roles that impact, nourish, and inspire the lives of others.

Before becoming licensed educators, student teachers often demonstrate a license to transform the lives of others. A recent cohort of teacher candidates created this student teaching alphabet highlighting their personal, philosophical, and ethical license to transform. Original artifacts (i.e., poems, letters, artwork) serve as entry-points through which to consider how life events, aspirations, challenges, and beliefs contribute to one's emerging and evolving personal and professional identities. Readers are invited to contemplate their experiences, interactions, and lives in original and provocative ways. In educational psychology and teacher education/preparation courses, this book is meaningful for pre-service, early, mid-career, and veteran teachers as well as those considering a career in education. More than a curriculum of student teaching, it challenges us to imagine a curriculum of transformation that reflects the gestalt of all dimensions of life. More broadly, it can be useful for coursework in areas of the humanities, liberal arts, sociology, and curriculum studies. Individuals from a variety of backgrounds can reflect on their work and their lives through phenomenological lenses that validate the richness and complexities of their lived experiences. As a teacher's curriculum-as a curriculum of life-readers can ponder the ways they are being and becoming the educators-and the human beings-they've aspired to be. These teacher candidates are teaching for more than a license; they are teaching for better, more equitable futures. With the strength of their commitment and the audacity of their passion for change, these student teachers have much to teach us.complexities of their lived experiences. As a teacher's curriculum-as a curriculum of life-readers can ponder the ways they are being and becoming the educators-and the human beings-they've aspired to be. These teacher candidates are teaching for more than a license; they are teaching for better, more equitable futures. With the strength of their commitment and the audacity of their passion for change, these student teachers have much to teach us.

Paulo Freire wrote that “sometimes a simple, almost insignificant gesture on the part of a teacher can have a profound formative effect on the life of a student.” Sometimes, of course, this formative effect is not the result of a simple, isolated gesture but rather of a proactive and sustained series of gestures on the part of a teacher. Many of us have been deeply influenced by one or more teachers who have exercised a formative effect in our development as students and individuals. We remember these teachers with fondness, tell their stories to our own children, think of them with affection, respect, gratitude, even reverence. Sometimes, we recognized this influence as it was happening, and we grew close to these remarkable individuals, keeping them in our lives even after we graduated from their classes. Often, however, they themselves were unaware of the influence they exercised over us, for it was not until years passed that we realized their effect. If time and distance did not prevent it, perhaps we found our way back to these educators and shared with them our appreciation and gratitude. In this volume, outstanding scholars in the fields of adolescence and education provide short stories describing their most memorable teacher. Some provide the story on its own; other follow it with a brief analysis drawn from theory and research in education, psychology, and human development to identify key concepts and principles that apply in explaining why the selected teacher was so effective and memorable. Some write about one specific teacher; others write about the qualities that they believe contribute to teaching excellence, including anecdotes from various teachers to support the qualities they identified. Each tells the story with an eye toward being accessible to a wide audience of readers. One need not be an academic, or an expert in education or psychology, to understand and find meaning in these stories. In essence, these are stories and analyses that capture just what it is that makes a particular teacher, as our title describes, unforgettable. This book would be excellent for teacher preparation courses, educational psychology courses, and for anyone who is interested in the art and science of teaching.

An essential refernce for writers—both new and experienced—that will help improve your writing skills and style and help you say exactly what you want to say. Students, teachers, businessmen, aspiring authors, and complaining consumers all have one thing in common—the need to express successfully ideas, opinions, arguments, problems, explanations, or instructions through the medium of the written word. And The Lively Art of Writing is the perfect guide to the mastery of this essential skill. It will answer all of your questions, provide you with the best techniques, and offer important information about: • Choosing a subject • Working with words • The sound of sentences • The power of paragraphs • Essentials of style • Essays, theses, and term papers • And much, much more...