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COMPOSING A LIFE AS A TEACHER:
THE ROLE OF CONVERSATION AND COMMUNITY IN TEACHERS’
FORMATION OF THEIR IDENTITY AS PROFESSIONALS

By

Deborah Lee Harris

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fufillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Teacher Education

1995

ABSTRACT

COMPOSING A LIFE AS A TEACHER:
THE ROLE OF CONVERSATION AND COMMUNITY
IN TEACHERS' FORMATION OF THEIR IDENTITY AS PROFESSIONALS

By

Deborah Lee Harris

This study employed ethnographic and sociolinguistic theory and
techniques to describe and understand how, through conversation and
participation in a year-long study group, six first and second year teachers
constructed their professional identities. It examined how they worked to
bring together, reconcile, and transform their images and understandings
about teachers, learners, learning, subject matter and themselves.

Two broad questions shaped this study: (1) How can teacher educators
learn more about the ways in which novices shape their identities as teachers
in the early years of their careers? and (2) How might we helpfully intervene
during these early years to reduce their feelings of isolation and support their
continued learning and growth as professionals, especially by means of
conversation, personal narrative, and a sense of community with other new
teachers?

To explore these questions, I formed the Learning Community Sharing
Circle. This study group provided a setting for members to share narratives
and engage in conversation about their teaching experiences. I collected the

following data: (1) audiotapes of the groups' meetings; (2) field notes of

meetings; (3) participants' journals; (4) individual interviews; and (5)
documents from the Learning Community archives.

My analysis showed that for these novices, constructing a professional
identity involved revisiting the question: "Who am I?" in relation to others
in their professional worlds: their students, other teachers, and students'
parents. With students, the novices had to negotiate among four dimensions
of the teacher role; to be at once an authority and in authority while
remaining a "humane person," and to be a nurturing caretaker of individual
students and their individual needs, while balancing the competing needs of
the whole group. With other teachers, the novices had to find ways to
respond to three main tensions: being accepted by colleagues while still
establishing themselves as autonomous; gaining recognition from colleagues
without compromising their own precepts; and to reconcile their ideal image
of teachers with the images they saw other teachers enacting. With parents,
they had to confront their own memories of how "ideal" parents interacted
with teachers, and make choices about the kind of relationship they wanted to

establish and maintain with their students' parents.

Copyright by
DEBORAH LEE HARRIS
1995

To my parents
Alice and Ira Harris

My first and most cherished community,
my wisest and most inspirational teachers

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As this dissertation is about the contribution of community and
conversation to teachers' identity formation, it seems fitting to begin it by
thanking the people in my various communities who have so influenced my
personal and professional identities.

I owe much to the bright young women who participated in this study.
At a busy time in their personal lives and challenging point in their
professional careers, they traveled quite a distance to join in the monthly
Sharing Circle conversations. They opened their teaching lives to me and to
one other through the narratives they told of their experiences, willingly
sharing their joys and triumphs, their fears and frustrations. I was always
impressed with their sensitivity to one another, their good humor, and the
thoughtfulness and dedication with which they pursued their goal to become
outstanding teachers. The children who pass through their classrooms will
be fortunate to have such caring and capable teachers.

The members of my dissertation committee-both individually and
collectively—have supported my intellectual growth tremendously. I was
honored that Dr. Susan Florio-Ruane agreed to direct this dissertation. I first
had the opportunity to work with her as part of a graduate assistantship in the
Learning Community program. As the director of this program, she provided

skilled leadership that brought teacher candidates, faculty members, and

vi

graduate students together in productive ways and enabled them to envision
and enact a new kind of teacher education. This dissertation was possible
because of her work, her guidance, and her vision. Through our oral and
written conversations about this study, Dr. Florio-Ruane has taught me not
only about teaching and teacher education, but also about what it means to do
the kind of quality research that benefits teachers and students. In a myriad of
significant ways, she has influenced my identity, my "becoming" as a teacher
educator, and has my deepest respect and appreciation.

Dr. Christopher Clark inspired me to see the possibilities and promise
of educational research through his course, and helped me better to articulate
my ideas about what"good teachers" know and are able to do. Dr. Patricia
Edwards was my strongest advocate during my time in graduate school. She
believed in me, encouraged me, and has taught me much about how to
achieve seemingly impossible goals. Dr Helen Featherstone and Dr. Cheryl
Rosaen asked helpful questions, always made time to listen and to talk to me,
and influenced my deve10pment more than they know. They always made
me feel strong and centered and capable. Dr. Featherstone is responsible for
helping me to find my writing "voice." Dr. Rosaen has shown through her
example that there is no need to compromise, that one can be an excellent
teacher, researcher, and colleague at one and the same time.

A number of other faculty and staff have significantly contributed to
my intellectual growth and the quality of my life at Michigan State
University. I wish to thank in particular Dr. Sharon Feiman-Nemser, and Dr.

Deborah Ball, two warm and caring teachers who inspired my growth as a

vii

teacher educator and supported my study both in spirit and through their
actions. I thank also Sharon Schwille, who taught me all that I know about
helping teacher candidates in the field; Jenny Denyer, and Eliot Singer, for
keeping the Learning Community dream alive; and Karla Bellingar, Jo Colby,
Tena Harrington, and Barbara Reeves, for their friendliness and technical
support.

Although I had been told that doing a dissertation can be a lonely and
often miserable experience, I did not find it so, primarily because of the
friends who have supported and encouraged me throughout my time in
graduate school. All remarkable human beings-talented, caring, and
thoughtful—they have also been wonderful friends, even over time and great
distance. I thank them deeply for their patience, understanding, and good
humor, and offer them in return my affection, respect, and appreciation. In
particular, I would like to recognize the sister of my soul, Shireen Kumar, BJ
Namba, Jeremy Price, Peggy Rittenhouse (& Co.), Terry Stein, Michelle Parker,
Judy Winn, Helene Anthony, Lisa Brandt, Becky Bodenner, Katia Goldfarb,
Jaime Grinberg, Diane Tanner, and Tammy Lantz.

It is largely because of Dr. Kelvin Young, my former teacher, mentor,
and dear friend, that I pursued this degree. In fact, if not for him, I would
have left the field of education while still a teacher candidate, disillusioned
about schools and teaching as a career. He believed in me more than anyone
else ever has, convinced me always to strive for excellence, and taught me to
find and value the goodness in others. He is one of the best teachers and

finest people I know, and this dissertation is done in his honor.

viii

Finally, mahalo nui to my parents, Ira and Alice Harris. They are the
most difficult to thank in this context, as words are inadequate to convey the
strength of my love and depth of my gratitude to them. They have supported
me—emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and financially--in this and every
other endeavor I have undertaken. They have taught me by their own
example the value of seeking new experiences, new knowledge, new
challenges. All that I have accomplished and will in the future achieve is due

to their love and support.

ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... xiv
LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... xv
CHAPTER ONE
Composing a Life as a Teacher .................................................................................. 1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1
Why This Study? ............................................................................................. 3
Identity and Our Ever-Evolving Selves ...................................................... 5
The Role of Conversation and Community in
Identity Formation ...................................................................................... 7
Situational and Substantial Selves ............................................................ 11
Identity as Discourses .................................................................................... 12
The Importance of Conversation and Personal Narratives ................. 15
Telling Our Own and Hearing Others’ Stories ........................................ 16
The Importance of Language and Conversation .................................... l7
Conversation and Storysharing for Teachers .......................................... 18
So Few Opportunities for Conversation ................................................... 19
Identity Formation and Adult Development .......................................... 21
This Study .................................................................................................................... 24

CHAPTER TWO
The Sharing Circle as a Setting for Conversation, Narrative and the

Negotiation of Professional Identity ...................................................................... 28
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 28
Recruiting the Participants .......................................................................... 30
The Sharing Circle Teachers ........................................................................ 35
The Meeting Context and My Role as Group Facilitator ....................... 38
Data Collection and Analysis: An Overview .......................................... 41
Analysis of Student / ”Other Teacher” / Parent Data ................................ 48
The General Nature of the Sharing Circle Conversation ..................... 51
The Building of Community ...................................................................... 53

X

Organization of the Remainder of the Text ............................................. 56

CHAPTER THREE
Who We Are With Our Students .......................................................................... 57
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 57
The Multiple Roles of the Classroom Teacher ........................................ 61
The Teacher as an Authority ....................................................................... 63
The Teacher as a Humane Person .............................................................. 66
The Teacher as a Nurturing Caregiver ..................................................... 68
The Teacher as A Realist .............................................................................. 70
Synthesizing the Four Dimensions ........................................................... 72
Balancing Simultaneous Needs: To Be in Authority
While Projecting Oneself as a Humane Person .................................. 73
Teacher as an Authority On Subject Matter, or
Teacher as Co-Learner .............................................................................. 80
The Close Connections Between Being a Humane Person
and Being a Nurturing Caregiver .......................................................... 85
Striking a Balance Between the Teacher as Nurturing
Caregiver and the Teacher as a Realist ................................................. 87
The Connection Between Teacher as Realist and
Teacher as Authority ................................................................................ 96
Broadening the Contexts of Teachers' Formation of a Professional
Identity .................................................................................................. 98

CHAPTER FOUR

Who We Are With the Other Teachers in Our Schools ................................. 100
Introduction: Working With Other Teachers: Conflicts and
Tensions ................................................................................................................. 100
Gaining Acceptance -vs-Establishing a Sense of Autonomy .............. 104
Desire for Recognition/ Validation -vs-Following Own
Precepts ....................................................................................................... 107
Reconciling Their Ideal Image of Teachers With the Image
They See Other Teachers Enact .............................................................. 113
Novices' Responses to These Tensions ............................................................... 114
Where the Tensions Surfaced and Where the Novices' Actions
Occurred .......................................................................................................... 115
Vignette One: "The Teachers in My School Are
So Goddarned Negative!” ........................................................... 118
Vignette Two: "How Can You Be a Teacher?” .......................... 12

xi

Vignette Three: ”1 Kind of Try To Keep the Peace” .................. 124
Vignette Four: "On Being Able To Standing Up

To Another Teacher in the Building” ..................................... 132
Looking Across the Vignettes .................................................................... 136
Building a Sense of Community by Creating an

"Us -vs- Them" Situation ....................................................................... 137
Interacting With Other Teachers: A New Challenge ........................... 140

CHAPTER FIVE

Who We Are With Our Students’ Parents ......................................................... 142
Introduction ............................................................................................................... 142
Novices' Prior Personal and Programmatic Experiences
With Parents ......................................................................................................... 144
Personal Experiences .................................................................................... 145
Programmatic Experiences .......................................................................... 145
On Working With Parents ......................................................................... 149
Locating Oneself Initially in a Parent/ Teacher Discourse .................... 154
Participants' Conflicting Orientations Toward Parent-Teacher
Relationships .......................................................................................... 155
Handling Challenges From Parents: ”We Ended
Up Becoming Pretty Good Friends” ..................................................... 165
Talking to Parents: ”Just Don’t Joke Around” ........................................ 171
Learning From These Conversations ....................................................... 181
CHAPTER SD(
Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Compromise and Promise ............................ 182
Introduction: Belonging and Becoming ................................................. 182
What Happens When Novices Meet To Share Narratives Of Their
Teaching, And What Do They Learn Through This Sharing? ..... 183
How Did Membership In The Sharing Circle Support The Formation
Of Participants' Professional Identity? ............................................... 188
Limitations Of The Study And Some New Questions To Explore....194
Final Thoughts: Looking Beyond This Study ........................................ 198
APPENDIX A. Learning Community Program Handbook ............................ 200
APPENDD( B. Interview Protocol ........................................................................ 208

xii

APPENDIX C. Transcription Conventions ........................................................ 211

LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 213

xiii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Learning Community Sharing Circle Members ............................... 34

Table 2. Categories And Frequencies of Novices’ Talk
About Colleagues ...................................................................................... 49

xiv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Role Sectors: Constructing A Teacher Identity Through

Interactions With Significant Others ...................................................... 47
Figure 2. Four Dimensions Of The Teacher Role With Students ...................... 63
Figure 3. Novices’ Relationships With Other Teachers: Emerging

Tensions And Actions Taken ................................................................. 104
Figure 4. Parent/ Teacher Discourses ...................................................................... 153

XV

CHAPTER ONE

Composing A Life As A Teacher

Each of us lives, learns, and teaches a story

that represents ourselves and though we do not

entirely govern what happens to us, we create

what we make of what does happen.

We each construct the meaning of our story,

which gives our lives their essential shape.

As the authors of our personal story we select

what belongs to the story and what lies outside.
(Diamond, 1992, pp. 74-75)

Introduction

In her book Comm Mary Catherine Bateson (1990), suggests
that a commonly held assumption—that people's lives progress in single and
unwavering lines toward specific goals-is rarely true for most people. She
argues instead that we craft our lives, just as painters or poets or musicians
craft their works of art, by bringing together various elements and
experiences, shaping them to fit our visions, and forming them into a
coherent whole. Much like skilled novelists, we create and use narratives,
and it is through these narratives that we are able to incorporate even
seemingly unconnected ”bits and pieces” into a cohesive life story. And, since
the process of composing a life is ongoing, and requires a ”continual
reimagining of the future and reinterpretation of the past to give meaning to
the present” (Bateson, 1990, p. 29), our narratives, and thus our life stories are

ever-evolving. As Polkinghorne (1988) so eloquently explains:

We are in the middle of our stories and cannot be sure how
they will end; we are constantly having to revise the plot as
new events are added to our lives. Self, then, is not a static
thing nor a substance, but a configuring of personal events
into a historical unity which includes not only what one has
been but also anticipations of what one will become. (p. 150)

1

2
In Bateson’s view, the process of composing a life is, in many ways,

more like creating a patchwork quilt from a jumble of fabrics than sculpting a
statue from a single piece of wood. You select certain fabrics from the bits and
pieces of materials you have on hand, and then begin to create a design,
sometimes simple, sometimes intricate, depending on your vision of what
the quilt should look like. As your design takes shape, you find yourself
revising it along the way, you look for new materials to add, or discard ones
that you thought might work but don't. Some people prefer making orderly
patterns, others prefer to make up the design as they go. Just as the crafting of
a quilt was traditionally a social affair, an occasion when people (usually
women) came together to sew and share stories, the construction of the quilt
of one's life does not occur in isolation but rather in communication with
other people. The quilts that emerge from interactions with others, like those
from the sewing circles, reflect the contributions of many, yet are also each
inevitably unique.

As a teacher educator, I find Bateson's perspective compellingly
relevant to the field of education. Viewing learning to teach as an evolving
process of ”composing a life as a teacher” fits well with current constructivist
thought, with the portrayal of teachers as lifelong learners (Dewey, 1916/ 1966),
and reflective practictioners (Schon, 1987). It helps capture the complex and
individual nature of the process as well. We can see how each novice brings
bits of her past, her autobiographical history, her own experiences in schools,
her preservice program experiences, and combines them with pieces of her
present, like the particular school context in which she works, along with her
visions of the future, e.g., the kind of teacher she’d like to become, or the kind
of classroom she hopes to create, in order to construct a coherent sense of who

she is and what she is doing in her professional work. Though in some cases

3
teachers’ ”bits and pieces” may come from similar fabrics, or are fashioned

after established patterns, the way in which each individual shapes, arranges,
and actually stitches these pieces together is intensely unique. And, just as
quilts are created in the social setting of a quilting circle, a teacher’s
professional identity is constructed through interaction, conversation, and
engagement with meaningful others in various personal and professional
settings. Unlike a quilt, however, a teacher’s professional identity is never
fully ”finished”-it is always changing and developing--always ”under

construction.”

W

Although there has been a great deal of research done on beginning
teachers, we actually know surprisingly little about how they make sense of
their early teaching experiences, about how they compose their lives or
construct their professional identities. Until quite recently, in fact, few
researchers even acknowledged that beginning teachers play an active role in
their own socialization into the profession (Goodman, 1987). Instead, as
Zeichner and Tabachnick (1985) note, it was ”conventional to think of
beginning teachers as vulnerable and unformed....Willingly or unwillingly,
beginning teachers (were) seen to be cajoled and molded into shapes
acceptable within their schools” (p. 1). Moreover, as N ias (1989) has observed,
”few attempts have been made to portray the subjective reality of teaching
from the standpoint of, or in the words of, teachers themselves” (p. 19).

If we were to begin our studies of learning to teach from the
perspective that beginners do actively participate in their own socialization
(as advocated by Goodman, 1987; Etheridge, 1989; and Hoffman et a1, 1986),
and that they have important insights to share with us about their early

4
teaching experiences (as advocated by Goodson and Cole, 1994), then it is

possible that our understanding of the complex process of learning to teach
would be both broadened and deepened, thus allowing us to design more
educative preparation and in-service experiences for beginning teachers. One
way to approach such a study, the approach I have taken in the study reported
here, begins with the following questions: (1) How can we learn more about
the ways in which novices shape their new identities as teachers? and (2)
How might we helpfully intervene during these early years, to reduce their
feelings of isolation and give them the support they need to continue
learning and growing as professionals?

Seeking answers to these questions is important, for we know that the
early years in the field are often considered to be the most criticalnand the
most formative—ones in a teacher’s career (Grant & Zeichner, 1981). These
first several years are often the most difficult as well (Feiman-Nemser, 1983),
so difficult, in fact, that many teachers (nearly 50%) actually leave the
profession within the first five or six years (Huling-Austin, 1985). Of those
who remain, many soon find themselves teaching in ways that conflict with
their initial intentions and goals, or settling for less than exemplary practices
(Bullough, 1987). This outcome results, in part, from lack of attention by
schools and educators to the need for dialogue and support in the critical early
years of negotiating an identity as a teacher. In constructing an identity as a
teacher, novices inevitably will need to readjust some goals and expectations,
but they should not have to compromise their goals for themselves and their
teaching practices to the point that they find themselves moving away from
their visions altogether.

As teacher educators, I believe that we want the graduates of our

teacher preparation programs to do more than merely ”survive” their first

5
years of teaching. We must, then, find ways to support them as they begin to

develop their professional identities, so that they are able to become more like
the kind of teachers they envision themselves to be. To do this well, we must
have a better understanding of how novices bring together the pieces of their
teaching lives—their own biographies as learners, their pre-service
preparation experiences, the particular contexts in which they live and work--
for it is this process that ultimately shapes the visions that guide their
practices and defines their sense of ”self-as-teacher.”

This dissertation study grew from my interest in learning more about
how beginners experience the process of learning to teach, and my belief that
such knowledge might enable me, in my role as a teacher educator, to play a
more significant role in teachers’ early professional development. My
purpose was to describe and understand how, through conversation within a
year-long study group, six novice teachers constructed their professional
identities. Before describing the study’s design and my subsequent analysis,
however, I want first to define and briefly to explore the concepts of identity
and identity formation, community, conversation and narrative, as these
serve to ground and give meaning to both the study’s design and the report
that follows.

11H 10 E £1.51

It is common for people to talk about identity formation as an
individual and private phenomenon, something that occurs in set stages or at
certain ages, and which we arrive with at birth and ”fully achieve” in young
adulthood through solitary and quiet reflection. It is common, too, for people
to talk about having ”an” identity, a singular, fixed sense of self that they carry
with them at all times, with all people. <We hear people talk about

6
professional identity formation in much the same wayuconsider, for

example, the notion of developing an identity as ”A Teacher.” People often
think that good teachers are ”born not made,” that one’s identity as a teacher
is further ”achieved” as one progresses on one's own through a relatively set
series of stages (Fuller, 1969, Burden, 1990), and that ”teachers are teachers,”
that they ”assume” the same role whether they are with students, colleagues,
administrators or parents.

In this paper, I will present and work from another perspective. I will
suggest instead that there is strong evidence to show that both our personal
and professional identities are socially constructed through talk, interaction
and engagement with others; that we are each ”many selves” (Steinem, 1992,
p. 323) and that our identities, as human beings and as teachers, grow from
and are always bound to our connection with significant others and particular

social contexts. As Josselson (1987) observes:

From its earliest roots, identity emerges from what is separated out
from others but continues to exist in connection with them. Identity
fuses into a creative, emergent whole the sense of who one was (with
whom) and the sense of who one will be (with whom). (1987, p. 21)

Furthermore, I will also work from the perspective that just as our personal
identities are not fully achieved in young adulthood, neither are our
professional identities fully achieved upon receipt of a credential or
completion of a stage of initial preparation. In this view, I am supported by
McAdams (1993), who has observed that

The adult life span does not take on a smooth, consistent course. Nor
does it develop through a series of constantly repeating cycles, stages,
phases, or seasons. Instead, there are likely to be periods of relative
stability in which commitments are lived out, interspersed with
periods of relative change, in which the person may go through
another moratorium. (p. 95)

7
I turn now to a more in-depth consideration of the notion of identity, and the

role that interaction and connection with others plays in the formation and

reformation of people’s personal and professional sense of themselves.

 

The notion that by means of conversation and involvement within
caring groups or ”communities” we learn about ourselves and others is not
new. However, it is largely unexamined in teacher education and its
implications remain unexplicated. In the early 19005, social psychologists
Charles Cooley and George Herbert Mead articulated theories of social and
intellectual development that came to be known as symbolic interactionism.
According to these theories, each person’s sense of self, his or her personal
identity, arises only through interaction with other selves who share

membership in a common group or ”community.” In Mead’s words:

The self cannot arise in experience except as there are others there. The
other is essential to the appearance of the self...There must be
organized activity for the development of the self. There must be
situations where the individual can get the attitude of the members of
the group. There is then a self in a situation which involves

society in relation to the individual. (Mead, in Miller, 1982, pp. 156; 162)

These group situations, or "community," as I use the term here, refer
to more than simply a place on a map or a group of people living in close
proximity. Stemming from the Latin word ”communis” (Oxford English
Dictionary), "community" is a group of people who feel the sense of
fellowship and connectedness that comes from holding shared beliefs,

experiences, and values. As Dewey (1916) points out:

There is more than a verbal tie between the words common,
community, and communication. Men live in a community in virtue
of the things which they have in common. What they must have in
common in order to form a community or society are aims, beliefs,

8

aspirations, knowledgena common understandingulike-mindedness as
the sociologists say. (p. 4)

A number of educators have been interested in the power of community to
shape and support individuals' learning. Joseph Schwab, an educator who
has written extensively on the role of community in teaching and learning,
describes ”community” as a ”state or condition of persons, of internalized
propensities, of tendencies to feel and act in certain ways with other people”
(Schwab, 1976, p. 11). Similarly, Bruffee (1984), describes community as a
group of ”knowledgeable peers” who accept and are guided by the same code
of values and assumptions about life.

Using these definitions, we can see that a group of people who live or
work in close proximity to one another may (or may not) become a
community, depending on the degree to which they hold (or come to hold)
shared values and beliefs. Similarly, people living quite some distance apart
may form or become members of a community (for example, an educational,
or religious community, or an ”invisible college”) in virtue of their deeply
held propensities that value certain forms of thought and action. But what
distinguishes a community from a group of people who merely happen to
find themselves sharing common beliefs or experiences? How does a
community come to be? What qualities create and unite this state or
condition of persons, and how is community related to learning and
teaching? According to Schwab, the following characteristics are essential to

the creation and maintenance of a community:

There is collaboration-shared and dovetailed apportionings of the
learning tasks. There are individual services to the group and group
recognition of such services...In addition to shared words and acts,
there are emotions and occasions for emotion which are basic to
community...shared vicissitudes; group triumphs over vicissitudes;
defeats; celebrations of such victories; mutual support in moments of
defeat; shared pleasures and interludes of gaiety and play. (1975, p. 32)

9
At the heart of any community is "the sense of shared membership

with others and a feeling of belonging to something larger than one's self and
a readiness and ability to contribute to a joint enterprise..." (Florio, 1981). A
group can become a community, then, if there is a degree of intimacy and
perceived connection with the members that is manifested through certain
rituals, events, and interactions that take place over a period of time. In this
way, even strangers who initially may appear to have little in common with
one another can become a ”community," if they are able to come together-
either in face-to-face interaction or over time and distance through reading
and writing—either to mum common interests and / or experiences, or to
create common interests and experiences through the sharing of tasks,
experiences, and feelings.

A vital element in the coming together process actually involves
conflict and dissent. Community members must learn to negotiate across
differences, for communities, however like-minded their constituents, are
neither without internal conflict or contact with other communities whose
views and values differ from theirs. Furthermore, communities do not
spontaneously appear but are rather ”constructed” and maintained through
constant interaction, guided by a mutual sense of connection and care among
members (therapeutic support groups, sports teams, and classrooms are just a
few examples of the many kinds of communities that can be constructed).

Once constructed, communities can be powerful sites for members’
collective as well as individual growth and development. Indeed, Schwab
argues that it is through sharing, collaborating, negotiating, and
communicating with others within and across such ”learning communities”
that an individual’s sense of self—his or her very identityuis developed. He

explains:

10

Identity, in brief, is not discovered by introspection

but created through involvement with others--

involvement in problems, involvement with the

elements of culture. Individuality takes form only

in continuous interplay with the persons and situations

in which it comes to be...Even ’experience’ as a form of

learning becomes experience only as it is shared and given
meaning by transactions with fellow human beings. (1976, p. 5; 1)

Our membership in a community thus fosters two seemingly paradoxical
qualities: a sense of belonging to a common culture, of being like others in
our group, as well as a sense of our own uniqueness and individuality.

Like Schwab, Charles Cooley and G. H. Mead saw group membership as
critical to the development of the self (Nias, 1989). In Cooley’s view, it is
through our membership and interaction within groups or communities that
we learn to see ourselves as we think that others see us, that we, in effect, are
able to see ourselves as objects. Extending Cooley’s ideas, Mead explained that
although we cannot experience ourselves directly, because of our interaction
with other significant selves who share membership in a common group, we
learn to view ourselves from their perspective. This in turn helps us gain a
clearer sense of who we are. Lacking such interaction, a person would have
no self, for selves exist only as there are other selves with whom to relate
(Mead, 1934). Without interaction with others, we would not be able to reflect
upon, or learn from, or even recognize our experiences. As Mead (1934)

states:

...the human self arises through its ability to take the attitude of the
group to which he belongs-because he can talk to himself in terms of
the community to which he belongs and lay upon himself the
responsibilities that belong to the community; because he can recognize
his own duties as over against others-that is what constitutes the self
as such. (p.32)

11
Our interaction with significant others in our community, in other

words, allows us to be both a subject and object unto ourselves. In Mead’s
terms, each of us can be both a ”me,” and an ”I.” The ”I” is the intentionally
active subject or agency of our self (our ego, if you prefer), before we engage in
social interaction. The ”me” (or alter ego) is the residual accumulation of this
subject as it is appears in our memory (Gill, 1994). Our ”1” can observe and
reflect upon our ”me” (although by the time our ”1” is conscious of our ”me,”
it is no longer ”I”). As Mead (1934) notes, ”The ’I’ of this moment is present
in the ’me’ of the next moment...l cannot turn round quick enough to catch

myself” (p. 174).

S'I I' l l S l . l S 1
Because in reality we carry on different relationships with different
people, and we in effect all belong to multiple communities, Mead (1934) puts
forth the notion that we can actually have multiple situational selves,
meaning that we can be different selves in and to different groups. The
attitudes we take, the responsibilities we take on, the standards by which we
define and judge ourselves can vary according to the group we happen to be
in at any one time. Mead does not, however, see as incompatible the idea that
each individual also has an inner ”substantial” (Nias, 1989) or ”core” (Woods,
1984) self: an individual self-structure that is relatively stable even across
different communities. The substantial self that each person develops
through interaction within differing groups actually incorporates from across
the various groups what he or she selects as the most highly prized and fitting
attitudes, values, and qualities. In time, these most salient attitudes and
beliefs about "the kind of person I am" become deeply internalized and fairly

resistant to alteration (Nias, 1989).

12
I l H D'

Echoing and extending the work of Mead and Schwab, language
researcher James Gee (1990) has further contributed to our understanding of
identity and the role of communities in identity formation. He also asserts
that individuals craft their identities through their membership and
participation in multiple communities within a culture. Gee describes these
communities as ”Discourses.”1 For Gee, a "Discourse" is both a way of
speaking (or reading or writing) and a way of being, an ideology that
constitutes one way of being oneself with others. He explains that our
identities are acquired through membership in both primary and secondary
Discourses. Of these Gee (1990) says,

Each Discourse is tied to a particular social identity within a particular
social group and to certain social settings and institutions. Each is a
form of life, a way of being in the world, a way of being a 'person like
us,‘ in terms of action, interaction, values, thought and language,
whether this is people in our family, classroom, school, local drinking
group, church, nation, ethnic group, sewing circle, business, job site,
profession, gender, club, peer group, gang, and so on through a very
long list. (p. 175)

Gee (1989) explains that becoming a member of a Discourse and adopting its
language and values and ways of being is much like acquiring an ”identity
kit” (p. 1), complete with instructions for how to act and think, including how
to dress, walk, talk and approach the world. To be a member of a Discourse,
one must take up certain roles in very specific ways, else one won't be
recognized as belonging to that Discourse. In the beginning, when a person is

first learning a new Discourse, he or she may not fully understand the way it

 

1Gee (1990) distinguishes between ”Discourse” (with a capital ”D”) and ”discourse” (with a
small ”d”). He uses ”discourse” when refering to connected instances of language (such as
conversation, jokes, or stories) and ”Discourses” when talking about the ”ways of being in the
world”(p. 142) which allow one to be recognized within a particular group, club, social
network, sub-culture, etc. as belonging, or having membership within that group. He suggests
that we think of a ”Discourse” as a kind of ”identity kit" complete with instructions on how to
talk, dress, act, and interact (p. 142).

13
"works," but, Gee (1990) explains, you "...watch what's done, go along with

the group as if you know what you're doing when you don't, and eventually
you can do it on your own, even with something of your own style" (p. xvi).

According to Gee (1990), we become members of different Discourses
either through learning or acquisition, or some combination of the two
processes. Acquisition, in his view, is a subconscious process that involves
observation of models in the group, trial and error, and practice within a
natural setting. Most people, for example, acquire (rather than learn) their
first language. Learning, on the other hand, is a process that involves
conscious knowledge gained either from someone's teaching or reflection on
one's own experiences. When we learn something, we also attain "meta-
knowledge," an awareness or understanding of what we have learned.

Viewed in Gee’s terms, constructing an identity as a teacher means
learning and acquiring a particular Teacher Discourse, or, more accurately,
learning and acquiring multiple Teacher Discourses. Denyer & Florio-Ruane
(1995) observe that preservice candidates' initial learning about teaching,
acquired through their apprenticeship of observation as students (Lortie,
1975), constitutes their primary Teacher Discourse. Candidates' experiences in
a teacher education program may either reinforce that primary Teacher
Discourse, or may introduce them to one or more alternative, or secondary
Teacher Discourses.

Unfortunately, no matter how much or how well students learn a
secondary Teacher Discourse, it is not possible for them to "master" it (i.e.,
become fully fluent) without some opportunity to combine learning with
acquisition. It is essential that people serve "apprenticeships" into "social
practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have
already mastered the Discourse" (Gee, 1990, p. 147). Building on Gee's work,

14
Denyer and Florio-Ruane (1995) note that an optimal teacher education

curriculum:

provides opportunities for both learning and acquisition--learning by
means of formal instruction and acquisition by means of guided
practice with authentic activities reminiscent of the rich and
supportive contexts in which primary acquisition occured. (p. 4)

Graduates of teacher education programs need, as novice teachers, chances to
connect with other members of secondary Teacher Discourses, to understand
and "try out" groupcsanctioned ways of acting, talking, and feeling as a
teacher.

While being a member of a particular Discourse provides us with an
ideology, a set of beliefs and values that determine both the way we view the
world and subsequently act in the world, we never belong to only one

Discourse community. Gee (1990) notes:

Each of us is a member of many Discourses, and each Discourse
represents one of our ever multiple identities. These Discourses need
not, and often do not, represent consistent and compatible values.
There are conflicts among them, and each of us lives and breathes
these conflicts as we act out our various Discourses. (p. xix)

Like everyone else then, a beginning teacher is a member of many
Discourses. She may belong (in addition to her primary Teacher Discourse) to
several possibly competing Teacher Discourses within and across her school,
district, or professional affiliations. She will be a member of a particular
family Discourse in a certain community group Discourse. She belongs to
several peer group Discourses, perhaps a church or sports group Discourse,
among many others. Communicating and forming relationships with
people, within and across these different Discourses, contributes to a teacher’s

ever-evolving professional identity.

15
I] I E C . j P. I II |'

Of all of the ways that people can communicate within and across
different communities or Discourses, the most universal seems to be
conversation, and within conversation, the sharing of personal narratives or
stories of personal experience, in and through which tellers locate themselves
in relation to others and express different aspects of ”who they are” (Rosen,
1985; Witherell, 1991; Josselson & Lieblich, 1993). Human beings, as
McAdams (1993) reminds us, are storytellers by nature; indeed, ”there has
probably never been a human society in which people did not tell stories”
(Wells, 1986, p. 194). The forming of personal narratives or ”stories” does
more than help us communicate with one another, however; it is a basic
activity of people (Bruner, 1986; Barthes, 1977), a way in which we ”engage to
understand and to share our experiences in the world” (Gomez and
Tabachnick, 1992, p. 130). Our lives and our stories are connected,
intertwined, like threads of the same fabric, rather than separate phenomena,
in that each forms and informs the other. In his discussion of this
hermeneutic perspective, Widdershoven (1993) has observed that ”We not
only live our lives in such a way that we can tell stories about our experiences
and actions. We also, in telling these stories, change the meaning of our
experiences and actions” (p. 7). Constructing personal narratives helps us to
organize and make sense of our lives, and in the process, helps us make sense
of who we are, have been, and might become. As Dyson and Genishi (1994)

explain:

Stories help us construct our selves, who used to be one way

and now are another; stories help us to make sense of, evaluate,

and integrate the tensions inherent in our experience: the past with
the present, the fictional with the ’real,’ the official with the unofficial,
the personal with the professional, the canonical with the different

or unexpected. Stories help us transform the present and shape the

16

future for (others) and ourselves so that it will be richer or better than
the past. (p. 24)

Ill' 0 0 iii . Q] ’5'

Through the telling and hearing of stories, either orally in face to face
interactions, or over time and distance through writing and reading, pe0ple
learn about themselves and others. The telling of stories is important, as

Helen Featherstone (1992) explains, because:

In telling stories we create a space outside of the relentless stream of
experience and demands. We represent both our understandings and
the contexts which have created them, streamlining a series of lived
events, selecting salient details to highlight. (p. 3)

Telling a story to someone else puts us in touch with what we know
and are coming to know, while at the same time, lets us step back from that
knowing in order to reflect upon it, to ”look over our own shoulder,” so to
speak. But telling stories does more than simply help us understand and
reflect upon our lives. The personal narratives we tell ourselves and others
actually come to structure how we perceive information and experiences, and
ultimately determine the way we organize and make sense of our world, thus
shaping our personal and professional identities, our very ”becoming”
(Bruner, 1987).

Having opportunities to hear (or read) the stories of others is
important to our identity formation as well. In listening to another’s story,
we step into their lives for a time (Coles, 1989), we share their feelings and
experiences and insights. We learn and grow by trying to understand what
the story means to the teller and what it could mean to us. Equally important
is the opportunity to talk with others about the stories told and heard, to
make use of the stories as occasions to learn something new about oneself

and others. Like all learning, this "storysharing" experience is inherently

17
social in nature. ”The stories we create influence the stories of other people,

those stories give rise to still others, and soon we find meaning and
connection within a web of story making and story living” (McAdams, 1993,
p. 37).

While I have mentioned telling and listening to personal narratives as
two different facets of the storysharing process, it is important to realize that
in reality the two processes are integrally linked; both speaker and listener
work together in sharing a story, in that the speaker must become the listener,
and the listener the speaker (Scollon, 1988; Bakhtin, 1986). Tannen (1989)

explains this well when she states:

Conversation is not simply a matter of two (or more) people alternately
taking the role of speaker and listener, but rather that both speaking
and listening include elements and traces of the other. Listening, in
this view, is an active not a passive enterprise, requiring interpretation
comparable to that required in speaking, and speaking entails
simultaneously projecting the act of listening. (p. 12)

WW

Implicit thus far in my discussion of the role that community and the
sharing of personal narratives play in identity formation has been the
importance of language and conversation. For Mead, Schwab, and Gee,
language is at the heart of the development of the community and in turn,
the development of the self. It is through language that we are able to create
shared meanings, to communicate with one another. This communication,
Tannen (1989) tells us, is what ”...makes a collection of individuals into a
community, unites individuals in relationships” (p. 29). It is through
language, especially the crafting of personal narratives, that people construct
and constitute their worlds (Gill, 1993), and through language that each of us

18
can be both an ”I” and a ”me.” Schwab (1975) captures the importance of

language for the development of self and community well when he states:

All of us belong to a first community...Our beginning personness, as
children, consists first of a world perceived and felt significances that
we have made from things seen. It is when anotheruadult or child--
signals recognition that we have such a world, seeks to know it, and
tries to give us a glimpse of his (sic) private world, that one-to-one
community begins. This is done in one and only one way-through
speech, by talk: questions to us about our world of perception and
feeling; responses to our questions which convey comprehension and
sharing of our inner world; then the other answers questions of ours
about their world. (pp. 31-32)

As we grow older, our world expands beyond that first community, and we
become members of multiple communities or Discourses, in both personal
and professional settings. Our opportunities for participating in
conversations with significant others thus expands as well, and the stories we
hear, tell, and co-construct in these conversations continually help shape and

reshape our personal and professional identities.

C |° 1 SI 1 . E I I
There has been a growing interest recently in studying the role that
conversation can play in developing teachers’ professional identities. In
some cases, educators have created teacher ”conversation groups,” to give
teachers an opportunity to share personal narratives in supportive group
settings.2 While there is much still to learn about the possiblities and
limitations of these groups, and of conversation in general as a medium for
growth (Florio-Ruane and deTar, 1995), they initially appear to offer
promising insights for both the teachers and teacher educators alike. Maxine

Greene (1978) has suggested that for participants in these settings,

 

2See, for example, Featherstone (1992); Florio-Ruane 8: deTar (1995); Gomez & Tabachnick
(1992); McConaghy (1991); Short et al., (1992).

19
conversation may serve to ”open pathways to expanded landscapes, richer

ways of being human—unique and in the ’we-relation’ at one and the same
time” (p. 34). June McConaghy (1991), a researcher and teacher educator who
conducted a recent teacher study group learned that the participants’ stories
acted as a transformative experience in their teaching lives. For the teachers
in Nias’ (1989) study, peer conversation in a group setting enabled them to
construct a shared reality in which they could ”...seek and find, through

interactions with others, confirmation of their selves” (p. 208).

SEQ "EC .

Because participating in storysharing and conversation within and
across Discourses is so central to developing a sense of oneself as a teacher, it
is unfortunate that novice teachers (and indeed teachers in general), have so
few opportunities to share stories or to engage in sustained conversations
with others-within a caring community—about their learning and about their
teaching. As Lightfoot (1983) has observed, "feelings of isolation fill the daily
experiences of teachers" (p. 251), as almost without exception, teachers work
in settings where the actual structure of the school building precludes much
interaction among adults; most teachers in fact live their school lives behind
the closed doors of their individual classrooms (Lortie, 1975; Goodlad, 1984).
Even more powerful than the physical walls, however, are the ”invisible
walls,” the ”culture of teaching” which values autonomy and privacy, and
solving problems on one’s own (Britzman, 1986). Given this kind of culture,
most teachers, especially beginners, resist admitting difficulty or failure,
asking for help, or expressing uncertainties about their practices in fear that
they will be seen as weak, ineffective, or unknowledgeable (Merseth, 1990).
The result, according to Lieberman 8: Miller (1984), is that:

20

Once graduated from a preparation program, teachers find
themselves alone in the classroom with a group of students without
a peer or supervisor in sight. The neophyte teacher is left with degree
in hand, high expectations internalized, a fistful of untried
methodologies, and few adults with whom to share, grow, and learn.

(p- 4)

What is it about the culture of teaching that fosters such an
individualistic reality? One contributing element of school culture involves
the expected norms of privacy and non-interference (Lortie, 1975; Little, 1990;
Hargreaves, 1992). As Lieberman and Miller (1984) explain:

The rule of privacy governs peer interactions in schools. It is alright to
talk about the news, the weather, sports, and sex. It is alright to
complain in general about the school and the students. However, it is
not acceptable to discuss instruction and what happens in classrooms as
colleagues....The lack of peer support and interaction makes it difficult
to develop a clear sense of the quality of one’s own teaching....There is
no safe place to air one’s uncertainties and to get the kind of feedback
necessary to reduce the anxiety about being a good teacher, or at least an
adequate one. (pp. 11; 13-14)

Richert (1992) reminds us as well that ”in addition to norms of the
profession, the demands on teachers’ time preclude much reciprocal
conversation among colleagues; teachers are too busy to listen to themselves
let alone listen to one another” (p. 193). In most schools, while there are
multiple opportunities for teachers to interact with one another, there are
few occasions-either during or after the school day--for teachers to actually
talk substantively about teaching and learning (Feiman-Nemser & Floden,
1986). Whether new or experienced, teachers juggle enormous demands and
responsibilities—they must attend meetings and workshops, write reports,
evaluate and design curriculum, be on lunch duty, supervise the production
of plays and newspapers and more-in addition to their primary job of

teaching students in their classrooms something worthwhile (Wigginton,
1975).

21
For any novice, assuming the responsiblities of a ”real” teacher, while

exciting, is an incredibly challenging experience, since in addition to coping
with the multiple demands of the job, she is simultaneously engaged in the
process of constructing a new image or identity for herself as ”a teacher.” And
despite all her contact with others over the school day, she remains isolated
from the very conversation and storysharing so important to this identity
work. As she attempts to bring together, reconcile, and transform past and
evolving understandings—about teachers and teaching, about learners and
learning, about subject matter, and about herself, she must find a way to make
sense of all the ”bits and pieces” of her teaching life, her past experiences as a
learner, her experiences in a particular teacher education program, and her
experiences in the particular school context in which she works-and she
must do so all alone.

Given the emotional as well as intellectual complexity of the
”becoming” process, and the fact that most novices face it in virtual isolation
(Featherstone, 1992), it is no wonder that for the majority of beginning
teachers, the first years in charge of a classroom are lonely, difficult, and often
traumatic ones (Veenman, 1984; Ryan, 1980). In fact, this characterization is
so widely accepted that ”researchers, support personnel, administrators, and
even beginning teachers work with an assumption that the first year is a
perpetual struggle to make it, often against incredible odds and obstacles”
(Theissen and Mullen, 1992, p. 5).

I l H E . l E 1 ll 12 l |
Adding another layer to the already complex process of becoming a
teacher is the fact that these novices are at a point when they are also making

many other life-changing transitions (Zumwalt, 1982; Featherstone, 1988). As

22
young adults, they are trying to establish themselves (in their own and in

others’ minds) as responsible and independent adults; and they are trying to
forge new, adult-adult relationships with their own parents. It seems
especially important, then, in thinking about beginning teachers’ identity
construction, to situate and understand their experiences in relation to their
development as adults. This requires a shift in our thinking about teachers
and learning to teach, for as Raphael (1985) points out, ”The teaching
profession, as it is traditionally construed, is 'flat.’ It deals inadequately with
the developmental processes of adulthood, with aging, with the passage of
time in a person's life” (p. 97).

Unfortunately, much of the extant literature on adult development is
not as useful as we might wish in helping us make this shift. Traditionally,
theories of adult development, such as those proposed by Erikson (1968), or
Levinson (1978), have been based largely on studies of males, and have
attempted to identify a series of linear and somewhat predictible stages and / or
phases through which people progress. I believe this research is problematic
as a source for helping us learn about learning to teach, for several reasons.
First, given that most current theories of adult development are based
primarily on studies of men, and that women's lives do not necessarily

correspond to these male-based theories,

women (not the theories) [are] typically seen as deficient...I(ohlberg
repeatedly has found that women remain stages below men in their
development by their intense attachments, concerns for relationships,
and context-based decisions...Erikson (1968) sees women's focus on

intimacy as a developmental impediment to identity formation.
(Gallos, 1989, p. 118)

23
Since teaching remains a field dominated by women,3 it behooves us to

seek theories that do not begin from the assumption that women's
development is deficient. Second, current thinking has called into question
the notion that people's lives--whether male or female-progress in a simple,
linear, stage-like way. Both Bateson (1990) and McAdams (1993), for example,
suggest that this assumption is not (and maybe never was) true for most
people. Instead, they would argue, "the landscape through which we move is
in constant flux" (Bateson, 1990, p. 6), and we constantly write and rewrite the
narrative of our lives. Attempts to link teacher development to set stages of
adult development may fail to capture the complexity and contextually-
bound nature of the process.

Some of the recent work on women's development, however, may
change the way that both women's--and ultimately men's-development is
understood because it takes into account the multiple and inextricably linked
dimensions of our personal and professional lives. This broader perspective
on adult development may ultimately be quite pertinent to our inquiry into
learning to teach. Interestingly, these new studies are generating theories that
connect closely to some of the work by Mead, Schwab, and Gee, in that they
view development as tied to an understanding of the self in relation to others
(Gallos, 1989; Attanucci, 1988). Like Mead et a1, proponents of this approach
believe identity is formed through interactions and relationships with
significant others (J osselson, 1987; Gilligan, 1982). Their work places increased
emphasis, however, on individuals' negotiation and resolution of issues
involving attachment and connection (rather than separation),

interdependence (as well as independence), caring and communion

 

3For example, approximately 83% of all elementary teachers, and 49% of all secondary
teachers are women (Feiman—Nemser & Floden, 1983).

24
(Noddings, 1984; Chodorow, 1978; Gilligan, 1988). This work promises to be of

value to teacher educators, as it further supports our growing understanding
that teachers' identities are formed through their interactions and

relationships to others in home, school and community contexts.

W

This study began as an exploration of the two questions posed earlier,
namely: (1) How can we learn more about the ways in which beginners shape
their identities as teachers in the early years of their careers? and (2) How can
we helpfully intervene during these early years to reduce their feelings of
isolation and support their continued learning and growth as professionals,
especially by means of conversation, personal narrative, and a sense of
community with other new teachers?

As a novice teacher educator trying to learn more about teachers’
learning and experiences across the career cycle, these questions were, and
continue to be, of particular interest to me. In my work during the period of
1989-1993 as a course and field instructor in the Learning Community Teacher

Education Program,4 I had the opportunity to work with teacher candidates

 

4The Learning Community Program was an innovative teacher education program at Michigan
State University. Grounded in the work of John Dewey and Joseph Schwab, its goal was to
”prepare teachers to teach school subjects effectively, while also focusing on the development
of personal and social responsibility among students" (Florio-Ruane, 1989). The program was
organized around common themes, and articulated in a set of "propensities," or internal
dispositions toward particular kinds of thought and action. (These propensities are described
in the Learning Community Program Handbook located in Appendix A, and will also be
discussed at several points throughout this text.) Teacher candidates moved through a two-
year sequence of carefully orchestrated, coherent set of course and field work experiences in
small (20-25 student) cohort groups. A group of interdisciplinary faculty who shared common
understandings of the programs' conceptual framework and goals worked closely with the
cohort group in multiple contexts over the two year period. The faculty explicitly sought to
foster a sense of community and collegiality through the development of shared values among
members and engagement in shared activities, both academic and non-academic in nature. See
Bryk et a1 (1993) for a review of these and other key components of communal organizations.
See Florio (1981) for a discussion of the Learning Community Program philosophy. See also H.

25
over a two-year period, beginning with their first term in the program, and

often seeing them through to graduation. The structure of this program
differed significantly from many traditional preparation programs, where
instructors typically work with a group of students in one course, for one
term. Instead, instructors had extended contact with students over two years
in both the classroom and the field. This engendered different kinds of
relationships between instructors and students. Over the two years that
teacher candidates were in the Learning Community Program, I got to know
many of them well. I became more intrigued with knowing what happened
to them after they took on their first teaching positions. As each group of
students graduated and left to find teaching jobs, I would wonder: What
kinds of experiences will they have? What kinds of learning experiences will
they create for children? Which of their program experiences will they take
with them? What kind of teacher will they become? In many ways, working
with students at the preservice level has always felt to me like picking up a
really good book, starting to read it somewhere in the middle, and then
stopping, putting it down-just at what seems like the most exciting part-
never finding out what happens next. Discovering some answers to these
questions was one part of what I hoped this study could accomplish. Also
important to me, however, was to create a situation where I could listen to
and learn from our graduates’ experiences, in order to understand how I (and
other teacher educators) could help future teacher candidates better prepare
for, and learn from, their early experiences in the classroom.

In order to research the questions posed above, I created a Beginning

Teachers’ Literacy Sharing Circle. The Sharing Circle met over one school

 

Barnes (1987) for a brief description of, and rationale for, Michigan State University's
alternative teacher education programs.

26
year. It was designed to provide an occasion for novice teachers to come

together, to deve10p a community in which they could share and reflect on
their own and others’ learning through the telling of personal narratives in
conversation. Composed of six recent graduates of the Learning Community
Teacher Education Program, this conversation group met monthly over one
school year to read, write, tell, and listen to their own and others’ personal
teaching narratives. By participating in and documenting the Sharing Circle
in field notes and audiotapes, I pursued the following questions:

(1) What happens when a group of novice teachers, all graduates from the

same teacher education program, are given an opportunity to meet

regularly over a school year to read, tell, listen to, and talk about their own

and others’ experiences with learning to teach?

(2) How do they represent their experiences in personal narratives, and

what do they learn by telling and hearing these narratives?

(3) How might membership in this particular community, and

participation in the group’s conversations support the teachers’

construction of their professional identities?

By documenting and analyzing the Sharing Circle experience, I hoped
to have an opportunity to study both the group’s conversations over time,
and the role that membership in such a group might play in promoting and
sustaining a culture for teaching that supports reflecting on one’s teaching
and learning within a caring community. Just as important, the Sharing
Circle also afforded an opportunity to learn more about how each participant
engaged in bringing together the pieces of her personal and professional life
in order to construct her unique identity as a teacher.

In sum, I anticipated that the Sharing Circle would function to some
extent as a kind of ”support group” (McConaghy, 1991 ; Short et al., 1992),

27
where participants could validate each others’ concerns and values while

giving and receiving encouragement and empathy. Yet its main purpose lay
in its potential to create opportunities for the six young women to have
conversations, listen to, narrate, and co-narrate vignettes about their
experiences with students, teachers, parents, administrators and other faculty
members. Through this experience, I anticipated and hoped to analyze the
possibility that the participants would: (1) articulate and explore conflicts
between differing teacher discourses; (2) experiment with alternative ways of
orienting themselves to the teacher role (akin to ”trying on” different ways of
enacting the role); (3) negotiate among the various tensions involved in
leaming a new role toward some shared understanding of the implications
that different ideologies would have for their teaching practice; and (4)
discover, broaden and develop their capabilities as teachers by having
multiple opportunities to get opinions and responses from ”significant
others.”

Before presenting my analyses of the Sharing Circle experience, I will
first present some additional information about the Sharing Circle as a setting
for conversation, narrative, and the negotiation of professional identity. The
next chapter traces the formation of the Sharing Circle, introduces its
participants, and describes the context in which the meetings took place, as
well as summarizes the methods of data collection and analysis that I

employed.

CHAPTER TWO

The Sharing Circle As A Setting For Conversation,
Narrative, And The Negotiation Of Professional Identity

It’s so nice to be able to get back with people who
thought like you thought, believed like you believe
and just almost like touch ground with your beliefs, like
’Yes, what I’m doing is okay.’ Even though everyone
else in the school might be looking at me like I’m strange,
what I’m doing is okay and it is right, and I can keep tryin it.
(Amy Roberts, Interview Transcript, 6/93)
Introduction
For Amy Roberts, one of the novice teachers participating in this study,
the opportunity to meet with a small group of graduates from her teacher
education program to ”just talk about things” (A. Roberts, Interview
Transcript, 6/ 93), was a chance to reconnect not only with peers but also with
ideas about teaching and learning that she strongly valued. As students in
the Learning Community Program, Amy and her peers had become junior
members, or "apprentices" (Gee, 1990), of this particular Teacher Discourse
community, and through their relationships and interactions with other
members of this community over the two years, they began to take on
particular ways of thinking and talking about students, teaching, and
learning. Generally, however, students' connection to faculty and peers from
the Learning Community ended with completion of the program. As is
typical of of beginning teachers, most had little or no contact with university

faculty or former classmates after graduation, except for a small number who

planned to attend graduate classes (Grant & Zeichner, 1981).6

 

5 Pseudonyms are used for the Sharing Circle members throughout this text.
6 Grant & Zeichner (1981) claim that such contact is typically solicited by neither the teachers
nor the university faculty.

28

29
Upon graduation, the Learning Community students, like other

teacher education graduates, disperse. And to the extent that the Learning
Community program constituted a discourse community, they also lose direct
contact with its members. The field makes it difficult for them to sustain
community over time and distance (through contact with peers and
professors), so they lose a community experience which was formative in
their professional identity work. They move as individuals to different
locations across the state, assume their first teaching positions and begin a
whole host of new life challenges, taking with them nascent and often
tentative understandings of the Teacher Discourse learned in their
preparation program. Struggling to design a professional identity on their
own and in relative isolation, they often find that these fragile
understandings unravel quickly, despite their best intentions.

This study, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, attempted to
intervene during the period of transition from university to the "real world"
of the classroom to offer graduates an interim experience of contact with
other Learning Community graduates in their first years of teaching. By
establishing the Learning Community Sharing Circle, I hoped to extend--for
one group of novice teachers-membership in the Teacher Discourse
community to which they had belonged during their two-year teacher
preparation program. I hoped to create a conversational setting in which
these novices could come together (not as students this time but as young
professionals), to read, write about, listen to, and tell narratives of their
experiences as beginning teachers, and in so doing, think through different
teacher ideologies and what these could mean for them and their teaching. I

also hoped to study their conversations to learn more about (1) their potential

30
usefulness in teacher development and (2) the nature and content of the

conversational identity work participants undertook within them.

In this chapter, I will describe the way in which the Sharing Circle was
formed, introduce the members of the group, explain the context in which
the Sharing Circle met, and summarize the methods of data collection and

analysis that I employed.

8 ”1.112..

Six novices, three first-year and three second-year teachers, all recent
graduates of the Learning Community Teacher Education program, were
invited to participate in this study. I made the decision to include teachers
with varying degrees of experience for two reasons. First, I was aware that few
studies of beginning teachers have actually followed them past the first year
in the classroom. Goodman (1987), Cole (1990) and other researchers have
argued that we need to pay better attention to teachers’ experiences through
the first two or three years of their induction period, since many changes and
adjustments take place after the first year. Second, I surmised that adding
another dimension to the conversations, by including teachers with two
differing years of experience, might provide additional, potentially valuable
information about how teachers’ orientations toward teaching might evolve
over time.

I began recruiting the Sharing Circle participants several months before
initiating the study. I first obtained lists of names and phone numbers of
recent Learning Community graduates from the university. I called those
people who were within a two-hour driving distance of the college, described
the study and asked if they would be interested in participating. I also
recruited members while attending a small, informal reunion organized by

several former graduates of the Learning Community program. From the list

31
of interested participants, I selected six. My choice of partipants was

determined by several factors: First, I wanted the group’s members to
represent a variety of settings, both in terms of grade level and in school type
(urban, suburban, and rural). Second, I wanted to find teachers who were
working in schools or districts that supported (with resources and / or through
staff development activities) approaches to teaching literacy and other subject
areas similar to those they had learned about while in their preparation
program (e.g., constructivist in orientation, literature-based, ”workshop” or
process-oriented). I also hoped to recruit participants from districts or schools
known to favor more traditional grouping and instructional practices. I
h0ped that such variety would add richness and complexity to the group’s
discussions, and might helpfully illuminate the interplay between the
novices’ developing images of teaching, students, and themselves and aspects
of their school contexts. Finally, since I saw the evolution of the group's
sense of community as something that needed to develop over time, I wanted
people who were willing to make a commitment to remain with the group
for its duration over the school year.

The six novices who ultimately participated in this study were, in
many ways, typical not only of the students enrolled in the Learning
Community Program, but also of beginning teachers in the United States
today. Efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse teaching cadre
notwithstanding (see Cazden and Mehan, 1989), these teachers, like most,
were young (in their early twenties), white, female, mono-lingual, and from
middle to lower-middle class backgrounds (Zeichner, 1993; Florio-Ruane &

deTar, 1995; Brookhart & Freeman, 1992).7 Since this remains a typical

 

70f the few male graduates of the program, only one was available to participate, and I
elected not to include him, thinking that his presence might complicate the group dynamics in

32
pattern in teacher education (despite the need for a more diverse force), it is

important to look at ways to improve their preparation and inservice
experiences, so they will be able to work successfully with the diverse learners
ultimately entrusted to their care. And, while it would no doubt be the case
that novice teachers from other linguistic, racial or gender backgrounds
would similarly benefit from membership in a group such as this, their issues
might be different during the induction period (Lawson, 1992) and were
beyond the scope of this inaugural study.

In keeping with most ”typical” beginning teachers, whose entry to the
profession coincides with their entry to adulthood (Zumwalt, 1982), the
participants in this study were confronting a host of complex and life-
changing personal transitions, including ”...living on their own for the first
time, getting engaged or married, moving to a new apartment...(leaving)
behind a network of friends and (moving) into a world of strangers”
(Featherstone, 1988, p. 2). One of the young women in this study had just
married, two had recently become engaged, and two of the three single
women were in the midst of either beginning or ending personal
relationships. Four had temporarily moved back home with their parents
(after living in dormitories or apartments at college) in order to be closer to
their workplace. None of them had children of their own at the time of the
study. All but one of the participants found jobs in schools where they were
the only new teacher in the building,8 thus they joined faculties where most

of the other teachers had been in the profession-and even in the same school

 

ways that might compound my analysis. The language research suggests the conversational
dynamics would be different with a mixed gender group (see, for example, Aries, 1976).
8Coincidentally, another new teacher (also from the Learning Community Program) was hired
to teach in the same school that year.

33
building—for many years, and who were older than the novices by at least ten

years, with the range between ten and thirty years.

The young women participating in this study had more in common
than mere demographics; they all expressed a sincere desire to be outstanding
teachers, the kind of teachers who could make a positive difference in
children’s lives. They were all optimistic and deeply committed to helping
children become successful learners. They had embraced to varying degrees
the propensities articulated in the Learning Community Program (See
Appendix A for a list of these propensities), and held in common some ideas
about what constituted ”good” teaching. Among these ideas were generating
a child-centered curriculum, using cooperative learning and process-oriented
approaches to teaching literacy and mathematics, and respecting students’
differences. Of course, along with their similarities, each novice was also
unique in many ways. Both upon entry to teaching and as they assumed their
first jobs, participants experienced and expressed different perspectives on the
nature and function of the school, the needs and characteristics of learners,
the role of parent involvement in schooling, and the place of school
colleagues in helping them find professional identities. These differences
introduced opportunities for debate and negotiation in what otherwise might
have been talk marked by strong consensus and shared assumptions. As the
analysis will show, both conflict and consensus are the essence of community
and conversation (see Florio-Ruane & deTar, 1995; and Burbules, 1993 for
examples).

Table 1 summarizes the participants' teaching experiences upon entry
to the group. Following Table 1, I describe participants’ characteristics in brief
sketches. Taken together, the Table and sketches reveal differences in group

members’ experience by highlighting the degree to which their current

34
teaching assignments resembled either their student teaching placement or

their own schooling experience as children in terms of size, location and

socio-ec‘onomic status. Participants will be reintroduced later in this text as

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

well.
Table 1
Learning Community Sharing Circle Members9
swim—mm swan—W

Valerie Brooks“ 1 5th Glendale (S) Woodlake
Christine Matthews 2 3rd Morriston (U) Great Lakes
Lauren Moffett“ 1 6th-7th Moore (R) Cedarville
Amy Roberts" 1 3rd/ 4th Greenview (R) Amberton
Nina Scott 2 lst Hill (R) Terrytown
Claire Youngj“ 2 2nd Highland Heights (U) Jefferson

1] SI . C. l I l

W: Valerie Brooks was starting her first year of teaching in a fifth
grade classroom at Glendale Elementary, a small school located in a quiet,
suburban neighborhood mixing lower, middle, and upper income students.
The student population there was fairly diverse; drawing children from a

large trailer park, a nearby domestic shelter, children of university students

 

9Participants' names, schools, and districts are pseudonyms.

10(’) refers to members whose teaching assignments closely resembled their home experiences;
(“) refers to members whose teaching assignments closely resembled their student teaching
experiences.

11Codes: (U)=urban; (R)=rural; (S)=suburban

35
(some of whom spoke English as a second language), as well as some children

from a more affluent section of the neighborhood.

Val had completed both a semester-long field placement during her
junior year, and her student teaching as a senior in a fifth-grade classroom at
Glendale. Drawn to the school in part because it differed from the elementary
school she had attended as a child (a large school in a well—to-do suburb of a
large city), Val vigorously pursued, and was later appointed to a fifth grade
position in the very classroom in which she had student taught. For Val,
getting a teaching job was ”definitely a dream come true”(Journal Entry,

11/ 15 / 92). She had ”always” wanted to be a teacher, though commented that
it was only when she began teaching that she began to enjoy learning for the
first time in her life (Interview Transcript, 6 / 15 / 93).

W: The oldest of three children, Christine grew up in a
middle-class, suburban area near a large city. For Christine, teaching was a
way of giving children choices and opportunities for a "better life" (Interview,
7/ 10/ 93). Christine was the only member of the group who was married at
the time of the study. She had married a few weeks after her graduation from
college, thus was beginning her second year of marriage as well as her second
year of teaching. Juggling the roles of new wife and teacher was
understandably challenging sometimes, and Christine worked hard to devote
enough time to her husband as well as to her students and school-related
work (Interview Transcript, 7/ 10/ 93). Nevertheless, Christine participated
eagerly on school-wide curriculum committees, became a member of several
professional organizations, and attended a number of courses and workshops
on her own time.

Christine had done her student teaching in a fifth grade classroom in a

small school located in an affluent suburb. At the time of this study,

36
Christine was beginning her second year as a third grade teacher at Morriston

Elementary, a large school in a working-class, mid-sized, urban area. The
contrast between this school and the setting in which she had done her
student teaching was dramatic.

W: After sending out ”about a million applications, to over two
hundred districts” (Taped Journal Entry, 6/ 93) for a teaching job, Lauren was
thrilled to be offered a position teaching English and Social Studies to 6th-7th
graders at Moore Middle School. The job was exactly what she had wanted,
not only in terms of subject matter, but also because the school was
experimenting with team teaching and integrated "block" courses (e.g.,
double-periods in which to teach English and Social Studies, or Science and
Mathematics), two innovations that she supported. Lauren felt quite
confident in taking on the position, having done her student teaching in
those subject areas at a middle school in an urban setting. The Cedarville
district was the only one of the six districts which had a formalized induction
program in place; Lauren was assigned a mentor in the school, and was also
required to attend monthly meetings for all first year teachers in the district.
She reported that these meetings were helpful primarily as occasions to share
concerns and gain emotional support. Another new teacher (who was also
from her cohort in the Learning Community Program) was hired at the same
time and they talked together often about their teaching. Well-supported at
school, Lauren was also supported at home by her mother, who had taught
middle/ high school for many years before becoming an assistant principal.
mm Amy began her teaching career in an interesting situation; she
was hired to teach a third/ fourth grade (split) class in the very elementary
school she had attended as a child, where her younger sister still went, and

where she found herself working with people who had been her former

37
teachers. The school was very much a neighborhood school, and most of its

students were white, from middle to lower-middle-income backgrounds.
Amy noted that the area, including the school, had changed little since she
herself had been a student (Interview Transcript, 6/ 93). She moved home
with her family, who lived within walking distance of the school. Her father
worked as a principal in a nearby district.

Amy had done her student teaching in a suburban second grade
classroom. She believed herself to be ”a second-third type person,” but was
excited about the challenge of working with a combination class of
third / fourth graders, thinking that the situation had possibilities for peer
teaching and interesting kinds of integration across subject matter areas and
grade levels.

W: Nina Scott was beginning her second year in a first-grade teaching
position at Hill Elementary, a neighborhood school located in a small, rural
town. She had applied, along with almost 900 other teachers for one of three
openings in the entire district. Nina had been hired, the superintendent later
explained to her, because he had been so impressed by the way she had talked
about her student teaching experience, which had been in a third grade
classroom in an urban school. He had also been impressed by the numerous
examples of the third graders’ learning that she had included in her teaching
portfolio.

Nina commuted 45-minutes twice a day from her hometown of Alton
Lake, a mid-sized urban area. She chose to make the long drive rather than
move into an apartment near school in order to live closer to her family and
fiance. Due to frequent illnesses, the result of a serious disease, Nina had to

miss three of our eight meetings.

38
Gaming; Although Claire was entering her second year of teaching, she

felt she was beginning, in her words, ”from scratch,” having moved to a new
grade level in a different school in a different district from her first year
position. Her first job had been to teach 3rd graders in a small rural school
(the school’s only new hire in years). It had been a positive experience, for
although she claimed that the other teachers in that school often ridiculed
her for using a whole language approach, they also didn’t interfere with her,
and Claire had a lot of freedom in making instructional choices. She told me
proudly that by the end of the year, her students had written and published
over 600 books. (Interview Transcript, 6/ 93). She was initially ”pink-
slipped,”12 at the end of the year, despite the efforts of numerous parents,
who had turned up at a school board meeting and petitioned for her to be
retained. Although her contract was eventually renewed, Claire instead
accepted a position in a 2nd grade classroom in a large urban school in
Jefferson, believing that teaching a new grade level at a new school would be
a good learning experience for her. Another part of her rationale for moving
was a hope that she might find like-minded colleagues at the new school. In
addition to her second grade teaching position, Claire was a volunteer coach

in an after-school sports program at the high school as well.

11“.: HIE] E ET
The group met eight times over the 1993 school year, six times at my

home, two times at nearby restaurants. My decision to hold the meetings in

 

12In many districts in Michigan, non-tenured first and second year teachers are routinely given
"pink-slips" or notice at the end of a school year that their contracts have not been renewed.
They are then often "recalled" to their positions in the summer, once the details of the

district's budget, results of school millages, or attendance projections are complete. The practice

was a source of great anxiety for the beginning teachers in this study and was often a topic of
discussion in our meetings.

39
such informal, non-school-like settings was predicated on my belief that

meaningful conversation would most likely occur in a natural context, for
example, over a shared meal, in the intimacy of a comfortable living room.
In this decision, I was influenced by my earlier participation (as a Learning
Community staff member) in a project to design a teacher education
curriculum that encouraged and supported conversation as means of
learning to teach literacy. We had found particularly helpful Nancie Atwell’s
(1985) article "Writing and Reading From the Inside Out," in which she
describes the rich conversations she and her family had over the dining room
table (Florio-Ruane et al., 1990). Just as quilting circles of earlier times were
held in women's homes, sharing a home-cooked meal at my house seemed
likely to evoke a feeling of intimacy and domesticity, thus creating a social
climate more conducive to the sharing of personal narratives than would a
school-like setting. I also elected to meet in a non-school-like setting in order
to create distance between my former role as one of the participants' course
and field instructors and my current role as member and participant-observer
in the Sharing Circle. This was important, Rosen (1988) would explain,
because "...narrative surfaces easily and inevitably and without inhibition
[only] when the conversation is among intimates and no obvious and fateful
judgments turn on the encounter [for]...oppressive power muffles and
distorts it" (p. 75).

Although I set the date and time of the initial meeting, the group
members themselves took responsibility for negotiating dates for all
subsequent meetings. The meetings lasted between two and one-half and
four hours, and were informal and very loosely structured. Group members
generally arrived at approximately the same time, and spent five or ten

minutes greeting each another, getting something to drink, and getting settled

40
around the living room. The talk during this time was general (e.g., about

the weather, the traffic, the dogs who were milling around, about the snacks
on the table, or about an outfit someone was wearing). There was usually a
gradual transition into a brief ”catch up” session in which we updated each
other on any important news since the previous meeting. I was usually
circulating between the living room and kitchen (a distance of only a few
yards) finishing the meal preparation and placing the food out for them to
serve themselves, buffet style.

Other scholars, (e.g., Florio-Ruane, 1994; McConaghy, 1991), have used
the occasion of dinner meetings to foster teacher dialogue, though each study
differed in research design and intent. How and what was recorded in these
meetings related to the researchers' particular interests. June McConaghy
(1991), who for somewhat different purposes than mine conducted a study
group of experienced teachers around the event of dinner, turned on the tape
recorder after the meal was completed to signal to the group members that
”...the focus of the conversation was to shift from stories which centered on
their personal lives to ones that related more specifically to their classroom
lives” (p. 76). I was interested in learning about the interconnections between
the participants' personal and professional narratives and the ways in which
they would introduce topics and orchestrate the conversation over the course
of the meeting. I discovered at the first meeting that they did not make clear
demarkations between the personal and professional--their narratives of their
lives in and out of school were like threads in the same fabric, identifiable as
separate strands, but closely interwoven—and that if I waited until after the
meal to audiotape (which I did the first evening), I could miss some

interesting and possibly valuable segments of conversation.

41
This observation fits with one made by Gallos (1989), who, after a

review of the literature on women's development noted that "the boundaries
between professional work and everything else in life are more permeable for
women" (p. 126). In the first meeting, for example, I missed recording a
vignette in which Val explained how after a weekend visit to a friend in
Chicago, she had decided she needed to take her entire class there to see the
aquarium. She generated support for the idea at her school and managed to
get community funding to rent a bus to take the whole class (and many of her
students' parents) on the trip. Val's narrative about this "school-related"
experience emerged in the context of group members sharing personal
vignettes about the ways in which each had spent a recent three-day weekend.
Again, because of the way in which the novices wove together the telling of
personal and profesional vignettes, I began (after the first meeting) taping our
talk soon after group members arrived and settled.

My role in the group (besides taping the conversations), was that of
host, facilitator, and participant observer. I provided the dinner and other
refreshments, the place to meet, and took responsibilty for organizing and
reminding members of meeting dates. I consciously tried to facilitate rather
than direct the conversations, a role I will discuss in more detail later in this

text.

DIClll' 1!]..90.

Because I wanted to conduct a descriptive analysis of this discourse
group and its members' joint identity work, I designed a study using theory
and method drawn from qualitative research on teacher talk and reasoning
(e.g. Clark & Peterson, 1986)). In addition to andigjapjng the group’s

conversations, I wrote figldnotes of my participant observation shortly after

42
each meeting. I kept notes of any telephone conversations I had with the

participants each month (typically we spoke once or twice between meetings),
collected and copied any entries that participants had made in the personal
MI: I had provided for them, and copied notes, or letters, we had
exchanged. I also collected samplesm lessonjdeas or other materials they
brought to the meetings to share with each other. At the end of the school
year, I conducted individual de-briefing mm with each participant.13
Additionally, I copied from the Wmaterials that
pertained to the teacher education program and journals and other papers
that the participants had written while students in the program.

My analysis of the data was ongoing, using qualitative methods
(Schatzman 8: Strauss, 1973) to frame working hypotheses, which were tested
and revised throughout the study and on the basis of comparison from one
meeting to another as well as across different kinds of data. As the analysis
which follows will show, although I began with, and focused most intensely
on, the audiotapes of the meetings, I concurrently worked to cross check and
”triangulate” (Gordon, 1980) inferences generated by my analysis of the tapes
with my other data sources.

I began listening to the tapes of each Sharing Circle meeting with two
broad questions in mind: First, what kinds of stories will they share about
their students and their teaching, with whom and in what ways? And second,
building on Harold Rosen’s (1985) question, ”What does the narrator learn in
the art of narrating?” (p. 35), I asked: "What do they seem to be learning
through the narrating and co-narrating of their experiences in the group
setting? In order to answer these questions, I listened to each tape and

prepared a catalog of the turn-taking and topics of talk. I next transcribed the

 

13‘See Appendix B for a copy of the interview protocol used.

43
conversations.14 I read each transcript numerous times in its entirety,

referring as well to my fieldnotes of the meetings. As I read the transcripts
and field notes, I identified for closer study vignettes or conversational
segments that seemed significant and pertinent to my initial research
questions, coding them according to topic and noting the emergence of
particular themes or recurring issues.

After coding the transcipts, I began to categorize the data in order to
begin framing working hypotheses. The categories that I developed came
from a combination of three sources. One source was the readings that I had
done on (a) teaching and learning to teach (especially the literature on
beginning teachers and their induction year experiences15 ); and (b) identity
and identity formation (especially the work of Mead, 1934), women's
development (e.g., Gilligan, 1982; Gallos, 1989); James Gee's (1989; 1990) work
on discourses and literacy, and ultimately, Goffrnan's (1961) concept of "role
set." A second source of literature was suggested by my initial research
questions (for example, How would participants represent their experiences
through narrative? What stories would they tell?) These questions led me to
research on oral personal naratives of teaching such as that undertaken by
McConaghy (1991) and also general theoretical work on narratives such as
Rosen's (1985). A third source that I relied on when forming categories
emerged from my examination of the data themselves and the patterns I

observed in them (e.g., I noted that the novices frequently referred to the

 

14See Appendix C for a sample of a section of the transcripts and a list of the transcription
conventions used.

15The literature on beginning teachers and induction fell into two fairly distinct categories, one
focusing primarily on identifying problems or perceived inadequacies of new teachers (e. g.,
Veenman, 1984, Kagan, 1992); the other looking at novices from a more constructivist
perspective (e.g., Britzman, 1991 ; Goodman, 1987; Grossman, 1992). I read widely in both of
these categories.

44
other teachers with whom they worked, and "Other Teachers" thus became a

general category).

The general categories that emerged from my analysis reflected these
three sources. I began by accepting Mead and Gee's premise that people have
multiple identities or selves which are intricately tied to relationships with

significant others within specific contexts. In Mead's (1934) terms:

We carry on a whole series of different relationships to different
people. We are one thing to one man and another thing to
another...We divide ourselves up in all sorts of different selves with
reference to our acquaintances...There are all kinds of selves answering
to all kinds of different social reactions. It is the social process itself that
is responsible for the appearance of the self...What we have here is a
situation in which there can be different selves, and it is dependent
upon the set of social reactions that is involved as to which self we are
going to be. (pp. 142-143)

Recognizing that interactions and relationships with different people
would highlight different aspects of the novice teachers' identity formation, I
used Goffman's (1961) concept of "role set" to generate a list of people ("role-
others") whom teachers would likely encounter in the enactment of their
teacher role. For Goffman (1961), an individual enacts a role through a series
of face-to-face interactions with relevant audiences, whom he refers to as
"role others." Together, all of the various "role others" for an individual in a
particular role form a "role set." In my study, for example, the set of roles
referred to by participants in their conversations included students, parents,
administrators, school and district-level staff members, university personnel,
and teachers' friends and family members. Goffman further explains that the
norms relating an individual performer of a role to his role others "...will
have a special and non-conflictual relation to one another" (p. 86). Put
another way, different relationships are created between an individual and

and his or her role others. The relationship (and the norms which influence

45
it) between a teacher and student will thus be different than the relationship

between the same teacher and that student's parent. Goffman labels these
different relationships "role sectors." Teacher-student is one role sector of the
teacher role. Teacher-parent, teacher-principal, teacher-fellow teacher are
among some of the other role sectors of the teacher role. Goffman would
contend that an examination of an individual's enactment of the teacher role
would necessarily include a consideration of multiple role sectors.

Much of the literature on teaching and learning to teach confirms the
presence of students, parents, other teachers, and administrators as significant
members of teachers' social worlds (i.e., Lortie, 1975; Feiman-Nemser and
Floden, 1986; and Nias, 1989, to name just a few). While this dissertation does
not examine all of these in detail, they form the novice teachers' "role set,"
from which I have selected three sets of relationships or "role sectors" for
special attention: the novices' interactions with students, students' parents,
and the other teachers within their schools. I focused on these three role
sectors because they were among the most compelling (and most frequent) in
the Sharing Circle narratives. While the novices certainly had contact with
other people within the teacher role-set (e.g., principals, district-level
personnel, school support staff), they did not often talk about their
interactions with these people in the Sharing Circle setting. The novices'
interactions with principals, for instance, were rarely discussed in the group.
When the topic of principals came up, it was usually brief and in passing, e.g.,
"My principal said he liked my bulletin boards" (Amy Roberts, Interview
Transcript, 6/ 93), and elicited little uptake from other members.

For the novices in this study, then, constructing a professional identity

involved revisiting the question "Who are we?" with three sets of significant

46
audiences, all of whom were connected to the novice and to one another in a

complex web of relationships, as illustrated in Figure 1 below.

47

 

/—( Other
Teachers

’Novice
Teacher

 

 

Eigmgl. Constructing a Teacher Identity Through Relationships With
Significant Others: Three Important Role Sectors (based on Goffman, 1961)

48

Once I identified these three important role sectors, I further analyzed,
coded and grouped the data into subcategories; asking myself questions such
as: How often did they refer to students, to other teachers, or to parents?
What did they say about their interactions or relationships with each of these
sets of people? In what context and for what purpose did the topic of
students/ other teachers / parents get brought to the conversational floor?
Were there similar themes or patterns in their talk about peOple within each
group? What things did they seem to agree upon? What things did they
disagree or argue about? Did their talk about members of the three categories
change over time? Questions such as these helped me to think about how
the novices' situational selves (Mead, 1934) shaped, and were shaped by their
interactions within the three sets of relationships.

After noting every instance where the novices talked about the three
groups of people, I then began to chunk the segments of talk that seemed to fit
together, experimenting with alternative ways to categorize the talk, and
looking for disconfirming as well as confirming evidence for each of the sub-
categories. I counted "segments" as sections of talk around one topic or issue.
In a given section of talk, for example, the novices might talk about one issue
or topic. This was counted as one segment (e.g., how to organize their reading
instruction so as to have sufficient time to meet with and talk to all students
about the novel they were reading). I eventually generated sets of sub-
categories with which to code the conversational data, for example, with the
"Other Teacher" data, I generated the set of sub-categories summarized in the

table below.

49

Table 2
Categories and Frequencies of Novices’ Talk About Colleagues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories of Novices' Talk About Nov Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr Jun:
Other Teachers (OT) '92 '92 '92 '93 '93 '93 '93 '93
OT talk about students in negative

ways 1 1 1 1 1 2 -- 1
OT described as mean, overly strict,

not acting in best interests of students. 5 1 -- 2 1 2 2 2
OT described as negative about

teaching as a career -- 1 -- 1 -- -- 2 1
OT questions/ challenges a novice’s

curriculum, pedagogy or decision 1 3 - - 1 1 - - 1 2
OT described as a positive model,

good teacher -- 1 -- -- -- -- 1 1
OT gives novice help, advice, support

in response to novice’s request 1 3 1 - - 1 1 - - 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The numbers in the table represent each instance in a segment of
conversation where novices referred to other teachers in one of those ways.
In other words, I did not count each novice's individual reference to the
other teachers as a segment, but instead counted the entire episode in which
they discussed other teachers as one segment, wanting to view the comments
holistically and in context. For example, in the segment of talk below, taken
from the January Sharing Circle meeting, before Lauren's comment about
eating lunch with other teachers who were negative, the novices were
comparing how much time they each had for lunch. Aim; Lauren's
comment about she and Duane sitting in the lunchroom, the topic of
conversation shifted to a focus on Duane, a fellow Learning Community
graduate. Within the segment of talk when they discussed other teachers'
negativity, I did not count Lauren as having labeled other teachers as negative

two or three times and Amy and Val as labeling them as such once each;

50
rather, I counted their comments together as one segment of the novices' talk

in which they labeled the other teachers as negative.

Lauren: I eat lunch with some teachers who are no negative! And its
like, God, how can you be a teacher?

Val: [Mmmhmm]
Amy: [I know!]

Lauren: I mean they’re s9 down on the kids, they’re so down on the
[schools]—

Val: [the system—]

Lauren: Everything! They’re s9 negative! It’s like, ”Why can’t you be a
little bit morenlike, hopeful?"

Val: Yeah, [that’s--]

Lauren: [And Duane] and I just sit there. And we’re just sitting
there looking at each other going ”Oh boy ...... ”

From that point, I next tried to find themes or patterns that wove
through and connected the various sub-categories. For example, I identified
the novices' need for acceptance along with their need for autonomy as one
tension within the narratives about other teachers. Several of the sub-
categories seemed to support the presence of this tension.

I describe the themes and patterns that emerged from my analysis of
the data in the three chapters that follow: Chapter Three focuses on the
novices' talk about students, Chapter Four on the novices' talk about other
teachers, and Chapter Five describes the novices' talk about parents.
Separately, they offer a closer look at three "squares" in the quilt the novices
are designing for their teacher identities. Taken together, they show the
complexity, pattern, texture, and artistry involved in composing a life as a

teacher. Before moving to these three chapters, however, I would first like to

51
describe the nature of the talk in the Sharing Circle in a general sense, to

provide a context for the narratives and analysis of those narratives that

follow.

I15 ”I llSl'ClC I'
In addition to considering what the novices talked about, I was also

interested in 11931 they talked together. I knew that conversational
involvement was essential to building community over time in the group,
and that a sense of community was critical to the identity-building process.
Since members had only a loosely structured agenda and modest facilitation
from me, they were called upon to create, in and through talk, a sense of
common purpose and an ongoing agenda. The very openness of the group's
agenda gave them the freedom (with its concomitant responsibility) to
negotiate the topics and direction of the evening’s conversation. Even at the
very first meeting, I was struck by the degree to which members were engaged
in the conversations. I noted many elements described by Tannen (1988; 1989)
as involvement strategies; overlapping speech, repetition of words and
phrases, the presence of personal narratives and constructed dialogue,
humor, and backchannel communication in the form of nods, murmurs of
assent, or other response-cries, etc. Tannen (1989) argues that these are the
linguistic ways participants create and sustain conversational involvement.
Similarly, I noted participants offering a large amount of narrative talk
and linking their narratives to one another's. In her studies of a pre-service
teacher book club, Florio-Ruane (in preparation) notes a high proportion of
narrative talk within meetings. She finds that personal narrative, including
individually told complete and partial ones as well as co-narrations and

parallel or coordinating ones comprise anywhere from one-fourth to three-

52
fourths of the conversational turns within the six two-hour book club

conversations she studied. Florio-Ruane and deTar (1995) describe these
cycles as "narrative rounds,” explaining that these rounds allow speakers to
exchange turns seamlessly, as they can introduce their comments as a way to
build on a previous speaker's comments. Like the young teacher candidates
in her book club study group, the novices in the Sharing Circle exchanged
turns "...by weaving one's vignette into the emergent fabric of Club
conversation such that leadership over the conversation's direction seemed
to move from one speaker to another" (p. 6). In this way, the conversations
were very much jointly-constructed and produced (Bakhtin, 1986).
Following Florio-Ruane and deTar (1995), I compared and contrasted
the Sharing Circle conversation with studies of conversation in other
informal women's groups. I noted some similarities between the novices'
talk and that described by Kalcik (1975) in her analysis of the Women's
Movement consciousness-raising "rap" groups. These similarities were
mostly connected to the politeness of the talk and the supportive nature of
the group setting. Like Kalcik, I noticed that group members were very
supportive of one another's comments, both "linguistically (comments
during and after another woman's story to show interest, and stories told by
others to show how similar their experiences were) and paralinguistically, in
the form of sympathetic noises, facial expressions, and gestures" (1975, p. 5).
Also like her, I noticed that the group members did not gossip about, or
directly criticize each other, even when members were absent from the group.
My subsequent data analysis will illustrate that unlike the women in
the "rap" groups, however, the Sharing Circle members rarely offered a
narrative in an attempt to "top" a previous narrator, nor were they as reticent

to disagree or challenge one another, as were the women studied by Kalcik.

53
In fact, the novice teachers "sparred" with each other's ideas frequently, but

still managed to maintain a supportive and polite tone. Their talk closely
resembled that described by Burbules (1993), as an inclusive-divergent

dialogue. This kind of dialogue, according to Burbules:

has two characteristics: a generally cooperative, tolerant spirit, and a
direction toward mutual understanding. It does not necessarily aim
toward agreement or the reconciliation of differences...Partners in the
dialogue proceed interactively, cooperatively, not toward a specific
common goal, but in a process of mutual engagement directed toward
shared understanding. (1993, pp. 112; 115)

Through this kind of dialogue, over many Sharing Circle meetings, the sense
of belonging to a community of Learning Community teachers began to build.
I turn now to a brief consideration of several other elements that contributed

to the building of our community.

I] till it: .

The group members lived far apart from one another and all but one
commuted long distances (between one and two hours each direction) to
attend the meetings. Additionally, members reported spending many hours
outside of school preparing for their teaching. For these reasons, I decided it
would be most practical to convene the group approximately once a month
over the school year.16 I was initially worried that having so much time
between meetings would make it difficult to foster a sense of community
among the group members. Without a sense of "community," there could be
no fruitful conversation (Schwab, 1976). However, it became apparent early
on that the participants themselves took on this task; they employed a

number of strategies that helped forge a sense of connection among members,

 

16The group met monthly December through June, but twice in November and not at all in May
to accomodate individual and school schedules.

54
a feeling of belonging, an "us-ness." I briefly describe below several of the

most powerful of these strategies.

First, in their conversations, the novices shared both narratives of all
sorts, both personal and professional. The sharing of important personal life
events—someone's wedding plans, an illness or death in the family, an
argument with a loved one, an impending move to a new house--elicted
sympathy, supportive laughter, friendly teasing, the giving of advice, and a
whole range of emotions that together helped build a feeling of connection
among the group members. This sense of connection made the Sharing
Circle a "safe" place, a place in which it was acceptable to share personal or
professional vicissitudes, successes, and satisfactions. While they did not
always agree on what to make of an experience shared in the group, as Val
observed in her interview, members of the Sharing Circle did not judge each
other nor call into question each other's professional competence or

commitment to teaching

You feel like you can come and spill your guts and not have anyone
second guess you or critique you or think you’re a bad teacher... it's like
the people here knmuit's not that other people don't mango
understand, its just that they can]; understand as well, furthermore
some of them don't really have an interest. It makes a difference, you
know, that the people here don't write you off like 'Oh yeah, that's a
teacher, that's 5th grade, oh that's easy'...Because it's nQLeasy...People
here know that...You don't have to stand up for yourself here. (Val
Brooks, Interview Transcript, 6 / 15/ 93)

Schwab (1976), would tell us that such an accepting climate is essential in a
community that fosters educative conversation, because members need to
feel that they can trust, depend on, give and receive help from others. In
addition, there must be opportunities to share ideas and intellectual

challenges for mutual growth to occur.

55
Another strategy that helped contribute to a sense of belonging and

attachment among group members was that participants sought, or created
opportunities to be physically close during the meetings. At the first meeting,
the novices sat in chairs and on the couch in my small living room until near
the end of the session when I brought out several items to distribute (e.g.,
journals, stamped envelopes, copies of books, etc.). They then moved onto
the floor and sat closely together around me. At each subsequent meeting,
someone brought some physical item to share, a move which caused the
group members to gather closely around that person to see the item. At one
meeting, for instance, Christine spontaneously taught the group a way of
folding paper to make special booklets for their students' reading responses.
At other times, Val shared photographs of her students, Claire and Nina
shared some of their students' published writing, and Amy and Karen
brought in curriculum project materials for the others in the group.

The novices' physical proximity and alignment fit with Deborah
Tannen's (1994) recent work on conversational involvement and gender.
She has noted that numerous studies across age, gender and culture show
that females tend to orient to other females by moving closely together, facing
and anchoring their gaze on one another and touching. These elements help
create emergent coherence in women's conversation.

A third strategy the novices used in their conversations which helped
create a sense of community was to frequently refer to instructors, courses, or
experiences from their teacher education program. Because they had been in
different cohort groups, one year apart, the first and second year teachers had
not had identical experiences while in the program. However, they still used
a kind of "shorthand" form of speech when referring to experiences from

their program, taking for granted that the others would know what they

56
meant by "doing a Learning Community cooperative learning thing," or

teaching a "Deborah Ball17 math lesson." Amy, for example, announced to
the group at the first meeting in November: "I find, everytime I read aloud--
not chapter books but picture booksuthat I'm talking like this (speaks with
accentuated expression), and I get this little Jenny18 accent!" The group
members laughed and chimed in unison: "Jenny! Yea Jenny!" before
moving on to the next topic. These references to instructors and experiences
from their teacher education program were brief and sporadic, but provided

moments of harmonious connection among group members.

0 .. E18 .1 E11

Having provided a brief overview of the novices' interactions within
the Sharing Circle setting, I now turn to a closer examination of the novices'
conversations about their interactions with each of the three significant
groups in their professional life: their students, colleagues, and students'
parents. Following that, I will discuss connections across the three chapters,
and the implications they have both for the novices' profesional identity
work and for teacher educators interested in improving the experience of

learning to teach.

 

17D. Ball is the name of the professor from whom they took a mathematics "methods" course in
their teacher education program.

18Amy refers here to one of their Learning Community literacy instructors who introduced them
to children's literature through the reading and close examination of picture books.

CHAPTER THREE

Who We Are With Our Students

1 love the way Herb Kohl talks about the open classroom.
I dream of a classroom just full of activity, conversation,
experiments, research, reading, writing and creating.
My writing workshop is a time like Kohl’s loose afternoons.
The children are relaxed, come to me openly to ask for help
and clarification, and work on their own projects. We need
some reminders, but for the most part we are all working,
helping each other and enjoying the classroom and discovering
new things.

(Claire Young, Journal Entry, 1/13/93)

Introduction

Novice teachers have entered elementary schools many times in their
lives, as students and as teacher candidates. After almost fifteen years and
more than 12,000 hours of classroom observation (Featherstone, 1988), the
world of school appears very familiar to them. And yet, walking into schools
in their new position as ”teacher,” full of anticipation, high hopes, great
anxiety, and with many contradictory images and beliefs about what it means
to carry out the role of ”teacher,” there is much about students and teaching
and learning that is new and suddenly unfamiliar. In making sense of this
new world of school, the novices’ images and beliefs serve as "filters"
(Weinstein, 1989), or ”frames” (Barnes, 1992), coloring and shaping their
emerging understandings and sense of themselves as teachers. In Clark’s

(1992) words,

What a teacher knows and believes about teaching, about learning,
about curriculum, and about herself and her students are quite
important to professional development. Our beliefs and personal
theories set boundaries or frames around what we see and how we
interpret experience....(p. 78)

57

58
A novice teacher’s images and beliefs-how she wants her classroom to

function, what and how her students will learn, and how ”good” teachers
conduct themselves with children—shape the way that she interprets her
experiences in schools. These experiences, in turn, lead her to revise and
recreate her images and beliefs and thus her emerging teacher identity. Claire
Young's image of a "Herb Kohl-like" classroom, described in the quote at the
beginning of this chapter, is an example of this dialectic process. Because
Claire's own actions and those of her students during the writing workshop
period so closely fit with her conception of what takes place in an ”ideal”
classroom, the experience contributed to her sense of herself as a successful
teacher, and further refined her image of how classrooms can (and should)
operate for teachers and children.

Much has been written about novices' entering theories about teaching
and learning, and the way in which these theories were formed through their
"apprenticeship-of-observation" as students (Lortie, 1975; Cole, 1990). Much
has been written as well about the influence (or, in some cases, the lack of
influence) that teacher education programs have on novices' beliefs or
theories of teaching (Zeichner, Tabachnick, & Densmore, 1987; Weinstein,
1990; Feiman-Nemser, 1983; Goodman, 1985). Relatively little has been
written, however, about the relationships between teachers' pre-teaching
experiences (both as students and as teacher candidates) and their "substantial
selves" (Nias, 1989) during their first years in the classroom.

As discussed previously in Chapter One, each of us has, in addition to
our multiple, ever-changing situational selves, a relatively stable substantial
self that consists of a core of deeply embedded attitudes, beliefs, and values
that constitute our conception of the kind of human being we are. What a

novice teacher takes, and makes, of her pre-teaching experiences depends

59
largely on her substantial self, for it serves as the screen through which all

experiences are filtered. Lortie (1975), and N ias (1989), contend that many
people, especially women, are motivated to choose teaching as a career
because they enjoy and care about children. Teaching offers them a way to
confirm highly valued aspects of their substantial selves, e.g., it allows them
to see reflected in students' eyes the fact that they are warm, empathetic,
caring people. The novice may thus embrace aspects of her teacher
preparation experiences that involve caring for students, for instance, and
reject other aspects of the program that do not "fit" with her conception of
who she wants to be with students. Since a teacher's substantial self, like her
situational selves, is socially constructed through interactions with significant
others, it is useful to examine closely these interactions.

Among the Sharing Circle participants' interactions with significant
others, their daily exchanges and relationships with students appeared to be
central to their identity formation. Most of their personal narratives
connected in some way to their experiences with students. Other studies of
teachers' professional growth (e. g., those conducted by Lortie, 1975; and Nias,
1989), reported similar findings about the role that students play in teachers'
identity formation, regardless of the teachers' gender or length of service.

Nias (1989) notes:

In particular, pupils can validate their teachers' professional
competence or make them feel technically inadequate. Indeed, so great
is children's capacity to affirm or destroy a teacher's self-image and self-
esteem that they emerge time and time again from the interviews as
the critical 'reality definers' (Riseborough, 1985) for all members of the
profession, not just for the probationers...All in all, their capacity to
shape, confirm and destroy individuals' future careers, by moulding
[Br. sp.] the latter's view of their own characteristics, capabilities and
aspirations, has probably so far been underestimated. (pp. 55-56)

60
Because student / teacher interactions serve an important function in

teachers' identity formation, and because such interactions formed the basis
of many of the narratives told in the Sharing Circle, I examined the novices'
talk of their experiences with students. In this chapter, I will describe this talk
and discuss how the Sharing Circle teachers attempted to articulate and
reconcile their images of themselves and their roles as "a teacher" in relation
to their students. We will see how, in their personal narratives during the
Sharing Circle conversations, they sought to resolve three interrelated
questions: (1) ”Who do I want to be with my students?” (2) ”Who do I think
Ican be with my students?” and (3) "Who am I becoming with my students?"
It is important to examine these narratives of their "ideal" teacher
selves, rather than simply dismiss them as representative of novices'
"unrealistic idealism" for two reasons. First, if we truly believe that learning
to teach is an ongoing process of becoming, then understanding who the
novices hope to be may give us a glimpse of the kinds of teachers they may
one day in fact become, and what support they might need during this
developmental process. Second, these ideal images of self-as-teacher may
propel novices forward, sustain them through difficult times, foster their
growth as professionals. Novelist Robert Stone (1988), maintains in this

regard that:

Though we are only what we are, we have the amazing ability to
extend, to transcend...The fact is that we absolutely require the elevated
image of ourselves which we indulge. If we did not idealize ourselves,
if we only accepted the reality of ourselves as we are most of the time,
we would never be capable of the extensions of ourselves that are
required of us. (p. 74)

As the analyses in this chapter show, in paying attention to these

idealized images of self, the novices worked very hard to define themselves

61
in certain ways and to project particular images of themselves as teachers in

their talk with their Sharing Circle peers. As Stubbs (1982), reminds us,

...language is an activity motivated by users’ needs to make things
known in particular ways for particular purposes and to establish and
maintain common understandings with other conversants; the form
of a particular text is always determined as much by the conversants’
need to function in these situations as it is by whatever they wish to
describe. (p. 10)

It is critical, then, to examine not only what the novices said about their
experiences with children, but also how and why they shared their narratives
in the particular ways that they did. I will consider these issues in my
discussion of the novices' conversation about their interactions with
students, and the role that such conversation plays in their ongoing identity

work.

IhoMultiploRoleoothfllassroomleamg

Goffman (1961) reminds us that when entering any position, "...the
incumbent finds that he must take on the whole array of action encompassed
by the corresponding role..."(p. 87). This is certainly true of teaching, and the
novices discovered that there was much to do and to think about as they
began enacting their images of teaching. For example, they needed to:
establish and maintain classroom environments supportive of students'
learning, develop relationships with and among students, and attend to the
diverse intellectual, social, and emotional needs of twenty (or more) children.
In carrying out these tasks, the teacher's role (which from a student
perspective appeared so straightforward, and so one-dimensional), is revealed
as highly complex and multi-faceted. My analysis of the Sharing Circle

participants' conversations about their interactions with students showed

62
that they were well-aware of, and struggled hard to manage, the myriad,

complex and often conflicting demands of the teacher role.

As I analyzed the transcripts of their conversations, I noted that the
novices' talk highlighted different dimensions of the teacher role. Four
dimensions that seemed salient in the narratives they told about themselves
in interaction specifically with their students were: (1) the need to be an
authority (both in terms of subject matter and classroom management); (2)
the desire to be perceived as a humane person (someone "friend-like," and a
co-learner); (3) the desire to be a nurturing caregiver (someone warm and
giving and understanding of individual differences) and (4) the need to be a
realist (by preparing students for the "real world" and recognizing that they
cannot simultaneously meet all students' needs. These four dimensions are
represented by circles in Figure 2 below. The relationships between the
dimensions are depicted by arrows: arrows with solid lines indicate
dimensions that are congruent with one another, arrows with broken lines
indicate dimensions that are seemingly contradictory to one another. A more
detailed description of the dimensions, and an explanation of how they were
derived from the data is provided in the section following Figure 2.

Although I separate these in order to describe them, in reality, they are closely
connected and are all woven into the fabric of the teacher role, entwining in
multiple ways, sometimes showing up as foreground, sometimes as
background. I include several examples of how these dimensions overlapped

in the novices' talk of their experiences with students later in this chapter.

63
Myself As Teacher

   
    

 
  

     
     
       
       
   
   

An _ _ __ A
Authority Humane
Person

     
     
 

  

Want to be
manageo/ ‘ be 0 approach- A Want to be
' able a
tr 1 ect ,
c2215: sgunner a friend CO-learner

 
   
   
     
   
     
     

expert

Want to be
understand warm,
individuals' caring, 8:
needs, meet
interests, needs of
background Aall learners

  
  

Need to
prepare impossibility
students of meeting all
for the real V students'
world needs at all
A times

Realist <— — — —

  
    
     
     
 

 

 

 
 

  

Nurturing
‘> Care-Giver

Em Four Dimensions of the Teacher Role with Students

IhoIeadieLAiArLAuthorinz

In managing the social and intellectual life of her classroom and its
inhabitants, a teacher needs to show herself as "in authority" and "an
authority" (Florio-Ruane, 1989). One definition of authority, according to
Webster's Dictionary (1990), refers to the power or right to command. A
teacher is in authority in virtue of her role; as the leader of the class, she is

responsible for organizing and managing the actions and experiences of all

64
class members. But classroom teachers are not only in authority, they are also

expected to be an authority as well. A second piece of the authority
dimension of a teacher's role, then, involves showing oneself as an "expert,"
someone knowledgeable about subject matter and about how to help students
transform that subject matter. This aspect of the teacher's role closely
connects to how she uses her power as an authority, for as Buchmann (1984),
notes: "Deficiencies in the depth and assurance of teachers' content
knowledge can act as conceptual and behavioral traps" (p. 45) that lead
teachers to focus less on student learning and more on procedures,
management and outward forms of behavior.

The authority dimension of the teacher role is often assumed to be
problematic for beginning teachers. Indeed, novices are typically portrayed as
being "obsessed" with managing or controlling students' classroom behavior
(Ryan, 1974; Veenman, 1984). There are some educationists who contend that
such a focus is appropriate for beginning teachers (i.e., Kagan, 1992; Berliner,
1988). Many others, though, challenge this portrayal of beginners and the
appropriateness of authority as the central concern for new teachers (i.e.,
Grossman, 1992; Goodman, 1987), since if taken to extremes, a search for social
(or curricular) authority mitigates against learning through dialogue or joint
exploration/ construction of knowledge. In the View of these educationists,
beginners can, and often do, exhibit classroom concerns that go beyond issues
of being in authority. This does not mean that they abdicate their role as
classroom leader, but rather that they subsume issues relating to management
and control under larger concerns relating to student learning. That novice
teachers can successfully accomplish this has critical implications for teacher-

student interactions. Florio-Ruane (1989), explains:

65

Learners who are subordinates cannot participate in many of the
activities and forms of discourse that would lead to genuine education.
Thus beginning teachers need to learn to temper their tremendous
authority not only because they like children and want to be liked in
return, but because they want to teach well. (p. 7)

The six beginners in this study were unanimous in their desire not to
be seen by students as an "authority figure," preferring instead to be seen as
"kind of like a friend." Although they were aware of the need to establish
themselves as classroom leaders, they sometimes spoke as if they were in awe
of, and even a little surprised by, their new-found power over children. In
our first meeting, for instance, Lauren and Val reflected on this new aspect of

their role:

Lauren: And you catch them doing something and they're like, so
shocked, because they new thought you would catch them doing that.

Val: Isn't it wild? It's almost like you'renyou feel like you're a parent.
Like remember when you were younger and you thought your mom
had eyes in the back of her head? I think most kids think, "She saw
me." And I'm like, "You be]; I did!"

Lauren: Like this kid, Mason, he had like a piece of paper and he was
going like this (holds arm up in throwing position) and I said, "Mason,
put it down." He's like, "Oh my God, how did she do that?" I caught

him right before he was ready to fling it. (Sharing Circle Transcript,
11/2/92)

Most of the time, however, when they spoke of having to wield their
power over students, it was with some sense of discomfort and discontent.
Second year participant Christine, for example, spoke poignantly about her
difficult first year when she felt she focused primarily on managing her class.
Like the Five Towns teachers described by Lortie (1975), neither she nor the

other novices found satisfaction in merely "managing" children's behavior.

Christine: Last year I had so many behavior problems--it's like that's
all I did. I didn't feel like I tanghLanything. All I did was put out fires
and try to get the kids to sit in their seats, you know? It was awful, so
frustrating! I had a kid who would jump up and say, "I'm going to hit

66

somebody, I'm going out of control," scream, and run out of the room.
It was so hard. (Sharing Circle Transcript, 11 / 2 / 92)

As we will see at several points in this chapter, the novices tried, through the
narrating and co-narrating of their experiences with children, to find ways to
exert their authority in a manner that did not compromise their students' or

their own view of themselves as caring and friendly people.

IheleacheLAoAflumanoEerson

At the same time that they were attending to the Teacher-as-Authority
dimension of their role, the novices in this study also wanted students to see
them as "humane" people. By this, they meant several different things. First,
in contrast to being in authority, they wanted to be seen as approachable and
understanding, as human beings who understood students' feelings,
perspectives, knew the music they liked or cartoons they watched, and even
sometimes used their language. In their interactions with students, the
novices did not want to be seen as a dictator (a phrase they used
interchangably with authority figure), but rather wanted to be "on their
level," to talk casually, laugh and even joke with them. They often reported
being pleased by students' responses to their use of "cool" words like
"awesome" or "sweet" during classroom discussions. Lauren, for example,

talked proudly about her interactions with students during a writing project:

We were doing essays on movie personalities and um, we were
brainstorming ideas for people who they may want to write about,
”Cindy Crawford,” and people like that. And one of the kids, he’s like
the class clown, he goes, ”Pat” And I said, "Well, but we don’t know if
Pat is a man or a woman.” You know, Pat, the person on Saturday
Night Live? And they were just going, ”You know who Pat is?”
(Group members laughed.) And they were just so-they couldn’t
belieye that I knew, and that I caught on right away that we don’t know
if Pat is a man or a womanuand they were just dying! They were

67

goingz”M.Lss_Moftett_knowmhoEat_isl” (Sharing Circle Transcript,
1/ 23/ 93)

For the novices, being a Humane Person, someone on the students'
level (i.e., like a friend), and with whom students could relate also involved
bringing people (or stories of people) in their "outside" lives into the
classroom. Just as the novices claimed they wanted to get to know their
learners, so too did they want their students to know a bit about them as
people. Toward this end, each of the novices had brought guests to class, or
had at least told students stories about people in their lives. Christine, for
example, had her husband read her students' papers and write messages back
to them, while Lauren brought her fiancee in to talk to her students during
career week. The others also had family members and friends (Amy even
brought her dogs) into their classrooms to meet and interact with their
students.

The desire to be seen as an equal, or "kind of like a friend," to students
was always tempered, however, by their need to exert authority over them.
Sometimes they struggled to balance these two competing dimensions of

their role, as illustrated by Amy's comment below:

I think, I know I’m more friends with my kids. Sometimes they’ll do
things that aren’t really appropriate to a teacher. Sometimes I wonder
if that’s something wrong I’m doing. You know, maybe it’s okay this
year, because I really got across that I was the teacher most of the time,
but next year, I’ve got to back off a little on doing the buddy-buddy type
thing. The other day, I was playing tag with them outside, we were the
only class outside, but still—you know-I’m sure almost that not
another teacher in the school would play tag with their kids outside.
But I, you know, I wasn’t running around hog wild. I was just kinda
playing walk tag, you know. (Amy Roberts, Interview Transcript, 6 / 93)

A second aspect of being a "Humane Person" in their teacher role
called for them to show students that they were learners as well as teachers.

In contrast to being an authority, or subject matter expert, the humane teacher

68
is willing to represent herself to students as someone who doesn't know all

there is to know, or have all the answers about content material. The novices
were strong advocates of the teacher-as-learner perspective, perhaps because it
had been a central theme in their teacher education program, perhaps because
they felt it might make them seem to students more approachable and
empathetic, or even perhaps because it helped them feel less worried about

the gaps in their subject matter expertise.

IIIIEEII'C'"

Nias (1989), has observed that "...we generally prefer to work in
environments in which our substantial selves are confirmed, both by the
ways in which work requires us to speak and act, and by those with whom we
interact" (p. 43). She notes that this is especially true for people who are
idealistic. As I mentioned earlier, many people are attracted to teaching as a
career because it (potentially) allows them to have confirmed the sense of
themselves as empathetic, caring people who are dedicated to helping
children, and thus "changing the world" (Lauren Moffet, Interview
Transcript, 6/ 93) through what they do in their classrooms. This particular
aspect of the teacher's role (as the novices defined it) was so important to
them that they were even willing to disregard advice or admonitions from
more experienced colleagues about how to interact with children. Nina's

comment below exemplifies this sentiment well:

Nina: I value encouraging kids, being very open and loving with
them. In fact, one second grader this year wanted to come back to see
me but he was too shy to come alone, so his mom brought him down.
He said ”Do you know what I’ll always remember about you, Miss
Scott?” I’m thinking, Oh no! (Nina laughs) "What's he going to say?"
He goes, ’You gave me a hug almost every day.’ Other teachers tell me
I’m too warm. But I think it’s good to show people-you know, kids say
’Oh I love you.’ They write down ”I love you Ms. Scott”--and people

69

have told me, you know, you gotta be careful nowadays, and don't say
it back," but-if you were a six-year old and you said ”I love you,” how
would mfeel if they said, ’oh how nice’ or don’t really respond back?
So I tell kids I love them too. And people say, you know, "Oh when
you hug kids, pull them to the side so they’re not--so their head isn’t in
your front," and I felt, I guess, I don’t really think about that and I just
hope I never get in trouble. (Interview Transcript, 6/ 93)

It is interesting to note here that when the teachers thought of
themselves as Nurturing Caregivers, they were usually thinking of the
relationships they had established, or ones they hoped to establish in the
future, with individual children. By looking through the Learning
Community archive materials (e.g., program entry surveys, papers they wrote
for classes, etc.), I was able to see that the novices' desire to help and care for
individual students was long-standing. As juniors in the program, they
believed they would be good teachers in part because they cared about
children and were committed to helping every individual succeed. As
beginning teachers, this belief about the importance of enabling individuals
to be successful learners was still in evidence. In a paper completed for one of
her literacy methods courses while still a pre-service teacher, Claire noted that
the highlight of the ten-week field component of the course had been her
experience helping one student with his writing. She believed that she had
helped the first grade student discover his ability to write about his

experiences:

This was a very special experience for me because I like to think that no
matter where Earl is right now that maybe in some small way I helped
him realize the power of his own ideas and writing. (Claire Young, TE
312D Reflection Paper, 6/ 8/ 90)

Several years later, writing as a second-year novice teacher, Claire was still

committed to helping individual learners succeed:

Success isn't 100% on a worksheet (or doesn't by any means start that
way). Success is having a student realize that you are human too and

70

respect you and be eager to share their special qualities with you-—to be
comfortable talking about learning and coming to a point where you
can use the children's curiosity to teach them important lessons for
life. (Claire Young, Journal Entry, 1/ 13 / 93)

IhoIeocheLAoABealist

Just as the novices' desire to be seen as a Humane Person was tempered
by their need to exercise authority for the running of their classrooms, so too
was their desire to be Nurturing Caregivers tempered by another dimension
of the teacher role. Whereas the Nurturing Caregiver aspect of their teaching
selves attempted to meet the needs of all learners, another dimension of the
role required them to be Realists, to recognize that they were unlikely to be
able to meet the needs of all their students at all times. Moreover, they
reluctantly acknowledged that within their classroom communities (just as in
other communities) it was sometimes necessary to sacrifice an individual's
needs for the good of the whole group.

In this dimension of their role as teacher, the novices also felt pressure
to prepare students for the "real world." In other words, while they may not
have liked or even believed in certain practices (i.e., giving tests or grades),
they sometimes felt they needed to do so in order to prepare students for the
teachers and experiences they would encounter later in their schooling career.
While group members agreed with one another on the need to prepare
students for future life experiences, they nevertheless were uncomfortable
with the implications this had for their own teaching. At our final meeting
of the year, for instance, they discussed the dilemma of whether they should

have to give students grades for skills like handwriting and spelling.

Amy: I hate having to give a grade for handwriting. I think that's
terrible.

71
Val: Me too!

Nina: I think, if they know how to make all their letters, they can get
an A. It might be sloppy but if they can make all their letters, they get
an A.

Claire: Really, in today's technology, handwriting's gonna be--

Val: [Gone]

Claire: [Obsolete]

Amy: Pretty soon, because everything's gonna be going on computer.

Claire: And a lot of the grammar and spelling and stuff like that, it's
still very important. I mean, for entering things in computers and
stuff. But for a lot of the kids, I mean, I think the best thing is, if they're
not a good speller, get them using that word processor as soon as
possible.

Lauren: Well, I did have a couple of people in my classes that, you
know, they, their punctuation is fine. It's just spelling, and I've told
them to get those little hand things. You push on the keys and it'll tell
you the right spelling. And some of the teachers are like, "Well, that's
cheating, isn't it?" You know, "Why are you having them do that?
They have to learn to spell sometime."

Val: I have one of those in my desk.

Amy: It's teaching them to find a resource, the way I look at it. But
then, there's still the grades. (Sharing Circle Transcripts, 6/ 6/ 93)

In wrestling with questions of if, when, and why the teaching or
grading of certain skills was necessary, it was clear that the novices saw their
own actions as having far-reaching consequences for their students.
Possessing this awareness further complicated the ways in which they defined
and enacted their teacher role with students, "upping the ante" for the
curricular and pedagogical decisions they made about teaching the students in
their classrooms. In other words, the novices believed that there was a great

deal at stake with each decision they made about what and how to teach and

72
to evaluate students. They could not only think about what students

currently needed to know, they had to also consider what students would
need to know or be able to do in the future.

51"IIED"

Every teacher must find a way to accommodate these differing
dimensions of the teacher role with students. The Sharing Circle participants
seemed aware of this need, and responded by operating from a kind of
"script" for themselves. If I were to try to capture their collective awareness, it

would sound like this:

As a teacher, I am unfailingly kind, nurturing, and empathetic. I am a
'real person' to my students, sort of like a friend who can joke and
laugh with them; someone who understands what it’s like to think,
feel, and be a student. I can—and do-learn a lot from students, and I
want my students to see me as a co-leamer. On the other hand, I have
to be an authority figure; I need students to look up to me, respond to
and respect me as someone who has control of the classroom and all
class members. I want to appear confident, and competent, know all
the answers-dike I know what I’m teaching.

In the sections that follow, I will present selected vignettes which
illustrate how these four dimensions of the teacher role with students
interacted and then "played out" in the novices' conversations during the
Sharing Circle meetings. Working from Figure 2, I will discuss sets of the
dimensions, beginning from Teacher as Authority and moving clockwise
around the four circles. I will thus begin by first examining the tensions
between two contrasting dimensions of their teacher role, the Teacher as
Authority and as Humane Person. Second, I examine the close links and
overlapping elements between two similar dimensions of the role (Teacher as
Humane Person and as Nurturing Caregiver). Third, I once more look at

tensions between two contrasting dimensions of their role (this time between

73
Teacher as Nurturing Caregiver and as Realist). Finally, I discuss the

similarities and connections between Teacher as Realist and as Authority. In
my presentation of the novices' conversations, I will highlight the ways in
which they sought to balance (or at least attend to) the multiple demands of

their role as they worked to construct their teacher identities.

3.. -_.r a; u. 1.... saw. ' I 31° I 4.10 '1 AI.‘ ' can“;

Because the extant literature on beginning teachers so often portrays
them as being preoccupied with issues of management and control, I expected
this concern to be reflected in Sharing Circle participants’ personal narratives.
In fact, though, there were relatively few instances when the novices narrated
or co-narrated vignettes that centered primarily on issues of management or
classroom control (usually not more than once per meeting). Even when
these issues did surface, the group members had norms about how such
issues were treated in their talk, as will be seen in my presentation of the two
vignettes below.

The first vignette is taken from our second Sharing Circle meeting,
held at the end of November. The three first-year teachers, Val, Amy, and
Lauren, and one second-year teacher, Claire, were present when the issue of
teacher authority was raised early in the meeting. Val and Amy did most of
the talking during this segment of the conversation. Val reported to the
group that she found herself "struggling" at times to keep her fifth graders on
task, thus initiating the topic of classroom management. She described a
reward system that another teacher she knew utilized. In presenting the
scheme to the group for their reaction, Val sounded uncharacteristically

hesitant and tentative; she paused often and repeated words, almost as if she

74
anticipated a negative reaction from the group. In recounting her friend's

management system, Val seemed to be trying to convince herself, as well as

her peers, that it was an acceptable thing for a teacher to do.

Val: I was just learning about something, again, from this friend of
mine last night, and I'd, I'd sort of like to start something similar to
this I think. She calls them "coop points," short for cooperative points,
and um, she said, what she does is brainstorm at the beginning of the
year all these things the kids would like as, as rewards, she has, um, 4th
grade. 80 she was saying, um, sort of like "if you do this, then I will
give you this," kind of thing.

Amy voiced her reaction to this plan in a forthright, challenging
manner, stating loudly and emphatically that such a system constituted
"Bribery!" That she was willing to risk what Goffman (1961) would label a
"face-threatening act" in response to Val's suggestion was perhaps indicative
of the degree to which she opposed the idea of that kind of reward system. It
was perhaps also indicative of the degree to which participants saw the group
as a "safe" arena for debating pedagogical decisions relating to their own
practices. It may have been easier for Amy to be so critical of the reward
system Val described because it was not actually Val's idea, but belonged
instead to an anonymous "friend," someone no one but Val knew, someone
from outside the group. Amy may also have taken Val's tentativeness and
uncharacteristic uncertainty to mean that Val was not yet enamored of, or
committed to, implementing the plan. Amy was then free to be more critical
of the plan than if Val had presented it as something she was eager to try.

When Val concurred with Amy and admitted that the plan was "in
essence" a form of bribery, she acted in such a way as to allow the restoration
of face in order to maintain the conversation. By acknowledging the
correctness of Amy's assessment (thus defusing Amy's challenge), she not

only preserved her own self image—what Goffman (1967), might call her

75
”positive face”-but also acknowledged the legitimacy of that challenge, thus

saving Amy's face too. Val then tried to defuse the challenge even further.
She explained the way the management plan worked, this time framing it as
something her friend used "every once in a while." She also took care to
present this system as something that was not unilaterally designed by the
teacher but actually negotiated between the teacher and her students, an
element that might make the system seem less teacher-controlled or

authoritarian to the other group members.

Val: Yeah, in essence. And um, so the kids came up with a list, and
then she took it home and came back the next day and said, "Well, ok, I
don't think that having recess for an hour is reasonable, because"-and
explained it, but I do agree with a pop, an ice cream, extra computer
time, extra reading time-all these different things that she drew up,
and every enee in awhile, when the kids are in cooperative groups,
she'll say, like, um, "Okay, you're doing a good job, Joe, put ten more
points on your card for cooperative, for coop points," and um, so the
kids all have to keep track of it, and she can take them away as well, so
if a group isn't working real well, she can go, "Okay this whole group
gets ten taken off," then what she'll do is she'll list it-she listed how
much each reward was worth, and she said like the rewards I have to
buy are worth 500 points. (Val laughs) But it was just sort of neatulike
some kind of reward system, cause in my class, to be honest, I really
haven't come up with a whole lot like that.

When the group members nodded and provided backchannel
communication indicating that they had not "come up with a lot like that"
either, Val was compelled to clarify that she had, though, done things for her
students (i.e., given them treats), not in a structured way, nor in exchange for
"good behavior," but just to be "humane," and show students that she cared

for them.

Val: Sometimes--like the other week-~I just did a Learning
Community thing, I took in doughnut holes and milk and juice, just
for a treat in the morning, cause I remember (looks at Deb) when you
guys did that for us, and we were like "Wow!" And you know, for the
MEAP test I took in food-~fruit and stuff, but as far as earning star
points or something like that, I haven't done anything.

76

Claire: And kids do like that. Sometimes we—you have to sit and talk
with them tee though, about why you’re working in cooperative
groups too. But sometimes—kids just like stickers—you forget that it
means a lot to them.

There was some discussion as Claire offered the middle—ground
position that it was important to explain to students the purpose and value of
an activity, to talk and relate to them as human beings ("friend-to-friend-
like"), but it was also important to recognize that youngsters occasionally
enjoy getting stickers or other rewards. Val nodded while Claire spoke, then
went on to say that she was also concerned about some of her students who
"never" turned in their homework. Val wondered if she could use the same
incentive system to both encourage students to turn in homework and to
improve their classroom behavior. She tried once more to elicit support
from the group for her idea by asking if they had a similar problem.

Although the other members claimed they had no difficulty getting
students to return homework assignments, they were very willing to spend
time helping Val consider solutions to her problem. Amy, for instance,
suggested to Val that she give her students homework "passes" after they
turned in a certain number of assignments. After much discussion, Val still
seemed to favor her original plan to give students "points" toward a reward
for turning in their work. At this juncture, Amy tried more directly to
persuade Val to find an alternative to an external reward system, posing and

then answering the question, "Se, what elee could you do?"

Amy: I don’t know. I suppose the only other thing would be to make
such a big deal about it, like, take someone whose notes are real good,
and just show it off for three minutes, say, ”Oh look at so and 30’s,” you
know, and hopefully, jar somebody.

77

Val: Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, I guess I’ve really got to sit down and
plan the whole thing out.

Although agreeing that Amy's idea was a good one, Val did not sound totally
convinced of its efficacy. Val diplomatically commented that she needed to
think through her reward plan more carefully. Echoing this diplomacy, Amy
allowed that planning things out was important, and added that she too
needed to be focused and more purposeful about what she did in her

classroom.

Amy: You know, there's so many little things like-that I find I skip,
that I shenld do, that I don't think of till it's too late. You know? I
don't, I don't hold up somebody's writing enough, and I'm not doing
Author's Chair for them to get feedback as much as I should, you
know?...I have to do that a little more. I was real good at the beginning
of the year, now, it's, it’s starting to taper off.

The focus of the conversation shifted soon after Amy's comment to a
consideration of how the group members organized and used "Author's
Chair" as an occasion for students to share and discuss their writing. There
was no more discussion of managing or rewarding student behavior until
more than two hours later. Val and Lauren had left, and Amy mentioned
that in response to students' requests, she had let them watch a videotape of a

currently popular children's movie in class. She told Claire and me:

Amy: I have a very hard time saying no to my kids 'cause they're so
good. I was thinking, like I haven't done anything like what Val was
saying with incentives and rewards, nothing like that...I just thought,
you know, I have done so little as far as rewards and certificates and
things, so I thought, okay, I'll let them watch the movie on Friday.
Then maybe I can use it to do something with different perspectives
and fairytales, 'cause I have Jan Brett's book of

that's not quite the same as the movie...and all the Cinderella stuff

from Eliot19 (Sharing Circle Transcript, 11/ 22 / 92)

 

19Here Amy refers to materials she developed on fairytales while in one of her literacy courses
in the teacher education program.

78
In this first segment of the novices' conversation, we can hear them

working hard to resolve the question of if (and when) doing "nice" things for
students is simply part of what is done by a Humane Person, or if (and when)
it is a way of using one's authority to control students' actions. In the excerpt
taken from later the same evening, it is interesting to note traces of the earlier
talk resurfacing. This is but one example of how topics and ideas in their
conversations "echo forward," potentially to shape and inform the on-going
dialogue about their past and current teaching practices.

The issue of managing student behavior emerged again in other
meetings, but came up most strikingly between the same two participants
(Amy and Val) several months later. In the January Sharing Circle meeting,
Val shared with the group that she'd had a difficult week with her class and
was particularly frustrated by some students' behavior. She asked if Lauren's
middle school students chronically misbehaved too, a question to which

Lauren responded:

Lauren: I have a few kids who are sarcastic, but for the most part, they
know what to do and they're fine-

Val: Lauren, I’m elimhinthLuellesomedays. I mean, I’ve been more
than a few times close to just screaming ”Anahhh!”

When Val turned to Amy and asked the same question, Amy reiterated and
extended Lauren’s comment about students, noting that hers also knew when
it was okay to "goof around" and when they needed to "pull back." She then

described a recent incident with a student as evidence.

Amy: Like this one kid, I was really mad—well not really mad, but
upsetuand this just always goes to show, you should always ask the
kids what they are thinking. You know how we learned about not
jumping to conclusions? Well, we had a one-room schoolhouse day--
when we studied Michigan historynand we have a one-room
schoolhouse day where we all dressed up, and we wore old dresses, and

79

we played the game "Thread the Needle"20 and all those kinds of
things.

Val: Oh my lord, that sounds cool!

Amy: Well, the week before that, we went on a field trip to a one-room
schoolhouse and they told the kids all about it and the guide there kind
of got off on the punishment part. Not in a mean way, but she had
kids stand with their noses against the chalkboard, and stand in the
corner with a dunce cap and she hit a ruler on their arms and things
like that. They all thought that was really funny, you know, that} the
part they liked the_hes_t_about the whole field trip—the punishment.
And um, so then about four days later, here we are, doing our one-
room schoolhouse day in our classroom, and we drank from
homemade paper cups with a dipper, and that kind of thing. Well the
night before, the kids are going home, "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye"—
and then one of the boys said ”Goodbye witeh.” "Whoa!" I said ”What
was that for?” and he said, ”Well, you’re going to be a witch tomorrow,
aren’t you?” You know, thinking back to the punishment-and here—I—
you know, I came swclose to just jumping on him, and here he was
making a joke. I’m really glad I asked him, because I couldn’t believe
that he called me a witch-Wee.

While Amy was relieved to discover that her student was making a
joke when he called her a "witch," she was still taken aback by what felt like a
challenge to her authority. Needing to decide how to respond to him, she
chose to balance her need to assert her authority over the student with her
desire to respond to him as a Humane Person, by talking to him in a friendly,
almost joking tone. This choice not only lessened the value of his
confrontational act, it allowed her to retain her friendliness and
approachableness while also keeping her authority intact. Amy's tale led Val
to point out that they (the novices) were simultaneously privileged and

disadvantaged by the fact that they were closer to students in age than other

 

20Amy explained later that her source for the game was Jesse Stuart’s (1949) Ihejhreadjhat
Mme, one of the books they had read in their social foundations class in the Learning
Community Program. The book is an autobiographical account of Stuart's experiences teaching
in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Kentucky.

80
teachers. Their respective ages, she felt, influenced the kinds of interactions

they tended to have with students:

Val: Like I find myself—like I really joke around with my students
sometimes, and I think-J don't know, but I thinkusome of the older
teachers don't joke with them so much. Do you ever feel that? Like
maybe they push the limits more with us?

In this conversation, we can see the novices working to reconcile, or at
least accommodate, two conflicting dimensions of the teacher role (being in
authority and being humane). Val's final comment above helps us to
understand that the process of attending to these two dimensions of the

teacher role involves constant evaluation and renegotiation of one's stance.

--. r' -. n 1‘. . nu On --- Uel‘ o -, .r‘ 1. o .‘1!!' 7

In their interactions with children, the novices wanted to appear
confident and competent about what they were teaching, but at the same
time, they also wanted to present themselves to students as people still open
to and interested in learning. The two vignettes below illustrate how the
novices talked about this inherent tension, and how their talk about being An
Authority versus being a Co-Learner changed over the school year.

During our second meeting in late November, one topic of the
conversation was how the members were doing their mathematics
instruction. Three of the novices, Amy, Claire, and Val mentioned that they
were concerned about the mathematics texts used at their schools, by the lack
of manipulatives that were available at the school, and mostly, by the kind of
instuction they felt they were providing for the students.21 They felt they
were not adequately challenging some students, perhaps confusing others by
the way they presented and explained concepts such as regrouping and

 

21Because of the departmentalization at the middle school, Lauren did not teach mathematics,
and Nina and Christine did not share this as a particular instructional concern.

81
compensation, and overall, not making mathematics interesting enough for

students.

Amy, who had so far experimented with several ways to make her
instruction meaningful (e.g., math "journals" and centers) recounted her
most recent attempt: a project in which she had students apply their
knowledge of basic operations through the writing and illustrating of
"stories" that included two-digit addition or multiplication problems. Just as
things were going well and the students were "into" the lesson, she realized

she had explained and modeled a problem for them incorrectly.

Amy: I told them I don’t want a has; story problem, it has to be a fiery,
with a problem in the story.

Val: Ohhh.

Amy: And oh, they got an inte it, because all the boys all of a sudden
thought of ”stole”-stole is a good action word, you know, ”So and so
was walking through the mall,” and all the details about how they stole
so many—baseball cards—and then they went back the next day and stole
so many more baseball cards and how many baseball cards they had
then, and then how the police caught them, so I mean there was story
things in them too.

Val: Well that’s neat.

Amy: But then, all__Qf_a_s_ndden, I was explaining the directions—I’m so
glad we’re only on 55, cause I’m only letting them go up to 2 through 5-
-and um, cause then I was like um, you have to say, like for 2 X 4, you
have to say like 2 groups of 4, you can’t say, well they found 2 and then
they found 4-cause that would only be six, you know, and then we
had--I had to really think about that, and I hadnit thought about it until
the last second. ”Oh, we have to say two mum of 4.”

The uncomfortable experience of making an error in front of the students was
one that resonated with the other group members. They nodded and
murmured their assent as she spoke. Val captured the group's mood by

explaining that she sometimes felt like an irnposter:

82

Val: I’ve done that before at the last second—”Oh yeah, ” or you know,
when you’re teaching, they think of you as such an authority figure,
and oh ”you’re the teacher, you knew,” and then when you’re up
there, you’re like ”Yeah, right, I feel real-like real certain right now.”
(whole group laughs)

Claire: I know!

In Amy's case, the discomfort she felt was compounded by the fact that it was
a student who called to her attention the errors she had made while writing

on the chalkboard.

Amy: And also, you know what I did? Even then, after I remembered,
one of the girls had to correct me cause I said, um, what was it? It was
like 2 X 3 or, 3 x 3, I think, it was, and the one that I was doing on the
board was wrong.

To show her empathy for Amy's situation, Val commented that she
also made mistakes on the board, "lots of times." We should note here that
Val was attempting to assist Amy with her narrative, and that she did not

literally mean that she made errors "lots of times" but rather, that she made

errors "occasionally," or "sometimes. Again, the others in the group nodded

and agreed, commenting "Yup," and "Right."

Amy: So, so, they saw, they stole, or whatever they did, 3 elephants.
And then I remembered the group thing, okay, so ”No, we can’t do
that, it has to be 3 groups of—” so the next sentence I wrote 3 groups of 3
elephants, and she’s like: ”No, you can’t do that because you already
have a first group in the first group so it’s only 2 more groups, well,
that kind of confused me—they saw 3 elephants, then they saw 2 more
groups of 3 elephants-4t doesn’tlmlsJike 3 X 3 but it really is—and she
figured it out-I was 21211119115 to it—but that’s cause all of a sudden I
remembered ”Ah, you got to do it gmups, instead of—it was so easy
with addition but then multiplication was harder.

Later in the school year, when the group met in mid-April, it was
interesting to note the change in their stance toward being An Authority.

They appeared less worried about having students think that they did not

83
know the content being discussed, and more comfortable showing students

that they did not always have all the answers. It might be that they had
successfully established themselves as an authority in enough other ways, at
enough other times, and so no longer had to prove themselves as competent.
Or, it might be that they had found the consequences of showing students
they were not infallible were less negative than they'd anticipated. In any
event, by the point in April when Lauren described a social studies activity
her students had recently completed, there had been movement away from
the idea that the teacher had to be a subject matter expert and toward the view
that the teacher was a subject matter leader and co-learner. They had begun to
recognize that sometimes teacher expertise takes the form of helping students
frame and solve problems rather than always having the answer or asking
only known-answer questions (Denyer & Florio-Ruane, 1995). Lauren began
by telling the group about the activity:

Lauren: What we were doing, we were doing stuff like Mohammed
and Buddhism and Hinduism and all that kind of stuff and so what I
had them do was pick one person from the chapter that we read and
they had to imagine that they were back in time and interviewing this
person.

Val: Oh cool!

Lauren: And they had to use the information from the textbook, like,
you know, when you were born or what was your life like. Whatever
information was given from the book, that’s what they made their
questions from. And then, with partners, they acted out the
interviews...everyone was so into it, so I’m like, "Cool!"

The conversation turned to a discussion of how much they themselves
were learning about subject matter through their preparation for teaching.
There was a general consensus that they had learned what Lauren deemed an
"incredible" amount of information over the year. Sometimes, though, they

found it was difficult to know where to begin learning about a topic when

84
their background information on it was limited. It was hard for them to

know "where to start" with a topic when their own memories of how and
what they had learned about it were fuzzy and incomplete. Lauren shared
with the group that she dealt with this by doing a great deal of research and

additional reading.

Lauren: I’m reading books all the time. Like on different people,
different religions. I didn’t even know some of these religions even
existed-J try to learn all this stuff too.

Val: So true--
Lauren: And then here I am teaching about them.

Claire: I remember me of that from humanities class, Karma and
Nirvana--

Val: And there’s a god of this and a god of that, and this one comes out
of the belly button, and that one-

Lauren: I don’t know. To me, it doesn’t—it’s not so much that I need to
kneweverything about everything, I just need to know where to find
the answers if I need them. You know what I mean? Like if students
have questions and I don’t know the answer, I tell them, and if I can
point them to a place where the answers might be then I think I’m
doing a good job. Funny thing is, they think I know all the answers.

Val: Yeah, that is pretty funny--

Claire: Especially when it’s one of those times you don’t. (Sharing
Circle Transcript, 4 / 93)

In the above exchange, we can see that although the novices were
aware that they lacked some of the subject matter knowledge that they needed
to be able to teach well; they were still able to see themselves as competent
and legitimate teachers. In order for this to happen, they had to redefine what
it meant to be a good teacher (not as someone who "knew all the answers"
but as someone who sought out background information and then helped

students learn to discover information for themselves).

85

Ir 0 - ur not, 31. “r 3:11;...1111‘ - n 1193‘“;
II | . C .

The two dimensions of the teacher role with students, being a Humane
Person and being a Nurturing Caregiver were closely linked and sometimes
overlapped. The difference was that in the first case, they were responding to
students "kind of like a friend," and in the second case, "kind of like a parent"
(Val Brooks, Interview Transcript, 6 / 93). While there were differences
between these two different dimensions, there were also similarities: Both
involved treating students with care and affection, both personified aspects of
their substantial selves. The occasions when these two dimensions came
together were most evident during the telling of what I came to call "Great
Moments Stories."22 In the vignette below, taken from the April Sharing
Circle meeting, Claire, Lauren and Val were describing one of the ways in
which they thought teachers ideally interacted with students. Drawing on
memories of "good teachers" they'd had as children, they agreed that it was
important to talk to students about life outside the classroom, to connect

subject matter to personal events:

Val: I tell them things, like what I did over the weekend, and, and like
we were talking about electricity and stuff the other day and I brought
up when I went up north over spring break and there was no
electricity.

 

22I identified a subset of frequently occuring student vignettes as "Great Moment Stories." They
were present in every meeting, and were often short, upbeat snapshots of a successful interaction
with a student. Lortie (1975) saw these types of stories as examples of craft pride, and noted
that they often had similar plots, featuring the teacher as helper and a happy ending. An
example of a such a story is excerpted here: "I got a little note the other day from one of the
girls in another class, 'Mrs. Roberts I like you because you help me'....And it just mademwday,
because I think, the first day she was in for lunch bunch (detention)...she said: 'I can’t do this. I
can’t do that.‘ I didn’t know if it was because I was a new teacher. That first week, she was
doing this thing: 'I can’t read. lcan't do this. I can’t do anything...'And I sat there for a long
time working with this girl. And now, when she comes in, she works real independently—if she
has a question, she asks me and I help her, but it’s not anything like it was that first day. I
struggled so with her...(Amy Roberts, Sharing Circle Transcript, 11/ 2/ 92)

86

Lauren: I tell a lot of personal type stories, too.
Claire: Yeah.

Lauren: Like I mean obviously they have to be related to what we're
learning about

Val: right, yeah.
Lauren: Ijust don't go off and start telling stories.
Val: Right. No, but, you know, if something, if we're talking about

something that I know about or have experience in, I tell a lot of
stories.

Lauren: I do too. It's like, we just finished our unit on ancient Rome
and I had been there this summer. And we spent two full hours just
talking about what I did and you know, and they were like completely-—

Claire: [Awestruck!]
Val: [Yeah]
Lauren: :Iell_me_mere,_tell_me_mer_e!fi At the end of the hour, they

said ”Please can we do this again tomorrow?”
Val: Yes. They sit so still when you tell them those things.

Claire: I had a third grade teacher in school who had been all around
the country, the world actually. And she had taken slides. That was
our favorite part of the day. Every so many weeks she'd show them to
us. And she'd just talk to us....You know, she just, the way she told
about where she'd been—and she read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder
books to us. And she had been out to her house and visited it, and she
told us all about it, and we could ask her anything.

Val: Cool.

Claire: She had slides of that. It was just, it was the best. You were just
like in a trance.

Val: Uh huh. It is pretty neat, isn't it, when you got like all their
attention. They're all focused, you know, and they want to learn, they
want to know more. It’s pretty cool. Those are the great moments.

87
The view of teachers as people who tell stories to students in the way

they have described incorporates elements of being both friend-like and
parent-like. The two dimensions overlap as the teacher enacts her role as a
human being sharing her knowledge and experiences in a friendly, accessible
way, connecting to all learners in the class through "just talk" and
conversation. The novices appeared most satisfied with their job and
themselves when they were able to achieve this blending of the two

dimensions.

«-1: -. 3: «.1 ‘ 3‘h”l .I‘ ‘-. a“. -. £11.11: -._‘:4 ‘ :10. 1‘

In their narratives about students, the novices seemed especially
concerned about how to meet the varied social, emotional, and intellectual
needs of the children in their classrooms. From the novices' perspective, a
> good teacher was one who cared about and worked successfully with students
of all cultural, social, intellectual, or linguistic backgrounds. They took pride
in the fact that they were committed to helping all students, and wove
references about their successful encounters with students into their personal
narratives. At our first meeting, for example, Val told of staying late at school
for a number of days to help several of her lower-achieving students gather
materials and create a project for a science fair. The students' enthusiasm and
pride in the resulting project contributed to her sense of herself as a caring
and nurturing teacher. Similarly, at our last meeting, Nina spoke of how
others in her school, the principal, the Chapter I specialist, and a child's
parent had praised her for her success in "mainstreaming" Mandy, a child
who had serious emotional problems into Nina's classroom. The fact that

Nina had seen so much growth in Mandy, and that she had succeeded with

88
her in spite of the principal and specialist's warning that Mandy could only

function in a special education classroom contributed significantly to her
sense of herself as a caring and competent teacher.

However, because the novices’ sense of self-as-teacher was so integrally
linked to their experiences with students, when they encountered students
whose needs they felt they could not meet, their perception of themselves as
competent, fair, and nurturing, indeed their very sense of who they were as
teachers was seriously threatened. Nias (1989) has observed it is not unusual
for people to have to change their view of themselves when taking on a new
or first job—it is still, though, a difficult and often painful undertaking.

The narratives that the novices shared about not meeting students'
needs were sometimes over general issues such as how to accommodate
students who were reading either significantly above, or significantly below
grade level. More often, however, the narratives centered around how to
work successfully with students categorized by the school system as having
”special needs.” They had in their classes a large number of such students.
This label covered children who were receiving special education services,
but consisted primarily of those labeled emotionally-impaired (E1), or
Learning Disabled (LD). They also had a large percentage of students labeled
as having Attention Deficit Disorder, along with a range of other needs
including students who had been sexually and / or physically abused, students
who were suicidal, one with school phobia, ones who were grieving the death
or disappearance of a parent.

Some of the novices' experiences with their "special needs" students
challenged their notion of themselves as kind and caring people and as good
teachers who were able to meet all children's needs. These experiences also

brought to the surface many concomitant tensions, for example, whether to

89
attend to a child's immediate needs, or to act instead based on what was in the

child's long-term interests; or whether to focus on meeting the needs of an
individual child or instead meet the needs of a larger group of students.

Over the course of the Sharing Circle meetings, the novices shared
narratives of many different students, but each also had one student in
particular whom they talked about regularly, one student whom they most
worried about, thought about, even dreamed about. Sometimes the stories of
these children laid bare the novices' feelings of having failed, of being
powerless to "make a difference" in the child's life. Despite the depth of her
caring and concern, despite many attempted interventions, Christine, for
instance, had to admit that she "just didn't know what to do" to help Reggie,
her third grader whose "school phobia" caused him to pull his hair out of his
head in handfuls, vomit frequently, and put his head down on his desk and
cry for long periods Of time. On other occasions, the novices' narratives of
these "special needs" students centered on a particular child's growth or most
recent accomplishment, an event that affirmed their own sense of self and
reaffirmed their commitment to continue teaching. In the telling of these
different narratives around the issue of "special needs" students, the novices’
revealed their understanding of the complexity of the teacher's role and
demonstrated their willingness to wrestle with complicated problems of
practice.

The vignette below is illustrative of how the novices talked about their
experiences with special needs students to other members of the Sharing
Circle. At the June meeting, Claire initiated the topic in response to a
comment by Val, that as a result of their behavior, some children exerted
great power over their parents and teachers. Claire brought up Ben, one of

the students she had talked about in previous meetings. In her view, Ben,

90
who was frequently in trouble at school, and constantly "yelled at at home,"

had no power at all.

Claire: That's why when you, when you said "It's amazing how much
power kids have," I was thinking, at the same time, how mwerlese
they are. Like this kid, you know, he's kinda powerless in a way.

Amy: Yeah.
Val: He's been slotted into-does he get yelled at in your room or--

Claire: I don't. Or I try not to. But the music teacher does, and he
really doesnwhen other kids are really trying to do their writing or
their other work, he will disturb them a lot just by, like hitting them or
teasing them.

Claire went on to remind them that Ben was the student whose father
had died soon after getting divorced from his mother. Claire thought that he
was having a difficult time adjusting to his new home situation. She
explained that while she could empathize with and accept some of his
behavior-the crying, yelling, or constantly wrapping his sweatshirt around
his head—there was a point at which tolerating his classroom behavior made

it impossible to also attend to the other students' needs.

Claire: And the kids are eensjanfly coming up to me. Ben's done this.
Ben's done that. A lot of them are genuine. They don't want him
there, bugging them. But I feel so sorry for the kid at the same time.

Val: Sure.

Claire: Cause he's extremfly intelligent, very intelligent. I just,
sometimes I feel like he's not being challenged enough in my room,
but, I don't know.

Deb: He's had two incredible losses. If you think of the divorce and the
death--

Claire: Yes, and he writes and he talks about his mother, and says very
mature things. He's been to see the counselor. He said he wished he
was dead, that he wants to just die.

91
The group members were upset to hear that a second grade child was so

unhappy, and talked about how helpless that made them feel. Lauren also
had a student who talked about committing suicide, and she was reasonably
certain (and quite concerned) that he wasn't "just giving her a line." She said
that while Shane sometimes went out with the older high school students, he

seemed primarily to be a real loner.

Claire: That is so sad. The weight of the world—these children—the
world is on their shoulders sometimes.

Val: Is there anyone close to him? He has no friends his own age?

Val's question elicted further talk of Shane and Ben's particular
situations, and if (and how) they as teachers could help them. After some
discussion, Val identified a key dilemma facing them all: How to strike a

reasonable balance between being a Nurturing Caregiver and a Realist:

Val: And the thing that I tussle with and go back and forth is it's how
much slack do you give those kids? Like I think sometimes I give too
much. Cause you really empathize a lot with the problems that they're
having, and what they're going through, and so you're like, you know,
you don't get on them quite as much to turn the assignments in and do
these things in class. Yet on the other hand, you're doing them a
disservice by not making them buckle down and do these dumb things.
So I just, well, they're not dumb things. If they were dumb, you
shouldn't have given them. But do you know what I mean? Like they
seem dumb compared to the trauma they're dealing with-

Claire: Cause you think of the real world.

Val: Yeah. I think, well, okay, I'm empathizing for this situation and
he's, he's going through this at home and this is happening and this is
happening and that's happening. But on the other hand, I mean, there
are certain things that you really need to do and it's just, I don't know.
I tussle with that, back and forth. Cause I'm worried about next year.
I'm worried about what's gonna happen in the future, you know, that
they're just gonna be in a corner and people are gonna not put up with
that garbage and some teacher will just say, "Too bad. It's gotta be done
or you flunk."

92
The novices then went on to talk about how they worried in general

about what would happen to their students in ensuing years. Claire, for
example, worried that without a writing workshop like hers, Ben would be
lose his main outlet for expressing his feelings. They moved into a critique of
the practice of medicating children who "acted out" in the classroom, but here
too, the Nurturing Caregiver and Realist aspects of their teaching selves were
at odds; they hated that what they called "drugging" students had become the
"answer to everything now," claiming that it seemed wrong to "give kids
pills" for being overactive. Still, they confessed that medication did seem to
help many of their students who had been categorized as having an attention
deficit disorder. Moreover, it made the novices' job much easier, and allowed
them more easily to focus on all of the students in their class, not just one or
two.

The novices also discovered that sometimes, the realist dimension of
the teaching role required being honest with themselves about their ability to
be a "good" teacher for all students. Painful as it was for them to recognize,
the reality was that they could not always (sincerely) be a Nurturing Caregiver
to all students—not because of some external circumstance, as in the example
above-but because of their own personal capacities. For example, if they did
not like a particular child, they could not be as genuinely warm and caring
toward him or her as they would like to be. The discussion of this issue came
up only near the third hour of our final meeting, when Nina asked the group
for help, saying that she was worried about the fact that for the only time in
her experience, she did not much care for a student in her room. This was
the first time that any of the participants had initiated this topic, and even
though they felt quite comfortable with one another by this point, it was still

difficult for Nina to admit to these feelings. Amy noted later (in our exit

93
interview) how surprised she felt when Nina raised this issue in the group,

noting that it was something teachers (especially Learning Community

teachers) never discussed.

When she said that, I thought, 'Oh how good of her,‘ because I would
have never said that if I had a child like that in my room. And I would
never say that about a child even now to just anyone. You know?
Because it's like geez, you're a teacher and you don't like a kid—that's
kinda bad! (Amy Roberts, Interview Transcript, 6/ 93)

When Nina presented her situation to the group, she tried to give numerous

reasons why Tim was a difficult child to like:

Nina: The other day, for example, Thursday was our field day, and
Tim went in the bathroom and just whizzed alLover.

Lauren: Oh my God.

Amy: And what happened?

Nina: Well the speech teacher heard like the little boys screaming, so
she's like, you know, yelling into the bathroom, "Come out, come
out!"

Claire: Come out, come out wherever you are!

When the group members laughed and were inclined to dismiss Tim's
act as merely mischievous, Nina provided further examples of his classroom
actions: Tim often lied to her and to his parents, and he frequently bothered
other children, sometimes doing very hurtful and dangerous things to them.
She described, for instance, an example where he had tried to burn another
child's hands with boiling water. Even though Nina believed there were
reasons for her feelings toward Tim, she was still uncomfortable about it, so
much so that she had even talked to the school counselor about her attitude

toward Tim:

94
Nina: He just, he's always tattling. He's just a baby. He's so, he just
drives me nuts. And I was talking to the counselor and of course, he's
trying to analyze. ”Now why is it you don't like him?” And I'm like,
”Gary, I just don't. ” You know, and I feel terrible saying I don't like
him. Okay, it's not that I don't like him.

Val: He just drives you crazy.

Nina: Yes, and I know I'm just trying to make myself feel better. I just,
our personalities don't, I don't know. He just drives me nuts.

After Claire and Val agreed that this kind of situation was bound to happen
once in a while, Lauren then volunteered that she too had a student who

"drove her crazy" sometimes.

Lauren: He ended up, he's on a half day schedule now because he just
had so many problems and, so many teachers complained. He only
goes to school half days, so he's not in my class anymore. I cannot tell
you what a difference it has made. I used to dread 6th hour, going, oh
Brandon's gonna be here. You know, I'd dread it every day. And now
he's not in there, and I just love that class. It is so great. Because I
spent 80% of my time concentrating only on him and ignoring the
others. Because he was such, he was just—Brandon.

Convinced that "good teachers" didn't have these feelings (e.g., dreading
having a student in class) Nina said she had also gone to another teacher in

the building to share her problem.

Nina: One second grade teacher, who I so like to trust, I went to her,
she's been teaching, like she just got her 30 year pin, you know, or
whatever. And she said, "Make an extra effort to be nice to him. Go
out of your way." So I tried that. And you know, Tim's a bright kid
and everything but I still justudon't really care for him.

Having found no solution, Nina asked the others how they would handle the
situation. Lauren reported that she finally had to accept that she needed to

treat Brandon differently than she might ideally prefer.

Lauren: He could not function in the classroom. Like he would, we
did a lot of things in groups, and I got to the point where I couldn't put
him in a group with a female because he would say obscene things to
the girls all the time, or touch them inappropriately. And then he

95

knew that I wouldn't put him in with girls, so he would cause trouble
and try and get all the boys in trouble, in his group. You know what I
mean? Like, saying things to them so that they're about ready to get
into a fight. And he just couldn't function in the classroom at all, with
other kids. So I just put him out in the hall and I had him work
independently.

Claire: Did you get help from his parents?

Lauren: No. Zero. Mom isn't at home. Dad isn't home. They do try,
but they have absolutely no control over him. None at all. And he's
done, I mean, we've worked with, the assistant principal worked really
hard with him. He, we have a mentor program and he was Brandon's
mentor and like they would do things and, you know, there would be
rewards if he got through one day without a referral. But, I mean, he
would get at least one referral every single day. He'd go and pick on
6th graders and like especially the Special Ed 6th graders, like push
them around and say things to them. Awful things, "Oh you retard."
Stuff like that.

Val: Kids can be so cruel sometimes.

Claire: There's lot of kids that'll do that.

After further discussing how challenging it was to attend to students
like Brandon without neglecting the rest of the class, the group reached
consensus that some compromise of ideals was necessary; sometimes, they
needed to accept that they couldn't succeed with all students, given the way
current classrooms were structured. Lauren and Claire together suggested an
explanation that seemed to absolve both teachers and students of blame.
They suggested that the problem wasn't necessarily the students' fault; some
students simply had a harder time adjusting to approaches that were open-
ended and centered on group work. Nor was it the teachers' fault, they had
many students to attend to simultaneously, and had to make decisions about
what to do based on what helped the largest number of students. In their

view, the school system was responsible for providing more alternatives for

96
students (e.g., much smaller classes) and more support for teachers (e.g., full-

time aides for some students).

In: on: an Bra. “1 -, 1‘ -. ’--. ' Ll! T--. r: -. s r 4.101.;

As the conversation from the June meeting (described above)
continued, it eventually developed into a debate about how to "manage"
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) students. There were still some aspects of
the Nurturing Caregiver dimension present in their talk, but overall, the
emphasis shifted and seemed to focus more explicitly on the link between the
Realist and Authority dimensions of the teacher role. It began when Val
mentioned that one of her ADD students was "totally clueless," citing as
evidence that her work didn't get home, notes and progress reports didn't get
home, she was unorganized and her desk was "a disaster." The group's
response to her comments were swift and oppositional. I joked that my desk
was a disaster. Nina commented that her ADD student "was not like that at
all," she worked hard, always had her writing folder organized, always
remembered to bring something to share. Claire and Amy agreed that their
students generally functioned well in the class. Val restated that her main
concern was how to help these students be successful in small group
situations.

It was Lauren who was able to speak with the most authority to this
issue, because of the composition of her class. In the excerpt below, Lauren
repeatedly and explicitly states that children who have been labeled as having
an attention deficit ean function well in cooperative group situations,
provided that the teacher gives clear instructions, structures the task

appropriately, and communicates clear expectations to students.

97

Lauren: If your groups are structured then you can still do it. Because,
I don't know how to explain what I'm trying to say. Cause like the
group that I have were hand picked kids. We have all the kids in 6th
grade that are on medication for ADD. Plus we have other kids mixed
in. So we've got, you know,

Val: They really did put all the ADD kids in your room?

Lauren: In our class, yeah. It's split up between another teacher and
myself and then we switch those kids in the afternoon. Like she
teaches the science and math. I teach the English and social studies.
And then we switch. And they're, the group work for me has worked
out fine, with all those kids. Just as long as your group work is very-

Amy: Very structured?

Lauren: Very specific. You know, you give them the instructions.
They have, you know, first you do this, then you do this, this, this.

And if you get done early, you do this, or this. You know what I mean?
So if you make sure that they know what to do and what their job is,
then they'll do fine, more than fine. But if you just say-

Claire: "work together"
Lauren: "This is the assignment, go do it," they won't do it.

Amy: And there's nothing wrong with going over and seeing what
someone else, or what another group is doing, but then sometimes
they can lose their focus.

Lauren: Well, that's like one of the things that we were learning in
doing in group work. Okay, you're in your groups, talking with your
groups. As of right now, you can't talk to anybody else besides the
people in your group. And be very specific about that. Then it works
fine. Then the only people they can talk to are people in their group.

Val: And do they get involved with the group? Because my Chip is
always playing with things in his lap and playing with paper clips.
Then he has to use the restroom. Then he has to get a drink of water.
And he, you know, he doesn't get involved...My other kids get
frustrated. "Oh, Chip's in my group." And they'll say, "We don't want
you to work with us, Chip, because you mess up and you get us in
trouble. And you don't do the work."

98
The novices work hard in this conversation to balance issues of

management and student control with realistic goals for their learners, and
for their own instruction. They have recognized that compromise is
sometimes necessary, for example, when Amy noted that although she wants
students to be able to move around the room freely, it might serve to distract
some students from their work, so she has chosen not to permit it. On other
occasions, the compromises made are different, as Amy explains in her telling
of her experiences with Andy. Because she felt strongly that her overriding
goal (to include Andy in a small group project), is worth the management
struggle she knows she will have, Amy decides to go ahead and require him

and his group members to work together.

Amy: Andyuhe just cannot handle whenever he gets mad. I love him
to death. Andy's actually one of my favorite kids, but whenever he
loses control, whenever he gets angry, he does not handle it in an
appropriate manner. He, you know, is punching at the air or kicking
something or yelling swear words real loud. And telling me I'm not
fair. And this that and the other thing. And he cannot work with
groups because he just gets in too many arguments with the other kids.
And so sometimes, you know, I've just been real torn about this all
year. Sometimes, if it's a short group activity, I'll let him go off and do
it by himself. Because usually he's pretty good about going off and
doing it by himself, on his own. I never say, "Why don't you go do it
on your own?" But that's what he wants to do, because he's really
intelligent also. And he'll go do it by himself. But, you know,
sometimes when you're doing like a long project, like we did this huge
fairy tale thing where they wrote their own play of a fairy tale from a
different country and stuff and we acted them out. You know, I really,
this was like a two-week project. I wanted him working with this
group but oh, I just had to pull teeth to get him to sit there with his
group and not call someone a name or hurt them. And I let them pick
their own groups, so he should have been okay. And he wanted to be
with these kids but it just was hard for us all.

311-311: '1‘ 11 ‘I. 1 ‘-. 15' 0111211 0 -. 1 ‘ 01o. 1:111
Mining the novices' conversations about their interactions and

relationships with students, and examining how, in their dialogue, they

99
managed to negotiate among the four dimensions of the teacher role is an

important part of understanding how novice teachers form a professional
identity. Such a task may remind those of us "outsiders" how complex and
demanding this identity work actually is. However, neither the novices'
work nor ours is complete, for there are still other arenas in which the
novices must construct their identities as teachers. Having examined what
generally constitutes the center of teachers' practice (their interactions with
students within the circle of their individual classrooms), we now move
outward into the wider contexts of school and community, beginning with an
analysis in Chapter Four of the Sharing Circle participants' narratives about
their interactions and relationships with colleagues. The analysis of those
narratives (as well as the subsequent ones about the novices' experiences with
students' parents), will help us continue to broaden our understanding of the
complexities involved in crafting a teacher identity and the role that
participation in a community such as the Sharing Circle may play in these

novices' identity formation process.

CHAPTER FOUR
Who We Are With The Other Teachers in Our Schools

The other teachers in my school--you know,
they don't belittle you or anything, but sometimes
its real apparent in the stories you tell that you ’re
obviously a new teacher. If something really funny
happened, or something that might not happen to a
teacher who’s been teaching all those years, you sort
of felt like: ’Well, do I say it or not?

(Valerie Brooks, Interview, 6/15/93)

1111-101 AI 31:11.11: 'o. ' 11.1 1-1-. 5111.

Just as these novice teachers are constructing new identities for
themselves as they enact the teacher role with their students, so too are they
having to establish new collegial roles and identities and ways of relating as
they interact with teachers, administrators, instructional aides, and other
adults in their school communities. These different aspects of role enactment
with the different role others each constitutes a different teacher Discourse.
As beginners, they come into school situations where cultures and norms of
interacting have already been established by others. Along with other school
personnel, ”veteran teachers have established traditions and perceptions that
the novice must accept, reject, modify, or accomodate” (Schempp et al.,1993, p.
464). In fact, as Bullough, Knowles, and Crow (1992), point out ”a central part
of negotiating a teaching role is the negotiation of a place within the school
and wider professional community” (p. 190). How each novice comes to
learn about these traditions, how she makes decisions about which to accept
and which to reject, how she goes about negotiating issues of status, authority
and control through her interactions and relationships with colleagues has

much to do with who she is, and who she is trying to become. If we want to

100

101
understand how novices construct their professional identities, then, it is as

critical to examine their talk of their experiences with colleagues as it is to
consider their classroom experiences with students.

Based on my anyalsis of the Sharing Circle transcripts, it was clear that
the most talked-about group of adults in the Circle conversations were the
other teachers with whom they worked. The topic of other teachers was
raised forty-nine times over the school year, whereas other adults—principals,
school counselors, secretaries and support staff—together were the topic of
conversation less than a dozen times. After the students, other teachers were
the group that novices interacted with most frequently in their schools. For
the first time in their lives, these novices found themselves interacting with
teachers—not as students, not as student teachers-but as colleagues. But the
teachers in question are not equal colleagues, for significant power and status
differences exist between them by virtue of age, years in the profession,
experience, and even formal hierarchy.

Although newcomers to the hierarchical and bureaucratic world of
public school teaching, their extended experience as pupils assured that these
novices were nevertheless quite aware of the micro politics that influence
school life. They recognized, for example, that as the newest and youngest
staff members, they had the least status (and thus the least power) in their
buildings. Being ”the new kid on the block”23 meant going along with other
teachers’ decisions, having to participate in events or act in certain ways
simply ”to make good rapport”24 with colleagues. The novices were able to
joke about being assigned the least desirable classrooms, the highest number

of ”special needs” students, or about being given the worst textbooks or other

 

23Quote by Val (Sharing Circle Meeting Transcript, 4/ 16/ 93).
24"Quote by Amy (Sharing Circle Meeting Transcript, 11 / 2 / 92).

102
materials, accepting this as an inevitable part of ”paying their dues” as

inductees to the profession.

While Val laughingly noted, ”I’m definitely the baby in my school”
(Sharing Circle Meeting, 11 / 2/ 92), her choice of words was quite apt. In many
ways, all of the teachers in this study were ”the babies” in their schools, for in
all but one case, they were the only new hires in their schools, were younger
than their colleagues by at least twelve years (and sometimes over thirty
years), and came into situations where the majority of the faculty had been
together for a number of years. Many of the other teachers in their buildings
were the same age as the novices’ own parents, a reality which complicated
the already challenging task of establishing themselves as autonomous
adults, and set parameters on what they considered to be respectful and

suitably deferential ways to interact with their colleagues.

Significant tensions arose for the novices as a result of their
interactions and relationships with the other teachers in their schools,
tensions centering around issues of independence, acceptance, gaining
recognition as knowledgeable professionals, and their reconciliation of
competing images of how teachers interact with one another. Such tensions
are neither discrete nor do they occur in isolation from one another. Rather,
they overlap and interconnect in a variety of complicated ways. As the
novices sought to manage25 these tensions, they were continually faced with
a fundamental choice: To withdraw from the situation causing the tension,
to remain silent, to find some position of compromise from which to speak,

or to stand up for their beliefs by "speaking out."

 

25See Lampert (1985) for a more detailed discussion of how and why much of teachers' work
involves "managing" rather than "solving" dilemmas.

103
The Sharing Circle provided a forum in which to air and reconcile

these tensions, gave them an opportunity to critique and explore differing
Teacher Discourses, and helped them clarify and construct their own
emerging ideology. Talk about ”other teachers” served another important
purpose: It contributed to the sense of community within the group by
creating an awareness that group members shared a common vision of
teaching that was different from that of their school colleagues, or as Mead
(1934) would explain, it gave the novices a ”them” to rally around to oppose,
thus strengthening their sense of having an ”us.”

In this chapter, I will first identify and highlight some of the tensions
and themes that are reflected in the novices' collective talk of their
experiences with their school colleagues. Second, I will recount the ways in
which their choice of action (i.e., to withdraw, remain silent, compromise, or
speak up), played out in their particular school settings, and the potential
implications resulting from the taking of any one action. Next, I will draw
from four vignettes, which were located and categorized according to the
process described previously in Chapter Two, to illustrate the tensions and
the actions the novices took in response to the tensions. The three

interconnected tensions are represented in Figure 3 below.

104

Tensions

gaining
recognition/validation

 
 
   
  
 

 
 
   
  
 

  
  
 

gaining acceptance

   
   
       
       

vs. vs.
establishing a sense following one's own
of autonomy precepts

reconciling their ideal

image of teachers
vs.

the image they see other

teachers enacting

Elm Novices' Relationships With Other Teachers: Emerging Tensions
And Actions Taken

In the final section of this chapter, I will consider how the narrating
and co-narrating of these kinds of vignettes contributed to the formation of
the Sharing Circle community, and to the ongoing construction of the

novices' professional identity with colleagues.

G” l | -E|ll'l' 35 E!
One major tension stems from what Gee (1990), Gallos (1989), and

Tannen (1989) identify as two basic but conflicting human needs, to be at once

involved and accepted by others while maintaining one’s distance and sense

of individuality. Gee (1990) explains the tension this way:

105

First, we all need to get close to each other, to have a sense of
community, to feel we are not alone in the world; we need to feel
accepted and involved, to achieve rapport with others. But, second, we
also need to keep our distance from one another, to preserve our
independence and protect our privacy; so that others do not impose on

us or engulf us. (p. 97)

He goes on to explain how this tension creates a kind of double bind, that in

trying to serve these contradictory but simultaneous needs,

whatever we do to serve one need necessarily causes a certain tension
and risks violating the other. But we cannot step out of this process
altogether. If we try to withdraw by not communicating at all, we
violate our need, and the need of others, for involvement. (p. 98)

In the Sharing Circle conversations, we will see the novices’ desire to
gain acceptance from, and feel connected to, the teachers in their buildings.
Being accepted by their school colleagues was important, for it enabled them
to feel a sense of belonging and connection with others. At the same time,
the novices also wanted to be considered as autonomous, capable of working
successfully on their own. One element of establishing themselves as
autonomous involved portraying themselves as different from their
colleagues. Spurred on by the often striking sense of dissonance they felt
existed between their beliefs and images and those of the ”Other Teachers”26
with whom they worked-differences due not only to specific curricular or
pedagogical preferences, but to fundamentally incompatible beliefs about the
nature of knowledge and learning, about students’ and teachers’ roles, about
students as learners and human beings, and about the goals of classroom
instruction-the novices looked for opportunities to show that they didn't

need or want to be like their co-workers.

 

26The term ”Other Teachers,” as used by the novices here has less to do with their colleagues'
age or status than with their dispositions toward students and teaching. The ”otherness” then,
is a function of their (perceived) different orientations toward teaching.

106
Finding ways to accommodate this particular tension did not happen

easily, nor could it be achieved without consequence. Wanting to be seen in
other teachers’ eyes as independent and capable of functioning alone meant
that the novices were less willing (or felt less able) to seek support or
assistance from their colleagues. They worried that voicing uncertainty about
their teaching practices would lead their colleagues to question their ability
(and suitability) to teach. They often felt obligated to solve problems and
make decisions entirely on their own. As Val explained to me in one of our

conversations:

Sometimes it's real apparent...in the stories you tell that you’re a new
teacher....

So you always feel like: ”Well, do I say that or not?”....Will they second
guess you or critique you or think you’re a bad teacher or bad—like
"what the heck is she teaching for?” kind of thing. (Interview, 6/ 15 / 93)

And so, within their schools, each novice struggled alone with difficult
questions and doubts about her choices and actions, about her competence,
about whether she was acting as a ”good teacher” should. In the early part of

the school year, one of Claire’s journal entries reflected this fear:

I’m so confused about the American school system sometimes. I
wonder if it is what is best for our children and if what I am doing is
really good for the development of my children-«hen I think, if I’m
thinking this, why am I at the school teaching? Do I say the right
things? Do I do the right things? Am I supportive and nurturing
enough for their growing minds? I wonder if I see enough into the
children and recognize and know enough about them? (Journal entry,
12/ 3/ 92)

The fact that most beginning teachers feel lonely and isolated has been well-
documented (Feiman-Nemser, 1983; Little, 1990). Christine explained the
feeling poignantly when she said: ”You’re standing there with twenty-six kids
or human bodies, but you still feel totally alone” (Interview, 7/ 15 / 93). One of

Christine’s subsequent comments suggests that feelings of isolation may be

107
even more intense for novices coming from a teacher preparation program

that emphasized collegiality and conversation, and ways of teaching different

from status quo practice in schools.

You know, that first year, there’s so many things you don’t know...and
the other teachers try to scare you off by telling you these horrible tales,
which you don’t listen to. It’s difficult coming out of the kind of
community where you were used to being able to talk about the kinds
of things you were planning and how things were going--sharing
materials—to a situation where you’re totally on your own. You don’t
have the materials, you don’t have the money to purchase the things
that you need, and you’re not with a whole staff of people to bounce all
your ideas off of. (Interview, 7/ 15 / 93)

Feeling lonely and isolated has consequences for the kinds of choices
that novices make about their role and about their practices (Olson 8t
Osborne, 1991). They may give up potentially promising practices because
they initally don’t seem to work smoothly (Zumwalt, 1982). Conversely, they
may adopt less than exemplary practices because those are what seem to
”work” in the moment (Feiman-Nemser, 1983). By experiencing the
formation of a professional identity as an individual endeavor rather than as
a socially-constructed process, failures, as well as successes, are seen as
belonging only to the individual, and so novices may leave teaching (as so
many do) after the first year or so, disappointed and disillusioned with
themselves and their apparent inability to teach. Those that stay may
foreclose on opportunities to belong and be involved with others, thus

denying themselves a chance to fufill one of their basic human needs.

D'EB"IIIl'l'--E11'QE

Another tension arises from the novices’ need for recognition and
validation from the teachers in their schools. Their desire to be seen as bona

fide teachers, to be respected as knowledgeable professionals, makes them

108
more vulnerable to external pressure to conform (or to at least demonstrate

overt compliance) to existing mores. In a multitude of small ways, not taking
students outside for a 10-minute recess on a beautiful fall day because it is
”frowned upon, highly, highly” by other teachers (Amy Roberts, Sharing
Circle Transcript, 11/ 22/ 92 ), and in a multitude of larger ways, ”having to
move students through” the mathematics textbook at warp speed (Val
Brooks, Sharing Circle Transcript, 11 / 22 / 92), there is pressure to do what they
believe the other teachers expect them to do. Even when the novices are
inclined to think they are doing educationally sound things with children,
there are always the lingering doubts. Val, for instance, spoke at our second
meeting held in late November, of trying to go beyond the textbook lessons in
mathematics, of trying to devise problems that related to students’ lives and
having students keep mathematics ”journals” to record their thoughts and
problem-solving strategies. Although she believed she had a strong rationale
for her approach, Val nevertheless felt compelled to be at the same point in

the text as the other 5th grade teacher in the building.

Val: I think though hecanseof throwing in those extra problems and
doing them in math notebooks, and stuff, I feel pressured, that I’m
behind. Like I knew where the other 5th grade teacher is and I’m

behind, waybehlnd, where she is.
Amy and Claire participated fully in this conversation, indicating that they
shared Val’s feelings. Both nodded their heads and gave responses to show
their agreement:

Amy: anhum.

Claire: Yup. I hate that feeling. And people always stop and come in
and say ”Mare yea?”

Val: Yeah—I just feel really stressed, really stressed.

109
Claire: It’s so weird-what they do.

Val: I’ve gotta catch up. (Sharing Circle Transcript, 11 / 22 / 92)

With her comment about ”people” (meaning the other teachers in her
school), ”always” coming in and asking what page in the textbook she is on,
Claire reveals that she (like Val), is aware that her colleagues have certain
assumptions about what constitutes appropriate mathematics instruction,
and that this requires moving through the textbook at a particular speed and
in a particular sequence. Claire feels she is being watched (almost spied on,
actually), and then judged by her peers accordingly. Whether any of the
teachers in Claire’s school actually asked her that question in those specific
words is not the issue here.

Indeed, Tannen (1989) would remind us that it is probable that no
teacher ever asked that question of Claire in those exact words. What is
significant, however, about Claire’s use of constructed dialogue in this
instance is that it effectively and efficiently communicates her empathy for
Val’s experience, her incredulity that her school colleagues actually think it is
important to move through the mathematics text in regimental fashion, and
her indignation that other teachers think it is acceptable to check up on a co-
worker in such a way (as if she were merely a student teacher, and not a
fellow professional). Claire’s emphatic use of the word ”weird” to describe
this particular teacher behavior is also telling. By naming her colleagues’
behavior as weird (as in ”bizarre,” or ”not normal”)27 Claire is, in effect,
trying to convince Val (as well as herself) that they should not get ”stressed
out,” or be swayed from the instructional stance they have taken. It is as if

she is saying, ”We know that this isn’t what teachers should do. We know

 

27 As defined by Webster’s New World Dictionary (1990).

110
that teachers should make decisions about how and when to use the textbook

based on their students’ needs, not based on what some teacher down the
hallway is doing.” The paradox here is that even though the novices believe
they (and not their colleagues) are in the right, they cannot simply disregard
their colleagues' opinions; they still want their colleagues to respect them.
Val's final comment hints at this paradox; although she believes she is right
to add problem-solving activities to her math curriculum, she still feels
compelled to "catch up" with her co-workers. And, despite her brave talk,
Claire too still has doubts, as this topic comes up again later, in one of her

journal entries.

I hate the pressure of having to stay ’caught up’ and worrying that I
have to cover this and this for standard tests. Sometimes I feel guilty
when we’re talking and in groups and loud and I look in the other
rooms and they are all at their desks, quiet and looking so attentive. I
don’t know why I feel this way. I know the facts. I know that
conversation and working together are crucial. I guess I get scared that
the other students may be learning something that we’re not or should
be. (Claire Young, Journal Entry, 1/ 13/ 93)

Even toward the end of the school year, the feeling of needing to conform to
co-workers’ expectations for textbook coverage exists. In our interview at the
end of the school year, Amy talks of having feelings similar to Claire and
Val’s, only in her case, she felt pressure because she was ahead, rather than

behind her colleagues in the mathematics textbook.

Amy: They were still doing multiplication and division or whatever
we were doing that’s taught in your head. But when they see that I’m
on the lachhapter in the book, they’re like: ”Oh, what are you doing?”
”Oh, she has those good kids” or, you know, things like that. Or maybe
they’re thinking that I’m, I feel like they’re thinking I didn’t cover it
enough or they didn’t learn it. You know, you just kind of get these
little impressions along the way.

Deb: It must feel funny to have to make excuses for doing a good job.

Amy: Right.

111

Deb: I mean, usually it’s the opposite.
Amy: I don’t want to offend anyone, you know.

Deb: Right. (Amy Roberts, Interview Transcript, 6/ 93)

In this segment, we see that Amy felt her colleagues were not only
interrogating her (the phrase, ”what are you doing?” being, in this case, quite
threatening), but also like they were talking about her in a dismissive way to
each other, giving an excuse for her having moved on to more difficult
concepts in the textbook because she had the ”good kids.”

While the novices considered themselves to be real teachers, earning
recognition from the other teachers in their schools still seemed a necessary
source of legitimization. It was apparent, even from our first Sharing Circle
meeting, that the novices were very sensitive to their colleagues’ implicit and
explicit evaluations of them and their teaching. The novices took very much
to heart other teachers’ veiled criticism, open derision, or even simple
questions about their practices. For example, during that first gathering, as we
were setting dates for the subsequent meetings, Christine excitedly suggested
to the group members that they share their unit plans or ideas for lessons
with one another. Val readily agreed with her suggestion, adding that they
could even share plans they had used the year before, during their student
teaching experiences. Christine went on to tell the group how she had shown
Barbara (her fellow third grade teacher at Morrisville), a unit plan she had
developed while in her science methods course with Dr. Cheney. She had
shown Barbara the plan because she thought it would fit in well with their

required curriculum.

Christinez-It’s so funny, ’cause we spent so much time doing all those
units—like my lesson plans now--you just don't write out those
objectives like you did then— I pulled out this file from last year when I

112

did like this whole nutrition unit with all this-I set it up just like Dr.
Cheney taught us to and everything--

Val: Mmmhmm--
Amy: I remember that!

Christine: And Barb's looking at me, and I told her: "Barb! Look at all
this stuff" and she's cracking up, she's like: ”You can tell yenjre a lst
year teacher,” (pronouced in a condescending tone of voice) and I’m
like: "But Barb, this is great", and she’s like: ”I don't think I ever wrote
anything like this in my life!” And she starts laughing. Yeah I was
laughing at myself, going, ”Yeah, this year, I guess I won’t be doing
that.”

It was evident that while Christine recognized that writing lesson plans
as a teacher was different from writing them as a methods course student (in
that ”real” plans were less detailed and less rigidly formatted), she still
expected that Barb would be impressed with her unit and that perhaps they
would be able to use some of the activities with their current students.
Christine was not prepared, however, to have her plans dismissed so easily.
She responded to Barb by laughing and agreeing that she wouldn’t be writing
such detailed lesson plans in the future. Christine’s laughter, in this case,
may be seen as an attempt to ”save face” (her own and Barb’s), in response to
Barb’s openly face-threatening act (Goffman, 1967).

Ironically, Christine might have received a much more positive
response had she merely showed Barb an outline of the unit plan. What one
has to do in order to demonstrate competence in and win recognition for
lesson planning thus may be quite different depending on the personnel
involved. A senior teacher's expectations might be much different than a
university-based field instructor's. After offering her unit plans and having
them rejected once, it is reasonable to assume that Christine would be more

cautious about offering them to a colleague again, at least in that particular

113
format. The fact that she did so—quite eagerly-to the Sharing Circle group

members makes me think that she was confident that her peers would

respond more positively to her plans.

:- .. “...; I1: 11e1‘0 .- A.1'1‘.11«.:‘I1‘ 0...-
West

A third tension that the novices struggled with came about because the
images that they held about the ways that teachers talk about students and
teaching clashed so dramatically with the reality they saw in other teachers'
enactments of the role. As we saw in Chapter Three, a critical theme in these
beginners’ conception of themselves as teachers was their stance toward
students. Being the kind of teachers who treat students with respect and care
was more than simply a goal for them, it was one of the central defining
characteristics of who they were—or who they were trying to be-as teachers. If
they cared so much about how they talk to students, it makes sense that they
would also care deeply about the ways in which they (and other teachers)
talked about students. Hearing their colleagues frequently making fun of, or
talking disparagingly about particular children was thus quite upsetting (as
well as disillusioning) to them. The tension, then, arose as they struggled to
to respond to the Other Teachers' enactment of their role, particularly in
terms of the stance toward students that the Other Teachers seemed to take.
In taking any of the four actions identified earlier, they risked losing
something of value. For example, to withdraw from all interactions where
they would hear colleagues speaking (besides being impossible) would
eliminate their chances to feel like they "belonged" within the school, and
would lessen the chance to gain respect and recognition from colleagues. To

remain silent could result in the feeling that they were being untrue to their

114
precepts and conscience, and being hypocritical by pretending to go along with

the Other Teacher Discourse. By either saying something to the Other
Teachers as a compromise, or in speaking out, they risked alienating
themselves from their colleagues and thus a potential source of emotional,
moral, or intellectual support.

This tension was complicated further by the fact that when talking to
the Other Teachers about issues relating to students, curriculum, or pedagogy,
they felt compelled to be (and indeed truly wanted to be) polite and respectful
to their elder and more experienced colleagues, and worried that to question

or talk out against other teachers could be regarded as rude or disrespectful.

11"B 1111'

Developing an awareness of these and other tensions is important for
experienced teachers and teacher educators alike, for such an awareness may
help us to recognize the complexities involved in negotiating one’s way as a
teacher with colleagues. In order to understand and appreciate this difficult
process, it is necessary to take a closer look at the novices’ conversations about
their interactions and experiences with their school colleagues, and the ways
in which they chose to respond to the resulting tensions. First, however, I
briefly describe the arena in which the tensions typically surfaced and where
the novices' actions usually occured. Next, I present my analyses of four
selected vignettes from four different Sharing Circle meetings. I selected
these particular vignettes for several reasons; they were quite representative
of the way in which the ”other teacher” topic surfaced and was dealt with in
all of the meetings, and they allow us to see how the novices dealt with the
interlocking tensions over the course of the entire school year. I will present

each vignette separately, then turn to a brief discussion of how the group’s

115
conversation in these instances contributed to the construction of their

professional identities.

Ah‘ '1' ‘l or _- ‘0. 11'. Alt‘ ‘ In‘ \I ° ‘ ' a 901.. -‘o.

Although each of the Sharing Circle teachers taught in a self-contained
classroom, there were several different contexts in which they interacted with
the other teachers in their buildings: At grade level and whole school staff
meetings, during school inservices and teacher planning days--as well as in
more informal contexts, in the offices, hallways, out on the playgrounds
during recess periods, and of course, the infamous teachers’ lounge.

The teachers’ lounge (also referred to as the lunchroom, or staffroom),
was the most frequent arena where teachers met and interacted. It served as a
gathering place, where teachers from different grade levels could talk, before,
during, and after school, relatively undisturbed by children or administrators.
Although the settings in which the Sharing Circle teachers worked differed
considerably—two were in large urban schools, three in small to mid-sized
rural schools, one was in a small suburban school, at both the elementary and
middle school levels-their stories about staffroom talk were strikingly
similar. Early in the school year, all of the novices, with the exception of Val,
stated explicitly that they had come to ”dread” going to the staffroom during
lunchtime. These teachers, like the novices that Nias (1989) studied, were
quite uncomfortable with both the nature and content of the staffroom talk,
and most particularly by the ways in which students were portrayed and
discussed. Despite the novices’ dislike of the staffroom, all felt obligated to
put in an appearance for at least part of the lunch period. Not to do so, Amy

explained, was to risk being seen as ”a snob or something.”28

 

23 source: phone conversation with Amy, December, 1992.

116
That the novices in this study initially expected the daily gatherings in

their school staffrooms to be occasions to connect with their co-workers, to
talk with them about substantive issues relating to teaching and learning is
not surprising, as they had only recently moved from a university setting
where, surrounded by student colleagues, they always had peers to talk to; and
where, as participants in a teacher preparation program that viewed
conversation about teaching as an important part of learning, there had been
multiple opportunities to talk with classmates, professors and field
instructors about the practice of teaching. As teacher candidates, they had
been encouraged by their course and field instructors to share their teaching
mistakes as well as their successes, to focus on what children could (rather
than could not) do, and to maintain an optimistic view of what teachers
could accomplish with all learners.

When confronted in the staffroom with what seemed to them a very
different kind of "Teacher Discourse"--one in which teachers talked and
behaved toward the job and toward students in openly negative ways—the
novices felt disillusioned. Such an attitude conflicted with their beliefs about
how teachers are supposed to think, talk, act, and behave in the performance
of the teacher role.

It is interesting that for these novices, the teachers’ lounge was a place
to avoid when possible and endure when necessary, because for many

teachers, they are instead:

...places of relaxation and relief where social, humorous, morale-
boosting behavior relieves some of the stresses and eases some of the
pains of the school day. For the classroom teacher, there is a
compensating form of solidarity to be found here. (Hargreaves, 1992,
p. 221)

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In other words, there was conversation about teaching in the

staffroom, but its topics, norms for speaking, and certainly its functions
differed from what the novices had been used to in their teacher education
seminars. It is much more a place to "vent" and "let off steam," than a place
to have professional discussions of practice. As Hammersley (1984) reminds
us, staffroom talk is a socially constructed event; it sounds like it does because
of its particular context and purpose. This talk, as it is constructed, must
conform to some basic rules, it must allow all members to participate, and it
must allow participants to maintain what Goffman (1967) calls ”positive
face." Just as two strangers on a plane find themselves talking about the
weather, or complaining about the airline food, teachers in staffrooms must
negotiate topics that are safe (e.g., not threatening to their sense of self worth),
shared, and non-personal. Complaining about their job or about students

(Hammersley, 1984) fits these criteria. Hargreaves (1992) notes:

Subjects are avoided and opinions are withheld which might expose
differences in professional approach, or which might make teachers
vulnerable to invidiously comparative appraisal by others. So, in these
staffrooms, educational theory, long-term plans, discussions about basic
purposes and underlying assumptions are virtually absent features of
teacher talk. Sharing is confined instead to stories, tips and news—to
things that will not intrude upon or challenge the autonomous
judgment of the classroom-isolated teacher. (p. 221)

Thus the kinds of topics and issues that the novices expected or most
hoped to hear their colleagues discussing (e.g., a lesson that went
spectacularly, or one that failed miserably) are the very topics least likely to
surface in the staffroom context (though they may surface elsewhere, e.g., in
grade level meetings). I raise this issue in order to provide some context for
the vignettes described below. It is important to understand that these
vignettes are not intended to be read as cases of good teachers vs. villainous

teachers. Rather, they should be regarded as a lens through which to view the

118
tensions and choices faced by one group of novice teachers attempting to

construct a sense of themselves in relation to their school colleagues.
:M‘l‘ .11‘N'|‘ .- 1. U A... :- A. ”1...... 5:15;",
In this first vignette, we will see all three tensions weave through the
novices' discussion of their interactions with their school colleagues: Their
desire for belonging and attachment, their need to be respected as a
professional, and the clash between their images of teachers and the reality
they see colleagues enacting in the school lunchroom. The subject of ”other
teachers” and their staffroom talk first came up during the inital Sharing
Circle meeting}29 about an hour and a half into the conversation. The group
members had been discussing their homework policies, when Val asked the
others what they did about children who regularly failed to complete their
homework. Lauren described the ”Homework Cafe,” an in-school, lunchtime
study hall that her colleagues had created to address the problem. Amy’s
narrative followed Lauren’s, in keeping with an established structure for
turn-taking via narrative rounds described earlier. Amy told about ”the
Lunch Bunch,” a similar kind of study hall that the teachers in her school had
instituted as an intervention for students who misbehaved during class, or
failed to complete their in-class work or homework assignments. Amy
explained that each of the five third grade teachers was responsible for
supervising the students one day a week during the after-lunch recess period.
She took pains in her narrative to indicate her hesitation about this program,
to assure her peers that it was not something she used much, and to explain

her rationale for participating in the program:

 

29 This meeting was held on November 2, 1992.

119

Amy: I noticed, um, I somehow got Friday, cause I-someone else set
this up—but that was a stupidest thing I could’ve done, because you can
do it for homework or for behavior problems, so, but Friday, I got all
these wild kids, just wild kids. And I never-I hardly, hardly flkeep
any of my kids in, I more did it , not cause I thought I would need it,
but because I wanted to make good rapport with the other teachers!

The other group members nodded at Amy's last sentence, providing
backchannel support with affirmative murmurs and comments. They too, it
seemed, felt the need to do things in order to achieve a sense of "rapport" or
be accepted by other teachers. Amy then used this opening as a segue into the

topic of her colleagues’ lunchroom conversations:

Amy: I’m like, oh well, I might as well take a day-I usually go back (to
the room) anyway, cause the teachers in my school are so goddamed
W! I was telling you (Deb) about this, and— I usually eat lunch,
and then as soon as I’m done I go back to my room anyway, so it
doesn’t bother me, at all, to get out. The 3rd grade, I haven’t noticed it
with any other grade, but for some reason the 3rd grade teachers are
like: ”These are the worst kids we’ve ever had--yeh yehnah nah nah ”
(said in high-pitched, nasal voice).

All of the group members laughed and nodded their heads in response
to Amy’s comment, especially to the dialogue she includes and her tone of
voice30 when reporting the teachers’ comments. Faced daily with a difficult
situation-mot wanting to remain in the company of teachers whose ideology
appeared so at odds with her own--Amy deals with the situation by simply
leaving the scene, thus withdrawing from the interaction and the source of
tension. She could have chosen not to go to the staffroom at all, but worried
that the teachers would think she was a "snob." In the interest of "making
good rapport" with colleagues once again, Amy handled the dilemma in the

best way she knew how, by putting in an appearance for a short time, then

 

3° Amy’s use of a high-pitched, ”witch-like" voice (with accompanying facial grimaces) set a
precedent for the group members’ constructed dialogue. Subsequently, whenever one of the
novices supplied ”Other Teacher" dialogue, they used a similar tone of voice and facial
expressions. I have used italics throughout the text to denote this speech.

120
leaving quickly. This strategic action preserved her standing with the other

teachers (it may even have elicited their empathy, e.g., "The dedicated new
teacher uses her lunchtime to prepare for the afternoon's lessons"), and kept
her from having to listen to, or participate in, talk that violated her beliefs
about how teachers conduct themselves. On the other hand, by not
challenging the teachers or speaking up for her beliefs, Amy has not resolved
the conflict in her own mind, and can be left feeling that she has
compromised her principles, thus demonstrating the complexity and open-
endedness of this identity work.

Two of the group members then added comments to echo Amy’s

narrative and confirm that they shared her perspective:

Christine: Yeah, I’d much rather be with the kids, especially the older
kids. If I had to choose-

Lauren: Yeah! I know, me too.

At this point, Val asked Christine about her student teaching
experience, which had been with ”older” students, fifth graders like Val was
currently teaching, and the conversation shifted to a review of where the
various members had done their student teaching. Several minutes later, the
conversation briefly touched on the ”other teacher” issue once more when
Amy commented that she was going to take a ”student teacher” in her
classroom for the spring semester. She clarified her use of the term ”student
teacher,” following the outbursts of surprise by the group, explaining that the
person (a student from a nearby university) was actually more of a participant
observer than student teacher in the class. Amy explained that while she
initially felt it was too soon in her career to take a student teacher, she had
changed her mind and decided to accept the pre-service teacher after talking

to the other teachers in the lounge.

121

Amy: I was like, umukind of disappointed when I heard this-this is
more of what made me take one-she said ”Well, they come in and run
all your dittoes for you--”

Val: Be your gopher--

Amy: I’m like, gee, that’s a lot of good experience for this poor kid
that’s a freshmanuit’s kind of like their first teaching experience in the
classroom thing. So I’m like, sure, I’ll take one and I’ll have them
doing more than just--like running dittoes!

Val: That may be a blessing for her.

Deb: Very much so! Especially because you remember what it feels like
to want to have experiences with kids rather than be in the workroom
running dittoes.

This segment is interesting, following as it does the discussion of the
lunch room talk. In both instances, the novices are allying themselves not
with their co-workers but with students and student teachers. In both
instances, they express disappointment at their colleagues’ actions and
attitudes. Val was very engaged in helping to construct this conversation, as
shown by her comment, ”Be your gopher," offered as a completion to Amy’s
incomplete utterance (Coulthard, 1985). Amy’s explanation of her thinking,
that ”gee, that’s a lot of good experience for this poor kid...” was intendeduand
understood as-sarcasm. Her use of sarcasm here was more effective in
connecting her to the group members than if she had simply said ”I think it is
l terrible that they use student teachers as clerks.”

The conversation next shifted back to the Lunch Bunch plan again,
with Val commenting that the teachers in her school probably would not
want to give up their lunch period to supervise children. The group, led by
Val and Amy, warmed to the topic of how many children need extra help and
support outside of the classroom setting, and the references to other teachers

in their schools went temporarily underground. Three points are interesting

122
to note here: first, that the subject of other teachers, and their negativity

toward students (including student teachers), arises only in the context of
another topic (e.g., what goes on at their schools during lunchtime). Second,
although there is consensus about the topic, and all group members actively
participate in the conversation, they do not dwell on this seemingly shared
issue but rather shift quickly to other topics. In part, the novices may feel
uncomfortable talking at length about the other teachers, people older and
with more seniority, because they feel it is impolite and disrespectful. It may
also be, however, that the novices do not want to talk about their peers in
ways reminiscent of the staffroom talk of students. Third, there were
relatively few (approximately three) occasions during the meetings when the
novices spoke about the "Other Teachers" as exemplary teachers or good role
models. The Sharing Circle narratives did suggest, however, that the novices
viewed the other teachers as willing to listen and offer help or advice if such

assistance was solicited by the novices.

, u 7”

In this second vignette, taken from the fourth Sharing Circle meeting
held in January, we see that once again, the topic of other teachers’ negative
talk surfaces indirectly, in the context of other topics, and is taken up briefly
but intensely by all members of the group. In fact, the particular phrases and
language used, as well as the message conveyed, bear a striking resemblance
to those aired in the first meeting. The tension caused by their perception of
the fundamental conflict between the image they hold of teachers, and the
way they believe the other teachers are enacting the role is central in this

segment of the conversation on this evening.

123
About an hour and twenty minutes into the conversation, the three

first year teachers (Amy, Val, and Lauren) were describing how much they
enjoyed the informal occasions when they were able to ”just talk” with their
students. Lauren used the time before assemblies, Val used recess time, and
Amy told how she had begun having students eat with her in their
classroom. Her comment about eating lunch with students served to surface

the topic of negative staffroom talk once more:

Lauren: I eat lunch with some teachers who are so negative! And its
like, God, how can you be a teacher?

Val: [Mmmhmm]

Amy: [I know!]

Lauren: I mean they’re so down on the kids, they’re so down on the
[schools]—

Val: [the system—]

Lauren: Everything! They’re so negative! It’s like, ”Why can’t you be a
little bit more—like, hopeful?”

Val: Yeah, [that’s—]

Lauren: [And Duane] and Ijust sit there. And we’re just sitting
there looking at each other going ”Oh boy ...... ”

As in the first vignette, the group members seemed to be in agreement
about how much they disliked the negative ways that the teachers in their
schools talked about students. In the novices' view, teachers are supposed to
be positive, they are supposed to believe in students and students’ abilities,
they are supposed to be teaching because they are hopeful that they can make
a positive difference in children’s lives. Lauren’s rhetorical question, ”How
can you be a teacher?” (posed as if one of her school colleagues were in the

room), is almost plaintive in tone. With this question, she was not simply

124
talking about her colleagues, but was making a generalization about the

contradictory reality that people who (in her view) don’t act as teachers
should, nevertheless play that role.

In this accounting of staffroom talk, we also learned about how Lauren
coped with the situation at her school. Unlike Amy, who coped with the
tension by leaving the staffroom as soon as possible after finishing her lunch,
Lauren sat with Duane, the other new teacher in the building (who was
actually a peer from her teacher education program), and stayed silent.
Schempp, Sparkes 8: Templin (1993) have concluded that remaining silent is
a coping strategy that many novices use in order to demonstrate to colleagues
their willingness to fit in to the school culture. I see it also as a way of not
alienating their co-workers (a move which might jeopardize their chance to
form attachments or to be respected as a professional), but still resisting the
dominant school culture. For Lauren, in this instance, staying silent was not
quite the same as being silenced, for she had a compatriot nearby who shared
her feelings about the other teachers' actions. Still, like Amy in the first
vignette, this coping strategy requires that Lauren compromise herself to
some degree by not questioning or challenging the other teachers'

vieWpoints.

I stated earlier that the novices very much wanted validation from
their co-workers that they were doing a good job with their teaching, yet they
did not want to have to compromise their principles about what constituted
good teaching in order to get this validation. There were many instances
over the school year where the novices felt their ideas, skills, or classroom

accomplishments were not recognized or valued by their co-workers. I have

125
chosen to share a lengthy segment of one conversation that took place at the

second Sharing Circle meeting, held right before the Thanksgiving holiday. I
selected this segment because I believe it is especially illustrative of how the
novices' desire for validation interweaves with the other two tensions in
their talk. It also strikingly portrays the mixed feelings that the new teachers
have, their desire to be recognized as competent, their disappointment when
such recognition is not given, and the actions that they took in response to
this tension. On this evening, Amy and Claire remained to talk after the
meeting had officially adjourned and the other group members attending had
left. Claire was describing an upcoming ”reunion” that her students were

attending with three other second grade classes.

Claire: Yeah, but we’re going to have—there’s two 2nd grades in the
building I’m at, and there’s two 2nd grades in a different town, so we’re
all going to get together—we’re not going to really teach anything, we’re
just going to watch a movie, and let all the 2nd graders be together
again, because they all, in 1st grade they were all in the same school-

Amy: Well that’s kind of neat.
Claire: I think they’ll like it. They’re all going to eat lunch together.

Amy: That’s neat!

Deb: So is the other 2nd grade teacher in your building, has she been
there awhile, or is she new too?

Claire: About seven years, oh she’s neat. She’s the one that’s doing the
writing. And she’s really pushing—like she was so mad that they got
basal readers in cause last year they were up for new language arts and
reading, or maybe just reading equipment and books, and she was one-
she just recently went back and got her master’s degree, so she knows
all the new things and she’s always trying to do the newer things, so
she’s really nice to have next door. Really nice. She’d be neat to bring
to a meeting like this sometime.

Deb: You could.

Claire: She’d love it too.

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In this segment of the conversation, Claire clearly distinguished

between teachers who would enjoy and fit into our meetings, teachers ”like
us” and other teachers. Teachers ”like us” were people who are interested in
learning about and trying ”newer” ways of teaching. Amy and Claire see
themselves (and the other Circle members) as involved in this process; as all
had tried to establish literature-based, process-oriented language programs.
Both Amy and Claire had well-developed writing workshops, used literature
discussion groups, and made extensive use of reading response logs and
journals. Both used the basal readers mandated by their schools, but used
them as supplementary materials rather than as the foundation for their
reading instruction.

With the topic of ”teachers like us” on the table, Amy was reminded of

a comment made by one of her colleagues, a teacher ”not like us.”

Amy: That reminds me of something one of the other teachers said to
me this week, she said something about: ”Whole language is fine, but,
these kids, they don’t, if they don’t have the skills, well then, they're
not going to know how to look up --look a word up in the dictionary,
and if they can’t read it they’re not going to know how to pronouce it. ”
And I started thinking, I was like, ”Man, I don’t think I even remember
all those long and short syllables, those little signals any more,” I just

kind of-

With her last comment, that even she (a literate adult) may not have
memorized ”all those little signals,” Amy was responding to her colleague’s
observation that ”whole language is fine, but” a comment that Amy
perceived as a challenge to her competence as a language arts teacher. She
interpreted her co-worker’s comment as meaning ”whole language is not
fine, because it doesn’t teach children important and functionally useful
skills" (The word ”but” in the teacher’ s inital comment taking on large

significance here). Amy seemed to be testing out a supposition in her talk to

127
Claire and me, that it isn’t really important for children to learn those types of

skills, and that perhaps the other teacher was wrong. Claire picked up on the
theme of meaningless skills instruction by offering her own experience to

show her understanding of Amy’s point.

Claire: Oh the phonics my school has is pathetic-J can’t (laughs)-I
can’t figure some of it out for the life of me—-and I do try to do some
things with sounds, just every once in a while we’ll practice the sounds
the different words make-but I-there’s no way that I could keep up,
with all that stuff like signals.

Claire then continued, building on the topic by providing another example,
an explanation of how the phonics program attempts to make students
remember particular sounds using pnemonic devices, similar to something

Val had referred to in her math text earlier in the evening.

Claire: and this is another one like that math problem, all those
different things you have to think about. What they do is they give
you a picture of a tire, like, this is for the letter ”S.” You have a picture
of the tire, the air is leaking out of the tire, what sound does that make?

Amy: SSsssssss

Claire: -and that’s how you’re supposed to know what letter S makes.
(Amy and Claire laugh).

Amy: Tuh--tuh-tuhtt?

Claire: I know, you’re going ”ttt?” ”Air?” What is it? And then there’s
a car in the picture too—for hubcap!

Amy: (laughingly) HUBCAP!

Claire: Hubcap. Yeah, I know, I went in the first day and I was looking
at those up on the wall and I was like, why is there a picture of a tire in
front? For ”T,” no for ”F” there’s a goose, and it’s mad, and it’s
supposed to be going, ”Ffffuuuh.”

Amy: Oh please! (lots of laughter)

Claire: and then there’s a boat, going down a river really fast, and
you’re supposed to know that that’s going ”NNNNNN” for [”N.”]

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Amy: [God, those are so illogical.]

Deb: [It’s more complicated to ] memorize the
pnemonics than to just remember the sounds.

Claire: and then there’s a picture of an old-fashioned beater, and that’s
”Llllllll,” for ”L.”

Deb: It doesn’t even make that noise in reality; besides, how many kids
have seen an old-fashioned egg beater?

Amy; That’s so funny! It’ s ridiculous!

It is interesting to note here how freely the conversants exaggerated the
sounds and how critical they were of the method. (Somehow, it is much safer
to be critical of a technique than of a colleague.) The exaggeration served a
somewhat rhetorical function, in that by demonstrating how ridiculous such
skills instruction is, their own approach (i.e., not teaching isolated skills) is
made to seem the more reasonable one. Being critical of this particular
approach to the teaching of phonics may also serve as a defense mechanism,
temporarily shielding them from their own uncertainty about their own
knowledge of and preparation for teaching important reading (or other) skills.

As the conversation continued, I suggested that perhaps one problem
lay in the fact that other teachers may not have realized that as whole
language teachers, Amy and Claire did teach skills, (attempting here to lay
groundwork to then suggest that they need to teach other teachers, and not
just their students, about the whole language approach). Before I could go on,
Amy returned to the topic of how ridiculous certain skills instruction is, this
time providing an example of something that happened recently in her

classroom.

Deb: But that comment, you know, about—it just shows that so many
teachers, and other people, not just teachers— just don’t really
understand what whole language is, because of course kids would learn

129

skills in whole language, of course they’d learn how to use the
dictionary, and how to look up things in an encyclopedia, and
alphabetize, and they’d learn about sounds-

Amy: I think what she was talking about was those little stupid—you
know like the long, the long line over the ”A” that makes you say
llaayyee.ll

Deb: The pronunciation guides?

Amy: Yeah, but I’m like, is that really so important? I mean, when’s
the last time I’ve done that? When’s the last time I said, ”Oh, I think I
want to use this word that I don’t know today?” You know, and most
people, if they can read, they can figure out by what’s next to it if it’s
supposed to be short or long. One thing that I’ve come across is, my
science major friend has corrected me cause I taught my kids that

platelets (pronounced with a short ”a” sound), platelets make your
blood clot, and um—

11 II
3

Claire: Platelets (pronounced with a long sound).
Amy: Platelets (short ”a” sound), platelets,” (long ”a” sound). It’s
platelets, but I said platelets (short a sound), so they learned wrong, I
didn’t find out till afterwards, but you know, I mean how often does
that happen?

Claire: You learn the word just by being exposed to it a lot, like I
learned about it because my grandpa had leukemia, and I, you know, I
learned about blood that way, but otherwise--

Amy: Here I am teaching it, and if I had had any question in my head, I
would have gone and looked it up, but I just thought it was platelets,
you know, that’s how I read it, and I didn’t even think that it might be
platelets. It doesn’t look like it, so I didn’t even go bother to look it up
anyway, if I’d had a question in my mind, I would’ve gone and looked
it up. But I didn’t. I just said, ”Oh these are platelets,” They just-

Deb: And even though you’re not saying it the right way, you know
what it means.

Amy: Yeah. I mean really what I wanted them to know is there’s
something in your blood that makes it clot so you don’t bleed to death.
That’s I guess the most important thing, I don’t care if they remember
”Play-tel-ettes,” or ”Plaah-tel-ettes” but that there’s something there
that makes your blood clot, that’ s not blood. So, I don’t know.

130
In talking this situation through, and with Claire and I both showing

that we understood and agreed with her position, Amy seemed relatively
confident that in her teaching, she was focusing on the the most important
things: Whether or not the students undestood the main concepts of her
lessons. Still, she was not yet comfortable defending her position to her

colleagues:

Amy: But I find that I’m kind of chicken when teachers say those kinds
of things, I always just say, ”Well, there’s pluses and minuses to both
systems, right?” I always cop out like that, I’m not quite to the point
where I feel comfortable, just saying, ”Well, I totally disagree with you”
or something like that.

Claire: It’s hard too, because that’s the way we were brought up, and
they say, ”See, you can read, you can write.”

Deb: Right, that’s an argument they can always use.
Claire: Yup.

Deb: And you might not be able to change their mind by just saying I
don’t agree with you.

Amy: And you might just make an enemy, there too.

Deb: Mmmmm.

Amy: I usually just find some middle of the road thing, you know,
”Oh, there’s good and bad, there’s pluses and minuses.” I kind of try to
keep the peace, with what I’m doing in my room anyway, so- but then
some of them don’t care. One 2nd grade teacher just makes me so-she
makes me feel so good because she comes down, she asks me questions,
she asks my advice, and she is truly interested in what I have to say.
And I find myself asking her things before I’ll go and ask someone else,
cause she really listens to me, where other people are kind of like, ”Oh
that’s all fine and dandy, but you’ve got the good kids anyway.” That’s
their excuse for anything that I’m doing right now. We just traced,
traced our bodies and then we put all of our organs in it and our bones,
and you know, it was neat, cause it was all actual kid size, cause they
each traced their own body with their partner and everything, and um,
somebody came by and saw it, and then, they were talking about it, and
I heard them out in the hall, and she was saying: ”Oh well, she’s got all

131

the good kids anyway. ” That’s their excuse for everything. But, we’ll
see what they say next year.

Deb: That’s right.

Amy: Cause I keep telling the other 3rd grade teachers that I’ll take my
share next year.

Claire: That’s exactly what they said to me last year, ”just wait till next
year, ” they said. ”These 2nd graders are going to come..” and I, they
always said I had all the-that I had the good class. And that’ 8 why we
got to read and write all these books and posters and plays and things
like that. It couldn’t be that much more difficult with one group than
another.

By listening carefully to the language that Amy used in the last
segment of this vignette, we are given a new lens through which to view the
novices' experiences with their colleagues. Amy uses terms like "chicken
out," and "cop out," to describe her decision not to openly disagree with her
co-workers, and phrases like "keep the peace" and "make an enemy" when
describing the consequences of her actions. We can hear reflected in terms
like these her fear of alienating her more experienced co-workers, her own
disappointment with herself for not speaking up, and her lack of clear
certainty about what she knows and believes about the best way to be sure
students learn reading skills. It clearly bothers her that her colleagues do not
demonstrate respect for her professional ability, they explicitly refuse to
concede that her science and health lesson on body parts and systems was
well-taught, instead citing its success as due to student factors.

Still, Amy does (in this instance) seem to be conscious of why and how
she responds to Other Teachers in the particular way that she does, and what
the consequences of that response are. By finding a compromise position

from which to speak, Amy managed to reduce some of the tension surfaced

132
in this interaction with her co-worker, without making the other teacher an

"enemy."

Elli] ill] E”
At the final Sharing Circle meeting, held at the end of the school year

in June, the topic of teachers’ negativity in the staffroom surfaced again. The
group members were somewhat nostalgically recalling some of their
experiences in the Learning Community Program, focusing specifically on
how much they valued having professors who had listened to them and
believed in them. They linked the topic of their preparation experiences with
their school staffroom experiences by highlighting the differences between the
two. While in their teacher education program, even in the company of
professors or others whom they considered older, more experienced, or more

knowledgeable, they felt they had been able to be active contributors.

Val: I mean, we had so much conversation in there and it wasn’t like
us sitting back and-

Claire: Yeah, like they were the full source of information. Cause that
wasn’t the way it was. Although they knew it all (laughter) but, but
they listened to us.

Amy: They listened to us.

Claire: Yeah, (looking at Deb) you listened and then you went from
there.

Lauren: Yeah, and I was like okay, [I really—]
Amy: [--such a positive experience]
Val: [it was nothing but great]

Lauren: And it's so much to talk to people who believe like you
believe. Like I just get so frustrated in the lunchroom. I know I said it

133

before, but, they're Mcomplaining, and sometimes I agree.
Sometimes there are these kids that you know they're just stinkers.
And other times, you know, you're like, I had them for, cause we
switch classes, and I'm like, they're not bad. You know?

By raising the issue of her colleagues and their staffroom talk at this
point in the conversation, Lauren effectively communicated how
diametrically opposed she perceived herself (and the members of the
Learning Community Program) to be from the other teachers in her school.
In her view, they were clearly not people who believed what she believed,
although she did concede, for the first time, that in a few cases, the teachers
might be correct in their assessment of students. Nina echoed this concession
to other teachers, and made a point to emphasize that she considered her
colleague, Brenda, to be a great teacher, even though she believed Brenda was
wrong in her diagnosis of Mandy, one of Nina’s special needs students. For
the better part of the school year, Brenda had been urging Nina to have
Mandy placed in a special education classroom for emotionally impaired (EI)

students, a move that Nina vehemently opposed.

Nina. I know. Like Brenda’ s a great teacher. She was on the
interviewing team. But she says day after day, she goes,

”loam
!” And I, I finally say, I said, ”I don't think that's
the best place for her.”

Nina went on to explain how the teachers at her school were as negative and
likely to condemn students as being beyond redemption as the teachers at
Lauren’s school. In fact, she implied, her colleagues sought out (and were
almost delighted to find) confirmation that their former students had met

with misfortune.

Nina: And they sit in the lunchroom and they'll look through the
Terrytown Shopping Guide, and you know where they flip to? They
flip to the part that says who got arrested for what. ”Oh, I used to have

134

so and so and I always knew he’d end up... ” {said in a high pitched
voice}-I mean, and it's [such--]

Amy: [Oh noll

Nina: and I think, oh-my—gosh._ You guys are really looking at the
positive. {She now switches back to the high pitched, mocking voice}
”Oh, did you know, do you remember the Bradley kids? Well, the one
has a baby now and she's unmarried and the kid ’5 huge” and I mean,

Claire: (nods her head) Yup, yup, that's exactly what they do.
Amy: [Mmmmhmmmm.]

Nina: [You always] You know, / / I talk about Mandy a lot, too, but I
don't know.

Val: She has a smile on her face every time she does though.

Nina’s use of details and constructed dialogue, such as the name of the
newspaper, and the instance of the Bradley twins, were successful here as
involvement devices, as evidenced by Claire’s assertion ”that’s exactly what
they do,” as well as Amy and Val’s subsequent contributions. Tannen (1989)
explains how this works:

The invoking of details—specific, concrete, familiar--makes it possible
for an individual to recall and a hearer to recreate a scene in which
people (in this case teachers and students) are in relation to each other
and to objects in the world. (p. 166)

It wasn’t that the teachers at Claire’s school ever made those exact comments-
we can't know if they did-but that Nina’s example is taken as highly
representative of the kinds of comments the ”Other Teachers” were likely to
make. Claire was thus responding to Nina’s intended meaning, that Other
Teachers seemed to delight in confirming that they always knew ”these kids
would come to no good.” Nina tried to point out that there were different
ways for teachers to talk about students; she for example, talked about Mandy

frequently, not in a negative way, but out of concern for her well-being. Val

135
understood how Nina’s talk about Mandy was different, because Nina having

a smile on her face meant she enjoyed and appreciated Mandy. Having made
the point to her peers that she objected strongly to her colleagues’ ways of
talking about students, Nina went on to share her response to her colleague
Brenda. In the dialogue Nina constructed here, she included what she

”actually” said to Brenda, and what she wished she had said:

Nina: I mean, I don't know. And finally I, I don't know if you'd call it
standing up to her, exactly, but I said: ”Well, I believe that the El room
would be a very bad choice for her.” Well, you know, that... and she’s
like: ”Look at how she disturbs the kids and disturbs the learning” and
I feel like saying well, if you could come in and just see how well the
children have adapted themselves to her behavior. You know, they're
more adaptable than you are. But I didn't say that. But I don't know...I
don't know.

Val: It was just a whole different mode of thinking. When I think
about before I was in the program, I don't even know what I thought
anything was. And then, it is just really neat to have a mindset.

Lauren: Have your propensities that you believe in. (all talking
together)

Nina: and being able to actually stand up to another teacher in
the building- it’s not actually like a competition or anything but
you’ve gotta find a way to say it, you know.

With Nina’s final comment serving as a kind of closure on the topic,
the group members went on to talk about other things, their plans for
pursuing masters degrees at different institutions, their decisions to apply for
jobs in other districts, etc. In this instance, I heard the novices speaking with
more authority, with a clearer sense of who they are and what they believe in.
Nina and Lauren were now able to separate the talk from the person,
recognizing that teachers aren’t necessarily bad teachers (and may even be
good ones), even though they may hold and express different conceptions of

students. For Lauren, the recognition that she has a clear set of beliefs to draw

136
upon makes her more sure of who she is. For Nina, accepting the

responsibility to speak up on Mandy’s behalf helped her find a way to
negotiate between the alternatives of withdrawl, silence, compromise, and
standing up for her beliefs.

The conversation between Nina and Brenda about Mandy’s placement
occurred near the end of the school year, which was toward the end of Nina's
second year of teaching. It is difficult to know whether Nina would have
risked standing up to her older, more experienced colleague at an earlier
point in the school year. According to Nina's narrative, Brenda had been
urging her to move Mandy into a special education room for most of the
school year. While Nina had only recently spoken out against this, she had
clearly not capitulated to Brenda's request, even before she felt ready to speak
out. If Brenda had tried to force the issue earlier, Nina might have spoken
out then too, as her concern for Mandy might have overridden her fear of the
consequences of speaking out. Somehow, as Nina pointed out above,

"you've gotta find a way to say it."

I l . E I] If H
In each of the Sharing Circle conversations described above, the novice
teachers worked hard to set themselves apart from their colleagues, and both
implicitly and explicitly stated to the other Circle members that they did not
want to be like, or ever become like those ”other” teachers. In their desire to
craft and maintain an identity that stood in opposition to the ”traditional
teacher” identity, these particular teachers challenged the stereotypic view
that novices are desperate to adopt ways of talking, teaching, and being that
will enable them to fit in to their school cultures (Ryan, 1980). Like many of

the ”proactive” novices recently described by Goodman (1987; 1988), Zeichner

137
and Tabachnick (1985) and Nias (1989), these novices struggled to establish

themselves as independent and autonomous.

While some teacher educators, including myself, might be pleased to
learn that graduates of our programs are committed, not merely to "fit into"
the system, but to craft an identity for themselves, there are also reasons to
consider this situation cautiously, and with a degree of serious concern. It is
important to ask not only what the novices gained, but also what they lost
because of this perspective. How often did they foreclose on opportunities to
gain support and assistance from more experienced teachers as a result of this
commitment? It is also important to think about the ways that novice
teacher / experienced teacher relationships may influence the efficacy of staff
development efforts such as mentoring programs. Would it be possible to
create a situation where novices and their more experienced teachers could
work together (even in cases where they belong to different Discourses) to the
mutual benefit of both? I will take up these questions in depth in Chapter
Six. For now, though, I would like to consider the function that narrating
and co-narrating vignettes such as the four presented above played in the
novices' development of a sense of community between group members, and
the development of a professional identity.

I ' ° 0 ' fl " o o
-_ 11° 1 1‘1; 0 onus s 0 ‘2“: cl - -I|‘n 1.1901

In her book, Storytellingfiights, Amy Shuman (1986) reminds us that

conversational narrative demands that we focus on context as well as
on text, and on the relationship between narrative and event-not as a
matter of referentiality but as a matter of relationships between
speakers and listeners and, correspondingly, between the story world
and the storytelling situation. (p. 193)

138
This reminder was very much on my mind as I listened to the tapes of the

Sharing Circle meetings and reviewed the transcripts of our conversations. I
was curious about the fact that the portrayal of the "Other Teachers" was so
consistent, not only among all the group members, who taught in such
different settings, but also across the duration of the Sharing Circle. It was
intriguing as well to consider what it was about the topic of "Other Teachers"
that made it so compelling to the novice teachers. Was it simply that it
served as a common reference point? Was the category of "Other Teachers"
merely a symbol to represent the kind of teacher they did not want to
become? What was it about the group setting that might help account for the
"Other Teacher" narratives being told in the way they were?

I came to realize that the "Other Teachers" as a conversational topic
actually served several important purposes, not only for individual novices
but for the entire group as well. Talking about other teachers, teachers "th
like us," paradoxically helped the novices develop a sense of solidarity, of
being teachers "like us." In other words, by providing the group members
with a "them" to oppose, the topic forged a stronger sense of there being an
"us," of belonging to a community. This works, Mead (1968) believes, because
"the readiest way of arousing an emotional appreciation of a common issue is
to fight together for that issue" (p. 360). Gee (1990) also offers an explanation
that is helpful here; he asserts that any Discourse-defined way of speaking,
thinking, and being is partly defined in opposition to other, ultimately
opposing Discourses. In other words, one's position as a Learning
Community "kind of teacher" is partly defined by its points of opposition to a
"Traditional Teacher," or other kind of Teacher Discourse.

Distancing themselves from the Other Teacher Discourse whenever

possible in their conversations helped the participants to actually construct an

139
alternative Teacher Discourse. For example, highlighting the differences

between their pedagogical preferences and those of the Other Teachers helped
them clarify, in very concrete terms, the kind of teachers they hoped to be. In
a segment from the April Sharing Circle meeting, for example, Val describes

some of the differences between herself and a fellow fifth grade teacher:

Val: I can tell you I joke around more than the other fifth grade
teacher does. But I'm comparing—like we have completely different
teaching styles. Like her room is so organized and so neat. And like
she does all her bulletin boards and they're all done with like teacher
stuff. And then you look at mine and I've got garbage hanging all over
it and all over the classroom, you know, the kids have done it. And
you know, she teaches in rows. She has rows all year long, I mean, if

you can believe it. Which I can't even stand because I trip over the
desks.

Val’s intention here was to show the group members how different she and
her colleague are, without seeming to brag about her own approach (thus her
use of words like "garbage"). She wanted to create a picture that showed that
students in her room have ownership and freedom, they decorate the room
and bulletin boards, and they needn’t sit in rows. Instead of being regimented
and organized, she has stuff (”garbage”) everywhere, all made by students. In
both words and tone, Val went on to imply that she would never have her
students sit in rows (facing the teacher who would be lecturing at the front of
the room), besides being a ridiculous way to teach she would ”trip” over desks

as she circulated around the room.

Val: And I like, she has some positive teaching methods and some
that I would love to learn-like I think she teaches math beautifully
and her experience is obviously a million years more than mine. But
she's like a drill sergeant. I mean, she would not let the kids open their
valentines in school. Some things I really strongly disagree with and
but yet, being the new person on the block you sort of tend to go with
her ideas. Now, thank goodness she wasn't in my classroom because
my kids did open their valentines. But the room mother was like
pleading with her and I guess she still wouldn't let them.

140
Claire: What was the reasoning behind that?

Val: Because they really get into them, they get really noisy. And then
sometimes, they really like to read them, they giggle and see who
they're from. Takes a lot of time.

Lauren: Noise does not bother me.

Val: I'm like, it totally doesn't bother me. Now her room door is shut
all the time and it's really, and it's so quiet and like some of those kids-
-I feel like they're in a Nazi concentration camp.

Claire: When my room is so quiet I'm like worried.
Lauren: Yeah, like ”What's going on?”

Val: Yeah. Like mine are always jumping up and down or whatever.
And so we are completely different. So like, like the kids would never
dare like ask to do some of the things in that room and so it's just, and
I'm not saying that I'm right and she's wrong. Even though it might
sound like it right now.

Lauren: It's different.

Val: It is completely different.

I | |° lll'll QI] I l . Ell C] 1]
Looking across the various examples and instances described in these
novices’ conversation about their interaction with their co-workers, I am
struck once again by the monumental task novices take on as they seek
membership to our profession. While negotiating an identity for themselves
with students, they must also make choices every day about how they will
conduct themselves with their colleagues. This task involves navigating
through a web of complex tensions and making difficult choices about how to
manage, rather than solve them. This chapter described four of the actions

that the novices took in response to these complex tensions: withdrawl,

141
remaining silent, finding a position of compromise, or speaking up for their

beliefs.

. I think of the many times I have wondered about the graduates of our
teacher education programuall the times I asked myself, ”Will they be
successful with their students? Will they be able to create the kind of
classroom life they envision?” Perhaps I never realized that some of the
most difficult challenges they face, their biggest ”battles,” to use one of Claire’s
words, lie not inside of the classroom as much outside it, in their
relationships with other teachers.

It is not surprising that through their interactions and relationships
with other teachers, the novices discovered a new dimension of what it
means to enact the teacher role. Like many teacher education programs, the
Learning Community Program sought to prepare teacher candidates to work
effectively with children. Its curriculum focused primarily on what could
happen within the classroom, and in the teacher-student dyad. The
negotiation of a professional identity with Other Teachers (and well as with
Parents, as we will see in the upcoming chapter), broadened the circle of
contexts in which the novices did their identity work, and moved them

beyond their initial preparation for teaching.

CHAPTER FIVE
Who We Are With Our Students' Parents

I felt very confident, actually, after I had the
conferences with the parents; they had a lot of
good things to say to me, and I felt I had a lot of
good things to say to them, and it was really a
very positive experience...they really made me feel
good, they said, you know, ”You’re my son’s, you’re my
daughter’s, favorite teacher” and I was proud. That was
a good feeling. I also felt like I had some good suggestions
to give to the parents...

(Lauren Moffett, Interview, 6/18/93)

Introduction

In the two previous chapters, I described a number of conversations in
which the novice teachers shared personal narratives about their interactions
and relationships with significant others in their school world, namely their
students and colleagues. In this chapter, I turn to another important
constituency within the teachers’ school worlds, the parents31 of their
students. Although their interactions with parents were less frequent and
their relationships less intense than those with students and colleagues, the
novices often brought the topic of parents into the Sharing Circle
conversations, especially early in the school year (during the first three
Sharing Circle meetings). It is important to look at this talk, for as Lauren’s
comment above suggests, the novices’ interactions with parents have the
potential to influence their perceptions of themselves in their role as teacher.
Moreover, because teachers (like everyone else), are different selves with

different people in different social settings (Mead, 1934), an examination of

 

31 I use the term ”parent” throughout this chapter, intending the label to include step and

foster parents, grandparents, other relatives, or any person in the role of primary caregiver to a
child.

142

143
the novices' interactions with parents serves to highlight yet another

dimension of their emerging teacher identities.

Whereas novices' interactions with students called on them to define
themselves around issues of authority and equity; and interactions with other
teachers called on them to "manage" inherent tensions and conflicts around
issues like independance and autonomy; their interactions with parents
called on them to enact the teacher role in other ways: they needed to project
an image of themselves as competent professionals, knowledgeable about
curriculum and pedagogy as these relate to particular children. In their
teacher role, the novices also needed to find ways to communicate with and
involve parents (almost all of whom were older than them) in their
children's school experiences.

The notion that parents and teachers should communicate frequently,
and that parents should be involved in their children's education is deeply
embedded in the fabric of public school ideology; and in fact, there is
substantial support for this belief in the literature. Numerous studies
indicate that students in schools with a high level of parent involvement
show higher academic achievement, better attendance, and better in-school
behavior than students in schools with low parent involvement (Comer,
1980; Epstein, 1987; Henderson, 1987).

Unfortunately, however, there are varied interpretations and
understandings about what parent involvement entails. For a new teacher
who is just begirming to find her way with parents, the rhetoric of "parent
involvement" and the prevailing assumptions about different kinds of
parents and their ability to support children's learning make the negotiation

of a parent-oriented teacher identity a challenging task.

144
In this chapter, I will describe some of these prevailing assumptions

and misconceptions about parents, as they apply to my analysis of the novices’
talk about their experiences with parents. I begin with a brief overview of the
kinds of background experiences and expectations the novices may bring to
their practice, and I consider how these experiences may shape their sense of
what parent-teacher relationships could, or should look like. Next, I present a
model of three general types of relationships among parents and teachers
suggested by the current research on school and family relations and by my
analysis of the novices' conversations about parents. I use this model as a
lens through which to view the stances taken by the novices in their
narratives about their experiences with parents. I then present three
segments of conversation from the Sharing Circle meetings to illustrate how
these stances in turn shape the kind of teacher they are trying to be with
students' parents. Finally, I will examine how the novices' talk about their
experiences with parents is both related to and different from their talk about
their experiences with students and colleagues.

\0 ' ° ' 'u " .Q'. 21'. ' .141019119 .0: '1 ' A. I ’-. ‘1:

Before we examine the novices’ conversation and personal narratives

about parents, it is pertinent to consider their previous experience with
parent-teacher interactions. Not being parents themselves at the time of this
study, the novices had two main sources of information to draw upon in
order to craft their identities with parents: their recollections of how their
own parents and teachers interacted during the time they themselves were
students, and their pre-service course and field experiences. Each of these

sources of information is summarized below.

145

EersQnaLExperiences

As beginning teachers intent on establishing productive working
relationships with students’ parents, these novices drew on their memories32
of how their own parents and former teachers had interacted and
communicated. These memories--how their own parents interacted with
teachers and the kinds of relationships their parents had with the school
system in general—naturally influenced the implicit expectations or
assumptions they held about how ” good” teachers and "good" parents
conduct themselves with one another. It is important to note here that in
addition to being from white, mono-lingual, middle-income families, all
were from "intact" two-parent families; and four of the six had family
members who worked closely with schools: Christine’s mother worked as a
teacher’s aide, Amy’s father and Lauren’s mother were principals, and Claire’s
father was a secondary school teacher. Based on interviews with the
participants at the end of the year, and on comments made during the
Sharing Circle meetings (e.g., "As a child, I would never have challenged an
adult"), the novices considered themselves to have been "good" students, a

trait common to teachers studied by Lortie (1975) as well.

2 l' E .
In contrast to the many opportunities they had, over a great many

years, to observe and participate in student-teacher interactions—both as

students and as teacher candidates-the novices’ experiences, as either

participants in or observers of, teacher-parent interactions were more limited.

 

32Like "stories," memories are not objective, factual accounts. They therefore reveal issues
unresolved, wishes unfufilled, and have dramatic content and structure just as other stories of
experience do. As Bruner (1983) has observed, we reconstruct rather than recover our past.

146
The novices were not unusual in this regard; indeed, many educators have

observed that most teachers’ previous schooling and teacher education
experiences are too limited to prepare them adequately to communicate or
work with the diverse range of parents they are likely to encounter (Edwards,
in preparation; Hitz 8: Roper, 1986).

Typical of preservice programs, the one these novices attended offered
no methods coursework dealing explicitly with issues like communicating or
developing relationships with parents. However, while juniors, they had all
taken from the same instructor a social foundations course entitled ”School
and Community.” This course was aimed at helping them explore multiple
ways of thinking about the complex relationships between schools and
society. One section of the course focused specifically on investigating
relationships "...among schools, communities, and families and examine[d]
various interactions which may influence teacher and pupil behavior"
(Young, 1990, p. 1). A main theme of the course—to develop teacher
candidates' understandings and build appreciation for students' diverse
social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds—was a thread that wove through
and was reinforced in their entire teacher education program. Several of
their other courses touched on issues of culture and diversity as well; for
example, courses in a four-term literacy sequence dealt with linguistic
differences among school children and problems of helping the transition
from home to school be a process respectful of those differences and one that
might build upon all students' prior learning and background (Singer, 1990).
The program did not attempt to teach students "about" particular groups per
se, an approach which has been shown to reinforce stereotyping (Sleeter, 1991;
Zeichner, 1993) but rather sought to develop sensitivity toward and a

disposition to learn about students' backgrounds, and to foster a propensity

147
that advocated treating all students and their families with care, genuineness

and empathy (Learning Community Handbook, 1989).

While in the program, teacher candidates spent three semesters in
elementary and / or middle schools as part of their field practicum, in addition
to a semester-long student teaching experience. These experiences gave the
teacher candidates some opportunity to observe actual parent-teacher
interactions first hand. All were able to see, for example, how, when, and for
what purpose cooperating teachers communicated with parents via notes,
newletters, and telephone calls. In addition, a few had attended an ”Open
House” orientation event for parents, and all had participated, albeit in a
limited way, in some parent-teacher conferences. This participation usually
involved listening to their cooperating teachers conduct the conference and
offering a few of their own observations of the child being discussed. Some of
the novices had been allowed to lead several conferences under their
cooperating teachers' supervision. During their student teaching semester,
two of the novices, Amy and Claire, worked with cooperating teachers who
invited parents into the classroom once a week to assist with activities at
instructional "centers."

These various events are typical of "parent involvement" activities in
most American schools; they are taken-for-granted, institutionally-sanctioned
means for teachers and parents to communicate. Although such activities are
the norm in most schools, they have been criticized for a number of reasons.
According to Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (1978), these activities allow schools to
maintain an image of working together with parents without actually
allowing chances for in-depth conversation or potentially threatening

interactions. She observes that:

148

Parent-Teacher Association meetings and open house rituals at the
beginning of the school year are contrived occasions that symbolically
reaffirm the idealized parent-school relationship but rarely provide the
chance for authentic interaction. (p. 28)

Other critics maintain that many of these "traditional," school-based
modes of interacting and communicating with parents are problematic for a
variety of reasons. First, due to changes in family structures and work
schedules (Nieto, 1992), many parents have difficulty attending meetings or
volunteering to "help out" in classrooms during the school day (David, 1993).
Second, teachers' common practice of writing or telephoning parents only
when a child is experiencing some type of difficulty may serve to alienate
parents from school (Burns, 1993). Third, if parents do not attend school
functions or respond to requests from teachers in particular ways, teachers
may assume that parents do not value education or their child's success in
school (Davies, 1989; Flores, 1991). This assumption may or may not be
accurate, but it is rarely investigated further or validated by the teacher.

Nieto (1992) notes, "That the behaviors of middle-class parents of any
race or ethnic group tend to be different from those of poor parents is amply
documented" (p. 193). This creates a problem, Lareau (1989) suggests,
particularly because parents of poor children often do not have the same
cultural capital at their disposal as middle and upper-middle class parents.
This means, for example, that middle-class parents are more likely to work in
jobs that have a degree of autonomy and flexibility, making it easier for them
to rearrange their schedules to attend daytime conferences or school events,
while poor or working-class parents are less likely to be able to rearrange their
work schedules to allow for such participation. Then, when the poor parents

do not show up at the school, teachers typically and often erroneously

149
conclude that these parents simply do not care about their children's

education (Flores et al., 1991).

In sum, it is true that the Sharing Circle participants had some course-
related experience while still teacher candidates that connected to working
with parents. But such academic learning, even when backed up by field
experience, cannot adequately approximate the challenges of working as a

full-time teacher among diverse youngsters and their families.

Q Ill 1 . °|l E |

Given the novices' previous personal and programmatic experiences
with parent-teacher interactions, one might easily assume that the ways in
which they oriented to the teacher role with parents would be similar to
them. However, analysis of the narratives told by the Sharing Circle
participants about their interactions with parents showed this not to be the
case. While it was true that, as a group, their narratives about parents did
show that they were all considering different aspects of teaching than were
considered in their stories of interactions with students or colleagues, not all
Sharing Circle members held the same orientation to the teacher role with
parents. This stands in contrast to the relatively high degree of consensus
members seemed to share when discussing their interactions with pupils and
the other teachers with whom they worked.

Each of these different ways of enacting the teacher role was bound up
with a particular stance toward parents, each suggested different ways of
talking to and about parents, and each had implications for the images they
held of themselves as teachers. In effect, the different ways of orienting to the
teacher role with parents represented different ideologies. To the extent that

these different ideologies each involved a particular ”set of values and

150
viewpoints” (Gee, 1990, p. 144) about the possible relationships between

parents and teachers, we could consider them different types of Parent-
Teacher Discourses. My analysis of the parent data, and the literature on
parent-teacher interactions, identified three general ways of orienting to the
parent teacher relationship, or three "categories" of Parent-Teacher
Discourses, which I am describe here as "Co-Caregivers," "Associates," and
"Adversaries." Embedded within each of these categories are different beliefs
about parents and teachers, the kind of relationship they should cultivate and
the norms pertaining to the ways that they could (or should) interact and

communicate with one another. As Gee (1990) reminds us:

Each and every Discourse makes of us, while we are in it, a certain sort
of person; each and every Discourse ’calls forth’ certain ways of viewing
the world, ways of communicating to others, ways of valuing and
thinking about the world and our fellow human beings....(p. 191)

l D . E l I] I E E l-I l D.
I identified one category of Parent-Teacher Discourses as the "Co-
Caregiver Discourse." A parent or a teacher ascribing to this ideology holds
the perspective that parents and teachers are ”co-caregivers,” connected by a
common interest in a given child’s welfare, and committed to maintaining a
close and cooperative relationship. Burns (1993) believes that when teachers
and parents view one another this way, "education becomes a shared
venture, characterized by mutual respect and trust in which the importance
and influence of each partner is recognized” (p. 9). A Co-Caregiver teacher
would believe that parents usually make decisions with their child's well-
being in mind, even if she (the teacher) disagreed with the parents' methods

or decisions. In other words, Co—caregiver parents and teachers would not

151
necessarily have to concur at all times, but they would have to respect each

other's judgment and singular expertise.

I labeled a second Parent-Teacher Discourse as the "Associates
Discourse." Members of this Discourse seek to create and maintain a polite,
business-like relationship with their school or home counterparts. These
parents and teachers see themselves and each other as both making
worthwhile contributions to the education of the child, but do not expect to
develop a close, intimate relationship with one another. The attitude of
members of this Discourse might be represented by the phrase: "You do your
job, I'll do mine." Most traditional forms of communication between home
and school (i. e., report cards and parent-teacher conferences), are designed to
support this view of parent-teacher relationships and maintain the
boundaries between home and school. Teachers in this Parent—Teacher
Discourse would expect to notify a parent if his / her child was in trouble or
experiencing a problem; the parent would accept the responsibility to attend
to the problem quickly and efficiently. Members of this Discourse would
perceive little need for other contact between parents and teachers beyond the
traditional events of conferences and PTA meetings, the occasional holiday
performance, and weekly or monthly newsletter.

I called the third Parent-Teacher Discourse the "Adversaries
Discourse." Members of this Discourse tend to view their home or school
counterpart as a potential ”adversary,” or what Waller (1932) calls a "natural
enemy." The relationship that the parties establish is characterized by mutual
distrust and disrespect, and may be either confrontational or defensive (or
both). From an Adversarial teacher's perspective, a parent who often
challenges her authority, works against her (or fails to support her or respond

to her requests), or seems not to have what the teacher believes is the child's

152
best interests at heart may be considered an adversary. Similarly, an

Adversarial parent might see a teacher as an enemy if the teacher appeared
unresponsive to his or her concerns, made the parent feel devalued, treated
his/ her child in a disrespectful way, or used materials or teaching approaches
that the parent found problematic. There is some evidence that parents and
teachers who do not share common racial, cultural, and socio-economic
backgrounds are more likely to ascribe adversarial motives to their school or
home counterpart (i.e., Flores, et a1, 1991; Lareau, 1989).

These three categories of Parent-Teacher Discourses are shown as
concentric circles in figure}. below. The Co-Caregiver Discourse is
represented by the center circle, implying a close, intimate relationship
between parent and teacher. As the circles become farther from the center,
the parent-teacher relationship becomes less tightly connected and more
distant.

In the text following EigmgA, I will present narratives in which
experiences with parents are the focus of the group's conversation. The three
narratives do not correspond to each of the three categories shown in BM
separately, because the novices' tellings were rarely so simple or self-
contained. I selected them instead because they illustrate nicely: ( 1) the
varying ways group members talked to and about parents, depending on their
membership in a given Parent-Teacher Discourse; (2) the fact that participants
could belong to (or move between) multiple, even conflicting Discourses
simultaneously; (3) The Sharing Circle participants attempts through their
conversations together to make sense of (or make peace with), the kinds of
relationships they were establishing with parents; and (4) the ways in which
novices' interactions with parents shaped the evolving images they held of

themselves as teachers.

153

 

  

Adversaries

  
 

 

Associates

  
  
 

  

Co=
Caregivers

I

    

 

 

Parents IT eacher as Co-Caregivers

l

l

I Members of a learnin family/ community
Relationship is close generally friendly

I Based on mutual respect 8: sense of interdependence

l

I

|

Parents viewed as central to the education process
Mutually cooperative
Parents seen as source of support and information
Parents seen as validating teacher's sense of self
United by shared commitment to child's best interests

 

 

l Parents IT eacher as Associates

Partners in the business of education
Relationship is polite 8: businesslike
Based on shared interests 8: responsibilities
Parents viewed as helpful but not central to the process
Mutually tolerant
Parents seen as otential source of support
Parents seen as va 'dating teacher's sense of self
Connected by shared interest in child's welfare

 

 

 

l
|
l
I
l
l
I
|
l
I
l
l
I
|
I
i

 

Parents [Teacher as Adversaries

Independent agents in the education rocess
Relationship is confrontational or de ensive
Based on required tolerance
Parents viewed as outside of the education process
Mutually distrustful
Parents seen as source of tension or anxiety
Parents seen as challenging teacher sense of self

co

Divided by lack of agreement mmitment to child's interests

 

 

 

Ejgme 4. Three Categories of Parent-Teacher Discourses

154
I I' Q “I °|'ll . E I-I l D.

Parents and teachers bring to their encounters with one another
expectations and attitudes about their own and each other's role, and about
the kind of relationship they hope to develop. These preconceptions are
based on their past experiences as students and on previous encounters with
other parents or teachers. Teachers may also acquire expectations about what
parents can or should do, based on their interactions with other teachers in
their schools, and from their teacher preparation experiences. Typically,
teachers expect parents to demonstrate their participation in their child's
education in particular ways, for example, reading to and with children,
taking them to the library, helping them with homework, and attending
school social functions and conferences (Becker 8: Epstein, 1982).

Despite the kind of Parent-Teacher Discourse community to which the
novices initially hoped (or expected) to belong, their membership in a given
Parent-Teacher Discourse varied according to the dialectical interaction
between themselves and individual parents. In a some instances, both the
novices and the parents started as (potential) members of the same Parent-
Teacher Discourse. Often, though, the two parties found themselves
communicating across differing Discourses. Vignette One presents a
conversation in which a parent does not conform to one novice's initial
expectations for their relationship. As she shares this experience in the
Sharing Circle, other group members become involved in trying to interpret
"what happened," and thus have an opportunity to listen to and articulate for
themselves differing views of Parent-Teacher relationships.

, Since the Parent-Teacher Discourses are jointly constructed, sometimes
in the process of interacting with one another, one or both of the parties were

able to move to the other's Discourse. For example, in Vignette Two, we will

155
hear Claire, (who with Co-Caregivers), describe an interaction with an angry

parent (who was operating from the Adversaries Discourse). Claire brought
to that encounter very positive feelings about parents, in part based on her
experiences the year before when a group of her students' parents had
petitioned the school board to keep her position. Her initial Discourse-
defined position (Gee, 1990), allowed her to interact with the angry parent in a
way that enabled them to establish a "middle ground" relationship.

Finally, in Vignette Three, we will see that regardless of the category of
Parent-Teacher Discourse to which the novices most often belonged, they still
struggled at times to find the most appropriate way to interact with parents,
especially when reporting the social or educational problems experienced by a
particular child. Taken together, an examination of these three vignettes will
help us to develop an understanding of how these novices approached the
question, "Who are we with our students' parents?"

u. ..d. ”a. .1: OJ-n a.” H .. Q _' _ .1 r :_ 2.01.1.0

The first segment of conversation about parents occured during the
group’s first meeting in early November. All three first-year teachers, Amy,
Val, and Lauren, and one of the second-year teachers, Christine, were present
at this meeting. The conversation, which had begun with group members
sharing personal narratives of individual students and activities scheduled at
their schools (as a way of orienting one another to the school situation in
which each was teaching), moved into a comparison of resources (or lack of
resources) available at their respective schools, and finally evolved into a
debate about whether poor and working-class parents "cared" as much about

their children as middle-upper class parents.

156
In this instance, we will see how Amy and Lauren, who tell narratives

locating themselves in the Co-Caregiver Discourse, come into conflict with
Val, whose narratives locate her in the Adversaries Discourse, and alternately
with Christine, who moves between the two Discourses. I was unable to
determine whether the novices took the particular stances they did based
solely on the parents they had encountered in their teaching careers thus far,
but suspect that they were probably also influenced by other teachers at their
schools, and their own background experiences.

Involvement in this conversation was high, all participants
contributed to the discussion enthusiastically, and their talk was marked by
rapid tum-taking and a great deal of overlapping speech. I left the group for
several minutes as this topic began to gel in order to remove the dinner from
the oven. I had finished setting the dinner entrees on the table, and rejoined
the group just as Val, who was teaching fifth grade in a suburban school that
draws many of its students from a nearby low-income trailer park, told the
group that she had been spending a lot of her own money to purchase school
supplies like notebooks and markers that her students could not afford.

It seemed important to Val that she convey through this narrative a
picture of herself as someone who is devoted to the most needy of her
students. The way in which she framed her narrative allowed her to present
herself to her Learning Community peers as a caring and giving person, as
well as to affirm those aspects of her substantial self. She noted, for instance,
that she was most drawn to her low-income students, feeling that they (more

than the children of doctors and lawyers), needed her support and affection.

Val: Like I went out and bought all the notebooks. I’ve gone out and
bought markers and stuff, just because, some of the kids—I don’t know
where yours are from, but some of the kids like, don’t have any of that
stuff. These students, I mean, they-some of them—its such a mix, I

157

mean, its like real life. It’s really neat, like we’ve got like parents who
are doctors and lawyers and all that kind of stuff, but the other ones
like live in the trailer park and come to school and they smell, and
they’re dirty, and you know, you want to love them to pieces. I mean,
they just have nothing.

Although there were nods and backchannel responses to Val’s
comment about buying school supplies, no one in the group responded
directly to her observation that the students from the trailer park were ill-
kempt. After a moment of silence, Christine commented on Val’s students

being from diverse backgrounds:

Christine: So you have a real mix.

Val: It’s a big mix!

Amy, who had done her student teaching the year before in another
school in Val’s current district, attempted to join the conversation here by
stating, ”I didn’t notice that at all.” Val, however, continued to try to advance
the theme she had begun to build moments earlier, namely, her observation
that low-income students were not well-cared for by their parents, this time
offering a story about the father of one of her students, complete with
constructed dialogue, to illustrate and emphasize her point. This strategy
proved successful for Val; it served to heighten the active participation of her
listeners (Tannen, 1989), and kept them focused on her narrative, as
evidenced by their questions and responses. Note also Val’s use of repetition;
she repeated and confirmed Amy’s question, as well as her own constructed
dialogue of the parent’s comment.

Amy: I didn’t notice that in my school at all...

Val: I don’t know, you just feel for those kids that just-their parents
aren’t there, you know. You go home, and they’re not there. I have
kids who are alene till 10:00 at night! I had this one, this one man
come in, ”Hey, is Nicky here?” This guy is like a grandpa’s age, but he’s

158

Nicky’s dad. I’m like, ”No, he’s not here.” He’s like, ”Well, maybe he
went over to Sam’s Steakhouse to have the buffet.”

Lauren: [What?] By himself?
Christine: [What?]
Amy: This was after school?

Val: This was after school! At like seven o’clock! Sam’s is was
Central Boulevard no less! ”Maybe he went over to Sam’s Steakhouse
to have the buffet.” I mean, he said it just like THAT! I had to chuckle
later on.

Listening to the conversation thus far, it seemed that Val had made an
assumption that this parent (who was so different from her own middle-class
parents) belonged to the Adversaries Discourse, because he failed to act in
ways that she believed demonstrated his commitment to the child's best
interests. This fits with a finding by Flores, et al., (1991), that both novice and
veteran teachers often form perceptions about parents based on incomplete
understandings of the parents' social or cultural background and socio-
economic circumstances.

With her brief remark, ”I mean, he said it just like that!” and her tone
of voice, Val not only conveyed her own incredulity at what this parent
considered acceptable behavior for Nicky, but also managed to imply that
Nicky’s father was fufilling his parental role in a less than ideal manner,
citing as evidence the fact that he did not know where his ten year-old son
was at that time of night, and that he allowed the boy to cross a wide, highly
trafficked street in order to eat alone at a restaurant. Val seemed to believe
that this incident proved her point that low income parents ”aren’t there for”

their children.33 Amy, however, offered a counter example to advance her

 

r

33There are, of course, other ways that a teacher could interpret the parent's actions. For
example, in his study of native Hawaiian parents, D'Amato (1986) found that it is considered

159
belief that low income parents care just as much as other parents about their

children. She drew on her past observations of children in her student
teaching site who received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (her

”AFCD kids”), noting that they were well-groomed and seemed very cared for
(and cared about) by their parents.

Amy: But I was going to say, at Shady Pines (where she had her

student teaching experience), like even all my AFCD kids, they came in
with nice clothes--

Val: Did they?
Lauren: / / I know—

Amy: / / And, one mom curled her little girl’s hair, exery
morning, you know. I shouldn’t classify like that, because that’s not
true always, but it just seemed like elen the kids whose moms didn’t

care about helping them with their school work still eareiabout them.
This school I work in now-

With her comment, ”I shouldn’t classify like that, because that’s not
true always,” Amy tried to convey to Val (albeit politely) that while she
(Amy) recognized that her own conclusions might sometimes be faulty, so
too might Val’s. Amy took care to couch this warning in such a way that the
friendly and generally congenial tone of the conversation was maintained;
she used an ”1” statement instead of saying to Val ”1m; shouldn’t classify like
that,” perhaps to soften the blow. Still, Amy directly challenged Val's
position, arguing that they as teachers should not make assumptions about all
parents based solely on the parents’ social class. Lauren, who also worked in a

school with a socio-economically diverse population, started to join in here

 

desirable for children to take responsibility for caring for themselves; parents encourage and
expect that even very young children will dress, feed, and get themselves from place to place,
either on foot or on a city bus. Children take pride in being self-sufficient and parents believe
that fostering independence will best prepare children to move comfortably in the world. It
might be possible that Nicky's father was operating from a similar belief system.

160
in support of Amy’s position. She quickly lost the floor to Val, though, who

had picked up on Amy’s point that not all ”poor” parents help their children
with schoolwork. Val suggested that as teachers, they needed to be aware of
the past education experiences and reading level of the students’ parents, so
that their letters home could be written at an appropriate level. Val worked
hard here to present herself as someone who was willing to adjust her own
practices based on parent needs. But her comment also revealed an
assumption that low income parents are less educated than others, and thus

perhaps less capable of helping children with their schoolwork.

Lauren: Part of my group of kids are rural, and so poor too /and-

Val: / And that really makes
you think twice, though. Because you send home these letters that you
type up and you do this and you do that, and you really have to write
for the common person, like, like, not the college level reading ability,
or the high school-I really think I have to bring it down sometimes.

Christine: That’s true. That’s what I find interesting in the school I’m
teaching in--it’s um, I mean it’s very much blue collar, you know,
working parents, and it’s just funny cause on their emergency card,
there’s a place for mother and father and then there’s a place where

they can circle how many years of education they have, and it says like.
9, 10-

Val: Oh yeah, we have that!

Christineznor 11; or 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, you know, for people and it’s really
interesting, you know, last year I only had three parents past grade 10—

Val: Oh wow!

Christine: -and one father that had any college education at all, and
this year I’ve got, I think a few more than that. But that’s kind of
interesting when you see on their form—I mean, not that I memorize
it—I don’t, but when you see on there that Ted’s mother only has a 9th
grade education-4t makes you think and kind of be more prepared,
even. I try to look at it sort of before conferences,

Val: Sure--

161
Christine’s next contribution served as an interesting kind of bridge

between the two positions that had been taken. By agreeing with Val that
teachers need to be aware of the educational background of parents, Christine
offered support for Val’s previous point, but her next comment showed that

she clearly supported Amy’s perspective as well.

Christine: just so I know where they’re coming from. And it doesn’t
always meanulike I found last year—it doesn’t always mean they don’t
care about education because they haven’t had one, I had these parents
who told me, ”We only made it to the 9th grade, we want more for our
children,” you know, or ”We have Encyclopedia Britannica at home,
she belongs to book clubs, we make sure she does everything.” And
sometimes I’m afraid they’re pushing her a little too hard, and I talked
to the 4th grade teacher and she said, the little girl’s like, pressured. But
they were just wonderful, you know—5e supportive, came on all the
field trips--the dad would come on the field trips, the mom would
make cookies—all the time, but they were really neat, and triedjo help
with her homework even though they all spoke mostly Spanish, and
they were real conscious of that.

Lauren, who had tried to join the conversation several times in support of
Amy’s position, suggested another possible explanation for parents seeming
not to care about their children. Her idea elicted nods and murmurs of assent
from the other three teachers.

Lauren: Sometimes they have so many problems in their own [lives--]

Val: [When] they’re
using drugs and alcohol and addicted to prescription drugs, and the
kids know it-

Christine next offered another explanation, that parents may simply hold
different expectations of teachers and schooling, based on their own

experiences as students:

Christine: A lot of them went through this elementary school, and
their idea of education is different. They say, ”That’s not the way I was
taught, the way I was taught was the right way!” And, you know, like

162

last year I had a parent come in, irate, ”Why are you teaching my child
why to multiply? All he needs to know is, memorize it, just memorize
it, he doesn’t need to know what he’s doing. You’re trying to show

him with blocks and that’s not the way I learned it!” And I told him
what I wanted John to know, and why, and what we were doing in
class, and that yes he had to memorize them, but yes, he had to
understand why we were doing this in the first place too.

Amy: Yeah.

Up until this point, Christine had sided with Amy and Lauren in the
way she talked about her students’ parents—she had tried to present herself as
a Co-Caregiver, as non-judgmental about parents' educational and economic
backgrounds, and as someone who is supportive of-and supported by-low
income, or working class parents. In the face of the one parent’s challenge of
her mathematics instruction, she suddenly appears to make a shift, from Co-
Caregiver to the Adversaries Discourse. Her subsequent comments now

contradict her own earlier perspective.

Christine: I guess—that bugs me after awhile-that attitude they have,
like ”look where I am.” And I’m thinking, ”Yeah, look where you
are”-but I, I’d neyer say that.

Val: It’s a real eye—opener when you get insights into these families
like a real welfare family. (Sharing Circle Transcript, 11 / 02/ 92)

Val's assumption here that low income families are necessarily
"welfare families" is telling, and her comment about "these families"
indicates her conception of them as "others." Again, typical of many other
teachers (particularly those from the dominant culture), who themselves did
not experience home/ school expectations as discontinuous, Christine and Val
locate this student and his father's problems with school as rooted in their
home experiences (Paine, 1990; Flores, et al., 1991; Nieto, 1992).

163
What could account for Christine’s shift to a contradictory position? I

could surmise that when the parent approached her from the Adversaries
Discourse and directly challenged her professional competence (e.g., like
John’s father challenging the way she teaches mathematics), she was more
likely to respond from the Adversaries Discourse herself. This would help to
explain how Christine, usually so sensitive to and understanding of others,
might feel justified in devaluing the parent's complaint. By locating herself
in the Adversaries Discourse, she was able to rationalize her dismissal of the
parent's concern as legitimate, or educationally sound.

We could also look to her own experiences as a white, middle-class
student, knowing that like all beginners, she brings ideas about teaching and
learning that shape her practice (Paine, 1990). In a debriefing interview held
at the end of the school year, for instance, she spoke passionately about her

belief in the value of education:

My parents had always taught me that school is very important, and
your education is your key to the future, and the more education you
have, the more experiences you have in life, the more fufilling your
life will be. (Interview, 6 / 28/ 93)

Christine was very much drawing on her own parents as models for
her expectations of her students' parents. When students’ parents acted in
ways like her own parents, i.e., that Christine believed demonstrated a
commitment to education (like the Spanish-speaking parents), she was more
likely to view them as supportive and caring about their child’s welfare, and
thus remained in the Co-Caregiver Discourse. Much as she wanted to present
herself to her peers as friendly and supportive of parents, when they exhibited
a ”what was good enough for me is good enough for my kid,” attitude toward

education (and thus devalued what Christine was trying to accomplish) she

164
found herself at odds with them, and adjusted her stance toward them

accordingly.

Toward the end of the exchange, Amy and Lauren were beginning to
make movements that indicated they were ready to serve themselves dinner,
which I had laid out on the table prior to Val’s opening comment about
buying school supplies for her students. Although I was aware of this, I still
made a move to refocus the conversation back to the issue of parents, hoping
that they would continue to discuss the issues raised by Christine and Val.
Instead of asking a direct question, or expressing my own thoughts on these
issues (either of which might have been successful in pushing the discussion
forward), I used the somewhat ”teacher-ish” technique of putting out to the
group what I thought was a fairly open-ended statement, namely, ”You’ll
have an interesting time meeting parents with conferences coming up.”
Rather than serving as a conversation starter, this comment instead seemed
to function as a kind of closure on the topic, shutting down the discussion of
parents for the time being. Group members moved to serve themselves
dinner, and began talking about other issues.

As I examine this interchange now I am left with mixed reactions and
many unanswered questions. On the one hand, this conversation gave the
novices an opportunity to ”try on” a particular Discourse and begin to
articulate their position in regards to one category of parents. It gave them a
chance to hear and critique other positions as well. This is important, for in
order to learn more about who they want to be with parents, they need to find
out who they don’t want to be as well. The conversation also provided a
forum in which to give and receive feedback from people whose opinion they

valued in the process of grappling with a difficult issue.

165
It may be that the norms for maintaining a friendly conversation

dictated that the talk stop when it did, as the topic was clearly controversial
and the novices seemed to have reached an impasse. On the other hand, I
wonder about the consequences of the talk stopping at when it did, and what I
could have done to move the conversation to a more educative conclusion.

I revisit this question in Chapter Six when I critique my role in the Sharing

Circle conversations.

put; it ‘1': on :5: ° A‘ IQ". chicorz ‘n no.

The father who complained to Christine about her mathematics
instruction was not the first—nor the onlyuparent to challenge one of the
novices in this group. Indeed, early in the school year, several of the novices
described instances when parents had approached them in a confrontational
manner about issues of curriculum or pedagogy. However, complaints or
challenges from Adversarial parents did not necessarily lead the novices to
respond in kind. Sometimes the novice adjusted her Discourse location in
response to parents (as we saw with Christine in the example above), but at
other times, the novice remained in her initially chosen Discourse, and gave
meaning to the parents' actions based on that stance. (Of course, the same
situation holds true for parents.) Examing how the novice framed her
narrative to the group and how she reported responding to parents'
challenges offers interesting insights about the Parent-Teacher Discourse from
which she wanted to belong.

When the novice oriented toward Co-Caregivers, she was more likely
to present herself to the group as accepting and understanding of the parent's

perspective, whatever it might be. Amy for instance, had some complaints

166
from parents when she described her reading program at her school's Open

House because she had decided to supplement the school's required basal
program by using novels and literature circles. Amy puts on a brave front

here in representing the parents' concerns:

Amy: I had a lot of parents—problems with parents at the beginning of
the year. "Hm are you going to handle this? This is your first year of
teaching, nah, nah, nah, nah." You know what I mean? Just, I think,
being a split class and not knowing, and all that and they were just
worried and making surenthey're real worried about the kids not
getting the "skills" that they need for that grade, that they're going to be

missing something....(Sharing Circle Transcript, 11/ 02/ 92)34

It was important for Amy to frame the parents' concern as legitimate
for two reasons. First, since she was trying to work from the Co-Caregiver
Discourse, it behooved her to count in the parents' favor their expressed
concern about whether she (the teacher) was meeting a given child’s needs.
In Amy’s portrayal of the complaints quoted above, the parents were "just
worried" and trying to make sure their children were learning what they
needed to know; a legitimate position for a parent to take. Second, the fact
that Amy was sharing this narrative among a group of fellow teachers
influenced the telling; she wanted to show herself to people she valued as a
confident and competent, "Learning Community" kind of teacher.

As I listened to the other novices’ also tell of challenges from parents, I
noted how hard they too worked to show one another that they took these
challenges in stride. In keeping with the identity they were trying to establish
as Co-Caregivers, this makes a great deal of sense. If you want to show that

you have empathy and value parents' opinions and feedback, then it is

 

341t is interesting to note that the parents' criticism of Amy's instruction was very similar to
the challenge she reported from other teachers in her school. Her feelings about the
challenges from these two sources, and her response to the parties involved differed quite a bit.

167
necessary to value their concerns, even when those concerns are expressed in

the form of criticism.

The way, then, that each novice interpreted parent challenges seemed
to depend very much on the Discourse she began from. Complaints were not
perceived as quite as threatening (or even threatening at all) if the teacher was
in the Co-Caregiver Discourse, as she then assumed that the parents were
motivated to complain out of concern for their child. Similarly, when the
novice was operating from the Adversaries Discourse, parent complaints
were perceived as threatening to the teacher’s sense of competence, and
indicative of some problem or deficit in understanding on the parents’ part.
In other words, the same speech act (e.g., a parent complaint) might have
different elocutionary force or prelocutionary effect depending on the set of
role relationships in which it is embedded.

In order better to understand how parent challenges were interpreted
by the novices and how they influenced their sense of self-as-teacher, I will
present below my analysis of an excerpt from the second Sharing Circle
meeting. At the time of this meeting, the teachers had just completed the Fall
parent-teacher conferences. For Amy, Val, and Lauren, it was the first time
they had planned and conducted conferences entirely on their own; for the
others in the group, their second time. As we waited for the other Sharing
Circle members to arrive, Amy, Claire, and Val were catching up on recent
events at one another’s schools. Claire initiated the discussion of parent-
teacher conferences by explaining that her school had given the teachers
release time to hold the meetings. She went on to state that she had enjoyed
her meetings with parents (unlike her school colleagues, who complained
about having to hold conferences) even though one of the parents had

approached her from an adversarial position.

168

Claire: It seems like most teachers act like you should DREAD parent
teacher conferences, and I just, it's never been--I've only had one, kind
of strong encounter with a parent-

Deb: What happened?

Claire: Remember I told you, about that? It was a new student, and the
mom was really upset that ten to twelve worksheets a day weren't
coming home?

Deb: Oh yeah, right, right.

Val: Oh--

Claire: Her philosophy was [that--]

Amy: [Busy hands?] (Amy laughs)

Claire: No, her philosophy was, that she didn't want her son to be,
having to be around the 70% of kids who couldn't work up to the level
that he could, and that you only hang around those as good as you or
better, otherwise you grow stagnant-

In her recounting of their conversation, it was apparent that the parent
was quite confrontational and critical of Claire's approach to teaching. In fact,
Claire went on to tell the group that the parent had actually taken her son out
of her classroom and placed him in a private (Catholic) school. After a brief
deviation from this narrative in which Val and Amy described some of their
experiences with parents during conferences, all of which were reportedly
very positive, I turned the conversation back to Claire’s experience with

Billy’s mother.

Deb: So did the rest of your conferences go well, Claire?

Claire: Yup. That lady had approached me earlier, that's when our
conversation was, and then she came in for conferences and she was
standing there-and I said, "Well, you look like you're just about ready
to burst to tell me something, and she said: "Oh I am, I decided to take
Billy out of this school. This school just doesn't offer enough for him,
and blah, blah, blah.” So okay. I said "Good," and I said: "I just want

169

the best for Billy, and I know if you're going to feel better about another
school--"

Valz—good for you.
Claire: --"then so is Billy."

Amy: Right--

If Claire had been operating from the Adversaries Discourse instead of
the Co-Caregiver Discourse, Claire's response (to the parent and to the group)
would have been quite different. She might instead have reacted defensively
to Billy's mother, and further escalated the confrontation. But because Claire
was in the Co-Caregiver Discourse, she assumed that the parent had a right
(and responsibility) to make decisions based on what she (the parent) believed
was best for Billy. Claire's response to the parent "Good, I just want the best
for Billy," actually connected them via a shared sense of commitment to
Billy's welfare. In this instance, it was the parent who shifted her Discourse-
based position, moving from the Adversaries Discourse to the Associates
Discourse. Although Claire noted that they "ended up becoming pretty good
friends," the parent could not move to the Co-Caregiver Discourse because
she did not respect Claire's judgment or believe that Claire was acting in
Billy's best interests. In fact, Claire noted, Bobby's mother was quite critical,

especially of her Writer's Workshop approach to the teaching of writing.

Claire: 'Cause she really nailed me--I mean, I felt bad, she thought that
my writing workshop was "Billy working on an art degree, instead of
learning about his writing," and—which is-"My son is NOT here for an
art degree"-and-

Deb: And even seeing some of the stories, and stuff, didn't change her
mind?

Claire: Well see, he was real new to it too, he'd only been there about
three weeks, and the other kids had about six weeks on him, (group

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makes sympathetic noises)-and so I was struggling with that in the
beginning, they're just finally getting to the point where they're taking
charge of it, just a little bit, and coming up with more creative ideas,
and so Billy was at that point, he was moving along a little faster,
because he was watching all the kids around him, but he was still just
kind of testing the water-

Val: Yup.

Claire: -and seeing what he could do-so she did-she looked at his
book, but his book wasn't, it wasn't that great, and another thing she
was concerned about was his neatness. She brought me in all his 1st
grade papers, and said, "look at this, you're not demanding enough of
him, he has to be neater."

Val: Oh jeez,

Claire: And I said, "This is a rough draft," I said, "it has to be written
neatly, you know, before it gets turned in, but this is just him getting
his ideas out" but she didn't really agree with that, so—

Val: No-
Amy: Well, perhaps it’s just as well,
Claire: [and I can understand, you know, how she felt]

Deb: [maybe she would have never been] happy, so it might have
been hard on the child, no matter what. (Sharing Circle Transcript, 11-
22-92)

In her telling of this interaction with the parent, Claire portrays the
parent's concerns as legitimate and understandable. She takes care to ensure
that the other group members also see the parent in the same light,
commenting that it made sense for the parent to complain, since Billy's
notebook "wasn't that great." I do wonder whether Claire would have
responded in the same way had the parent challenged her over a different
subject area or pedogical approach. My sense, based on other narratives she

told about her interactions with parents is that she would have still tried to

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work from the Co-Caregiver Discourse. It is true, though, that Claire was very

secure in her beliefs about the value of Writer's Workshop, and in her own
ability to help children progress as writers. Moreover, she had weathered
initial complaints from parents the year before for the same thing, and had
ultimately been vindicated when the parents, pleased at their children's
progress in writing had petitioned the school board to keep Claire's position
after budget cuts.

, u I n

The final piece of conversation I have selected to’ present was taken
from the third Sharing Circle meeting, held right before the Christmas
vacation. The conversation about parents on this night was focused around
one central issue, the novices’ efforts to figure out how to effectively and
appropriately interact with students’ parents. What I found compelling about
this example was that it captured so vividly how complex the task of forming
a teacher identity with parents is for these young teachers; how despite their
best intentions to establish good relationships with parents, there is much to
learn about interacting professionally with them.

Whether attempting to locate themselves in either the Co-Caregiver or
Associate Discourse, there was still much to discover about what that
Discourse involved. For example, just as they had to learn subtle distinctions
between joking with friends and joking with students, so too did they need to
learn that relating to their students’ parents was not the same as relating to
their students, friends, colleagues or employers, nor even like relating to their
own parents. Instead, they had to ”invent” a new way of being with one
category of people. These conversations were a primary context in which they

confronted issues of equity, and had to examine their beliefs and experiences

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in regards to their own and others' family background including race, class,

and gender.

Moreover, through their conversations, they worked to discover what
felt like an ”appropriate” voice and tone for talking to parents given the
particular Parent-Teacher Discourse from which they were working. They
also struggled in their conversations together to discover answers to
questions like: Who can or should I be in relation to my students’ parents?
Am I like a friend, an authority figure, an ally? Should I appear serious and
businesslike? Should I joke and be friendly? How should I act when I talk
with them so that they will like and respect me? Finding answers to these
questions seemed especially salient when the novices were faced with
bringing up to parents ”difficult” or personal subjects, such as a child’s
hygiene needs or problem behavior, or issues relating to the family's
background.

All six members of the group were present at the December meeting,
though Lauren had a severe case of laryngitis and was under doctor’ s orders
not to speak. Her verbal contributions to the group were thus fairly limited
on this night, though she did participate in the conversations through body
language and whispered phrases of assent. The group had finished eating
dinner, and were sitting close together on the floor, where they had moved in
order to help Christine tie ribbons to the ornaments her students had made as
Christmas gifts. The group had been talking for over two hours about a wide
range of personal and professional topics, for example, Nina’s upcoming
wedding and possible move to a position in a new school, news of former
classmates from their teacher education program who were teaching nearby,
lessons they have been teaching, and updates on students since they last met.

The conversation moved fluidly and seamlessly from one topic to another,

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lingering at some points, and on some subjects, longer than others. In

between topics, the talk had what Florio-Ruane and deTar (1995) have
described elsewhere as a kind of ”roaming, spontaneous quality,” in that
group members ”floated” various topics, some of which were picked up for
further discussion.

The topic of parents had surfaced several times throughout the night;
Amy had mentioned that some of her students’ parents were planning the
class Christmas party, Val mentioned that she got frequent calls from parents
asking for clarification on assignments, and Nina mentioned having parents
come into her classroom to help with a Christmas art project. The topic of
parents only really took hold, however, as an outgrowth of their discussion
on special needs students. Lauren and Val had been sharing their
observations that some of their students, who were supposed to take Ritalin
for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) disliked taking the medication, saying
that perhaps it upset their stomachs. The comment about upset stomachs led
Nina to share a with the group her concerns and reservations about
contacting the mother of one of her students. Nina, one of the second year
teachers who located herself in the Co-Caregiver Discourse, and had enjoyed
positive relationships with students’ parents the previous year, was,
nevertheless quite hesitant to call the child’s mother, not because she wasn’t
convinced that she needed to talk to the parent, nor because she feared the
parent wouldn’t be receptive to her message, but because she was worried
about how to explain what seemed a very personal problem. She told the
group:

Nina: You haven't heard about a little girl that I know-who was tested
at UM as a matter of fact-and is on adrenaline, and the kids noticed
one day that her tongue was really white, and I thought that was a sign
of some sort of infection or something or so, this was like last week and

174

I thought, well, maybe I will get in contact with her mom and let her
know, because her mom is really up with all the child's health anyway.
Then lately I have been noticing she has really really bad breath, I mean
terribly bad breath. When she talks to me it is just like "Eouuuuooohl”
and you try not to be rude and not say anything and I hadn't yet, but
then I was telling my mom and dad about it one night and they said
well that is a sign of stomach problems or something you know. So the
mom was-well we had our open house last night, and the mom was
there and no one else was around, but I could not bring myself to say:
”Your child's breath reeks, you know, and what are you going to do
about it?”--you know, you are not going to say it like that.

I believe that Nina's concern with finding exactly the right way to talk
to the parent stemmed from her desire to enlist the parent as a Co-Caregiver,
rather than mere politeness or professionalism, or even fear of the parent
"turning" on her. She began from a position of respect for the parent,
assuming that the child's mother would want to be given information about
her child's health, and noting that the mother was generally "up" on the
child's health. Her effort to find a good way, and an opportune time to
convey the news to the parent again seemed to stem from respect for the
parent. There was some laughter in response to Nina’s mock comment to the
parent, and Amy and Val nodded their heads in agreement when Nina added
that ”You are (meaning, of course, she is) not going to say it like that.”

At this point I posed a question to Christine (since I recalled that
Christine had faced a similar situation with a child which she had related to
me on another occasion), thinking that Christine might be able to help Nina
think of a way to broach the topic with the girl’s mother. Lauren, though,

turned the floor back to Nina by asking her what she intended to do.
Deb: Christine, remember you had a kid who smelled and you had to
talk to her mom and kind of say ”Well the other kids are teasing her,”
it was really bad like this too?

Christine: Yeah--

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Lauren: (whispers) What are you going to do?

Nina: So I don't know. I don’t know how to say it. Maybe I will just
bring it up like I am really concerned about Tina because the kids have
been teasing her about her white tongue and I know that is a symptom
of an infection or something is not right and on top of that, her breath
is, she smells like she is sick.

Christine: Oh no!

Nina: Her breath knocks me out every time I talk to her.

Nina used this occasion to test out one way of framing and explaining
the problem to the student’s parent; in a sense, she was rehearsing her
approach, using her peers as a sounding board. Val ratified Nina’s concern by
reiterating how difficult it can be to tell a parent unpleasant news, noting that
she herself often ”chickened out,” in these situations, despite her best
intentions. She named her student Jeff as an example, explaining that she
found it difficult to find the right way to tell Jeff’s parents about his classroom

behavior.

Val: That’s like sometimes-J have all these intentions of saying things
to Jeff's parents and then 1 chicken out. I ’m like, am I reanygoing to
tell them that he had his fingers in his ears and his eyes were like all
goog-e-ly? Sometimes you think- oh my god, I just, like I would just
leye to videotape my class all day—that would be really scary—but then
say to them ”This is your son at school.”

Whether they feared offending or embarrassing the parent, like Nina,
or whether they feared the parent would blame them for a child’s behavior,
like Val, it seems logical that as newcomers to the Parent-Oriented Teacher
Discourses, they would struggle to find the ”right” words and the ”right” way
to frame a problem to present to students’ parents, and that they would
choose to remain silent rather than say the ”wrong” thing, out of fear for the

consequences.

176
This became very clear after Christine shared a vignette that vividly

captured the pain caused by saying the wrong thing to a parent. Christine,
another second year teacher who had enjoyed positive relations with parents
the previous year, began an extended speaking turn, opening with the
statement: ”Here is a blooper that I cried about and now I can sort of laugh
about it.” This immediately got the group’s full attention, signaling to them
that a story of some kind was to follow, and all group members looked
attentively at her as she began to describe the experience of taking one of her
students, William, on a recent field trip. She explained that although
William spent the majority of every school day in a special education
classroom, joining her class for only twenty or thirty minutes each day, she
had chosen to include him on a recent class excursion, with disastrous results.
In telling this story, it isn’t only what she said but also how she said it that
made it so compelling to her peers.35 Her intonation, repetition of phrases
(e.g., ”she never said anything,”) and use of details, helped create a vivid
image of the situation for her listeners. Also, as Tannen (1989) explains, by
”giving voice to the speech” of William, her colleague, Judy, and ”everybody”
at her school, she ”create[d] a play peopled by characters who take on life and
breath” (p. 103), which drew the other group members into her narrative. I
reproduce much of this narrative here, to better convey the intensity with

which she spoke:

Christine: ...and I took him on a field trip and I had to restrain him
during the performance of Johnny Appleseed, I mean, he’s yelling
”This is boring l” and there’s like 400 other people in this theater and
he was runningyp_and_do_um and I had to give him his medicine, and
there was a mom sitting on the other side and I got my arms around
him and one leg on his leg, just to get him to sit in the chair, and he is

practically standingpn his head.

 

35 In fact, six months later, at the final debriefing interviews, this was one of the narratives
all members remarked upon as being memorable.

177
Christine went on to tell us that she had spoken to the special

education teacher, who said she "had just had it with William too.” Much of
Christine's constructed dialogue portrayed the special education teacher as a
more experienced colleague, who, having worked with the child since
kindergarten was in a good position to give advice. She apparently said that
William's behavior was worse than she had ever seen, and suggested that
Christine call William's mother, noting that it was time to up-grade the

dosage of his medication.

Christine: She didn't tell me too much about the family situation, but
she said, you know, ”Why don't you call Mrs. Moss and let her know
what went on?” So I did, and I first started out with a positive thing
and told her how much time William was spending on crosswords so
she wouldn't be shocked, you know, by him spending too much time
in my room, and I made the mistake—I was trying to make light of the
situation or add some humor to the conversation and this is just a
lesson for everybody--don'_t_do this when you don't know the kind of
situation, I made the 'nice' joke that ”Boy, a strait jacket would have
been helpful!”

It is understandable that Christine might have tried to add humor to
the situation or "joke" with the parent in order to soften the impact of what
she feared would be bad news to the parent; friends often use that strategy
when giving bad news. Again, Christine's comment to the parent was shaped
in part by the fact that she was in the Co-Caregiver Discourse, believed that
the parent had the right and responsibility to know what was happening with
William at school, and thought that she could enlist the parent's help. Had
she been in the Adversaries Discourse, it is unlikely that she would have
tried to "joke" with the parent; instead, she would probably have recited the
child's transgressions and demanded, "So what are you going to do about it?"
Unfortunately, Christine's attempt at humor backfired, as it turned out there
was a history of mental illness and institutionalization in the family. The

parent, however, ”never said a thing,” about this situation or responded to

178
Christine’s comment during their lengthy phone conversation. Christine

had thus had no idea how deeply she had offended the parent until a
colleague told her this weeks later.

Christine: We went on to talk for 25 minutes and she never said a
thing. Two weeks later she needs conference time and she calls the
special ed teacher and says ”Well you better just know that I am going
to come in there,” and she had never met me and I had never met her,
and the rest of our conversation was just fine. She never said
anything.

Deb: She said to you, ’I have two older daughters and—’?

Christine: No, she never said that, she never said anything. Ijust said
you know, I said, ”gosh I _really could have used a strait jacket to hold
him all together.” And she never said anything. Never said anything,
and the rest of the conversation went on fine. I laughed when I said it,
okay? And so two weeks later she calls Judy back... [and] Judy...told her
about William’s behavior...And she went on a big tirade about me and
she was just going to come into conferences and basically blow my head
off and that her son was never, ever to be sent to my room again...

The special education teacher then said that there was nothing Christine
could do to rectify the situation, and to just "lay low," not contact the parent

and beware of her impending visit to the school.

William comes to my room sometimes and I am real nice to him and
we get along fine. Come to find out this week, he has been ditching his
medicine for the last three months, so I am hoping, so Judy--the only
contact with his mom is that she writes notes and she is the one that
gets along with them, cause I talked to my principal too and I think I'm
just out of luck, this lady is known all over the district, her daughters
have gone to Great Lakes schools, caused terror, stolen things, and they
are both in institutions right now. Every one knows the Moss family,
and they’re going ”Don't worry about it you have offended her but you
know-” and I am like, ”Oh, great.”

Despite the fact that Christine had said she could ”sort of laug ” about
the Mrs. Moss incident now, she was still clearly upset by it and was quite
agitated as she spoke. The other group members showed their involvement

in the telling of the story through their body language (e.g., learning toward

179
her, many facial expressions depicting sympathy and concern), and

backchannel communication, and except for when I asked her to clarify a
statement she had made, no one interrupted her narrative. When Christine

finally paused, Amy and Val asked questions to encourage her to continue.
Amy: What happened?

Christine: Oh, I totally cried and cried because I was so scared, I was
just petrified that this lady was going to come in and blow my head off
and she is not going to know I didn’t know when I made the joke and
you know, but she is not going to accept it...So neyeLmake jokes like
that, if a parent makes it, that is just fine, like I had a parent say to me:
’Yeah, we would really like to have some of those handcuffs for
Skyler’ and I just laughed and said ’Yes,’ but I am not going to say
anything like that obviously.

Deb: It was just a fluke that.

Christine: It was just too close to home for her and I had no clue, I
will neyer make jokes like that again.

Christine was determined that her peers learn from her mistake. She
repeatedly warned them not to make certain kinds of jokes when talking to
parents, framing this as a rule that they should follow at all times. Claire
then echoed Christine’s point that a teacher can’t always know about parents’
home situations, agreeing that knowing such information before speaking to
parents can be helpful. Val cautioned them that sometimes they can know
”too much” about personal home situations, which could also make it
difficult to know what to say to them. Before Val could finish her sentence
about ”some families,” Nina quickly jumped into the conversation, and tried
to persuade Val that as teachers, they could offer useful suggestions to

parents.

Nina: Last year I had this little boy who is very against authority and
for the punishment, this was in first grade mind you, the parents
would make him go up and write his ABC's W you know,
what a way to turn a kid off to writing and reading. And you know, I

180

just looked at her, and she goes, ”We have made him stay up there for
three hours at a time and we would go up and sure enough he would
have five or six pages of ABC's ” and I just looked at her and I didn't
handle it that day, but later I said, ”You know, let's brainstorm some
ways that you can discipline this child” and Ijust kind of approached it
like that.

Nina's response to the parent was indicative of the Co- Caregiver
Discourse in which she had located herself. We can hear her talking about
working collaboratively with parents in order to benefit students, as in this
example, when she framed her response as "Let's see what we can do

together" to solve the problem.

Nina: I much prefer to know the parents and get them involved, and
like, people always ask me, ”Gosh, aren’t you nervous having all those
parents coming in and out of your room and I said ”No,” because an
open door is much moreuand you don’t get as many questions or get
accused for things because they know what is going on. I just had one
tell me today--cause we had our open house last night--and she said,
”Well, my older daughter is in junior high and she had a band concert
and I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything by not coming to
open house because I know what was going on.” Last year I had five or
six volunteers, I can’t remember, but seven signed up this year.

Deb: What kinds of things do they do?

Nina. Everything from art projects to just working with the kids.
Acting as an aide while I am teaching the lesson, reading with the kids,

anything like that. We read Ihefijngerhreaifloy and made
gingerbread houses out of candy, you know, and gingerbread boys out

of paper bags and punched them and then sewed them and stuffed
them. We wrote a gingerbread poem and they helped with the making
of the houses and all....(Sharing Circle Transcript, 12-17-92)

Nina went on to describe in more detail how the parent volunteers
had participated in the "gingerbread activities," and her conviction that
having such parent involvement was an valuable piece of maintaining good
relationships with parents. The group members responded with their own

narratives of occasions when parents had come into the classroom to assist

181
with classroom activities. What intrigued me about this interchange was the

fact that the novices seemed to seize on the talk as an opportunity to learn
from (and teach) one another about how to establish themselves as particular
kinds of teachers in their interactions with parents. They shared specific
strategies and skills, but more than that, they seemed to try to generate

"rules" or templates to guide them in their future interactions with parents.

I . E I] C l'

The novices' conversations about parents, just as their conversations
about students and colleagues highlighted for me, once again, how complex
and multifacted the process of composing a professional teacher identity truly
is. Just as the novices had to negotiate a ”teacher self” within their individual
classrooms and schools, they also had to negotiate a ”teacher self” in each
interaction with students’ parents. This process required them to reflect upon
and often reconstruct their intial conceptions of how ”good” teachers and
parents communicate and work with one another.

Each of these last three chapters has focused on one group of "role
others" in the novices' role set, and has examined how the novices'
interactions and relationships with each shape, and are shaped by their
emerging sense of themselves as teachers. At this point, I would like turn to
Chapter Six, in which I will consider how these interactions, and the sharing
of narratives about these interactions in the Circle, when taken together,
contributed to the professional identity that the novices constructed over the

school year.

CHAPTER SIX

Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Compromise and Promise

”Learning to teach is not a mere matter

of applying decontextualized skills or of

mirroring predetermined images; it is a time

when one '5 past, present, and future are set in

dynamic tension. Learning to teach--like

teaching itself--is always the process of becoming;

a time of formation and transformation, of scrutiny

into what one is doing, and who one can become.”
(Britzman, 1986, p. 8)

I 1 . . B l . l B .
In the study reported here, I have attempted to describe and understand

how, through participation and conversation in the Learning Community
Sharing Circle, six novice teachers began constructing their professional
identities. I explored how the Circle members used conversation and
narrative to help them articulate, explore, and ultimately transform some of
their images and understandings about teachers, learners, learning, subject
matter and themselves. My purpose throughout the study was two-fold.
First, I wanted to learn more about the ways in which novices shape their
identities as teachers in the early years of their careers. Second, I wanted to
learn how, as teacher educators, we might helpfully intervene during these
early years to reduce novices’ feelings of isolation and support their
continued learning and growth as professionals, especially by means of
conversation, personal narrative, and a sense of community with other new
teachers. Three specific questions guided this study:

(1) What happens when a group of novices meet regularly over a school

year to read, tell, listen to, and talk about their own and others’ experiences

with learning to teach?

182

183
(2) How do they represent their experiences in personal narratives, and

what do they learn by telling and hearing these narratives?

(3) How might membership in this particular community, and
participation in the group’s conversations support the teachers’
construction of their professional identities?

In this final chapter, I look back at the Sharing Circle experience, using
the three questions above to consider what the participants (both the novices
and myself) learneduabout teaching, about ourselves, and about constructing
a teacher identitynthrough our membership and conversation in the group. I
begin by discussing some of the findings I saw as significant in relation to my
three research questions. 1 next discuss some of the limitations of this study
and some questions it has raised for me. I then look ahead, suggesting how

these findings might inform the future of teacher education.

Ah: It..‘l “1‘ to ‘ u“ 0,12,; kg! -. ' ‘ 0 It‘, -._ .1..t°
HEDIDD I 1] 111.51.?

At the onset of this study, I was curious to find out how the novices
would represent their beginning teaching experiences to one another. What
would they talk about? What kinds of narratives would they tell and what
might they learn from telling and listening to these narratives? What could I
as a teacher educator learn from studying these narratives? As might be
expected, I found that the novices’ conversations covered a wide range of
topics related to both personal and professional issues. An analysis of the
conversations showed that personal narratives were an integral part of them.
A common theme linking these narratives was the importance of novices'
relationships with others to their construction of professional identity.

Across the meetings, the narratives that participants told centered primarily

184
around their interactions with others, instantiating what Mead (1934), Schwab

(1975), Gee (1990), Goffman (1967), and Gilligan (1988), have argued: that
identity is formed not in isolation, but socially constructed through
interaction with, and in relationship to, significant others. For these novices,
constructing a professional identity involved finding some resolution to the
question, "Who am I?" as they engaged people significant in their
professional worlds. My focus in this work was on three groups of significant
others: their students, other teachers, and parents.

Forming relationships with each of these groups required connecting
and communicating with them, sometimes in ways that were new,
unfamiliar, and at times even uncomfortable. Out of the three groups, the
novices appeared most prepared to establish productive relationships with
students. This makes sense, as their teacher education program focused
intensely on helping them think about how to establish "learning
communities" with students in their future classrooms. Their long
apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975) and other work-related
experiences (e.g., serving as camp counselors, etc.) may have contributed to
the degree of comfort they expressed about the relationships they constructed
with students over the school year. Positive relationships with individual
students appeared to play an important role in confirming aspects of their
"substantial selves" (Nias, 1989), by allowing them to define themselves as
caring and nurturing people.

The novices found it challenging to form relationships as "equals"
with colleagues more senior in age as well as experience, especially when
these colleagues appeared to hold teaching ideologies inconsistent with the
novices' own. The novices' narratives and conversation illuminated and

provided a setting in which to work on reconciling several tensions in their

185
relationships with colleagues. For example, they spoke of not wanting to

"become like" those "Other Teachers," but still sought and valued their
colleagues' approval. Also challenging for the novices was learning to
interact with parents, especially in cases when parents' cultural or social class
background differed considerably from their own. The emphasis in their
teacher education program on learning to understand and value difference
(whether cultural or ideological), appealed to them. They wanted to present
themselves to one another as non-judgmental and accepting of different
kinds of parents. Yet their actual interactions with people different from
themselves sometimes were a source of difficulty. In general, reconciling
their substantial (ideal) selves with their situational selves was more difficult
when they engaged other adults whose values or styles of behavior toward
children differed from their own.

My analysis of the Sharing Circle conversations also showed that
through the narratives they told, participants sought to deepen a shared
vision of teaching and a connection to one another as professionals or
colleagues. During their teacher education program they acquired (and still
now shared), a common set of values and beliefs about teaching. These were
drawn upon and amplified in the Sharing Circle. I refer here not only to their
beliefs about curriculum and pedagogy, but also to their beliefs about the
nature of knowledge, about learning, about the value of certain curricular or
instructional innovations, and about how "good" teachers conduct
themselves in classrooms with students. We saw in Chapter Four, for
example, how the novices' disillusionment with the values and beliefs often
expressed by their school colleagues served further to deepen the sense of

consonance they felt with one another.

186
Evidencing their entering stock of shared knowledge, the novices

reported that they felt they could "just talk together," without having to
worry about being misunderstood. They did not need to preface their
narratives or "always explain" their ideas to one another. As Val said of the
group: ”You feel like you can come and spill your guts and not have anyone
second guess you or critique you or think you’re a bad teacher" (Val Brooks,
Interview Transcript, 6 / 93). Or, as Amy stated:

You could skip over so many things because you all believed the same
way...I could just assume that here and it was so nice to be able to get
back with people who thought like you thought, believed like you
believe, and just almost like touch ground with your beliefs. (Amy
Roberts, Interview Transcript, 6 / 93)

By constructing narratives which linked them, through a shared vision
of what it meant to teach and to "be" a teacher, the novices were able to
remain connected to a Teacher Discourse community which had been
formative in the early stages of their professional identity work. This helped
them develop some confidence that their ideas about teaching were valid and
worth putting into practice. In this way, the shared vision they constructed
functioned almost like training wheels on a bicycle, helping the novices feel
balanced and safe and free to explore further aspects of their teacher identities.

The narratives they told about conflict and dissent with others outside
of the group as well as the narratives which sparked conflict and dissent
within the group, informed their professional development as teachers.
Conflict (if accompanied by negotiation across differences or attempts at
resolution) encouraged the articulation and examination of their own and
others’ beliefs, and even contributed to the building of community. Though
the novices wanted to keep the interchanges at a friendly and cooperative

level--employing humor or other devices to maintain conversational

187
norms), or even backing away from the conflict if the conversation became

too uncomfortable—they did demonstrate that they are capable of engaging in
debate and (polite) argument about complex issues connected to the practice
of teaching.

It was important for the novices to discover that it was ”okay” to
disagree with another teacher about an educational issues, and to be in a
position where they had to take, and defend a stance different from someone
else. As I have mentioned at several points in this text, open discussion of
pedagogical or ideological difference is generally not considered part of the
"culture of teaching" (Feiman-Nemser 8t Floden, 1986), and these young
women had few places in which to engage in this form of discourse. This is
unfortunate, for as Burbules (1993) has suggested, there is much to be gained.
by engaging in this form of discourse. It gives speakers and listeners a chance
to generate new information, learn more persuasive ways of presenting a case
or position, and gain a clearer, more thoughtful understanding of the
multiple dimensions of an issue. All these benefits are useful and
appropriate for novice teachers, who are called upon daily to wrestle with
difficult issues and defend their position to students, colleagues, parents, and
administrators.

As the facilitator of the Sharing Circle group, this was a valuable lesson
for me as well. I had tried to make the Circle a "safe" arena where novices
would feel supported and respected and free to express their ideas. I had not,
however, fully exploited the potential of conflict as a means of helping
novices think harder about teaching. From my study of the Sharing Circle
conversations, I was also able to learn more about areas in which the novices
felt least and most confident about themselves, through an analysis of the

topics least and most likely to prompt debate. Whereas narratives of Other

188
Teachers were likely to promote agreement among participants, narratives

relating to some student issues (for example, how and if teachers can
accommodate ”special needs” students in the "regular" classroom, were likely
to promote dissent. I had not realized the extent to which novices’ success or
failure with these students affected their sense of themselves as successful
teachers. This information is potentially valuable for teacher educators
designing a curriculum for beginning teachers, as I will discuss in more detail
later in this chapter.

Another issue prompting dissent had to do with connecting with
parents' who did not conform to teachers' views of how parents should
support their children's learning. The conversation around this issue forced
the novices to confront their own and other teachers' preconceptions about
parents. It also brought them face-to-face with the limits of their own
experiences with people from racial, social class or cultural backgrounds
different from their own. The novices' had strong and sometimes
ambivalent feelings about this issue, since interactions with these parents
influenced who the novices wanted to be, and who they found themselves
becoming with parents. Here again, this information may help teacher

educators concerned with redesigning teacher education curriculum.

.1. l1. 11-111‘ 11 -1 1' 1.. 51° - -1111_- 1111.111 1,
2.. 'EE' lll'l7

I initially hoped that this study would allow me to explore how
membership in the Sharing Circle and participation in the group’s
conversations could support the novices’ construction of their professional
identities. I have since come to believe that joining in the Sharing Circle

community through conversation and storysharing contributed to the

189
novices' sense of belonging to a Teacher Discourse, and shaped their

professional identities (their becoming) in several significant ways. Before
highlighting these, it is pertinent to revisit Schwab's (1975) description of
characteristics essential to the formation and maintainance of community, as

these elements were present in the Sharing Circle:

There is collaboration—shared and dovetailed apportionings of the
learning tasks. There are individual services to the group and group
recognition of such services...In addition to shared words and acts,
there are emotions and occasions for emotion which are basic to
community...shared vicissitudes; group triumphs over vicissitudes;
defeats; celebrations of such victories; mutual support in moments of
defeat; shared pleasures and interludes of gaiety and play. (1975, p. 32)

The Sharing Circle was a setting in which novices could give and
receive help, as well as a place to share professional joys and
disappointments. Current school structures and the "culture of teaching"
(Feiman-Nemser 8r Floden, 1986) mitigate against teachers sharing much in
this way. And while in the future, it is likely that other forms of dialogue
(e.g., electronic mail36 and teacher-authored research may change this
culture, there are currently few extended opportunities for teachers to engage
in dialogue and conversation about the problems of practice. Moreover, as
we saw in Chapter Four, since it was important for the novices to be seen by
their colleagues as competent professionals, they were understandably
reluctant to approach their colleagues to air concerns or seek assistance for
problems.

The Sharing Circle provided a valuable occasion for the participants to
voice freely and have ratified their concerns and frustrations about students,
schools, or their difficulties communicating with parents or peers, without

fear that they would be judged incompetent or unprepared to be a teacher.

 

36See Merseth (1990) for an interesting discussion of the possibilities of connecting teachers in
community through the use of electronic media.

190
There were numerous occasions when they sought help from and gave help

to one another, whether over personal problems, e.g., "My husband tells me
I'm spending too much time on my work, but I have to bring their papers
home to read," (Christine Matthews, Sharing Circle Transcript, 12/ 92), or
practical, e.g., how to structure their literature circles so as to hear every
group's discussion. As beginners, novices seldom have a chance to give
another teacher advice; they are usually placed in situations where they are
only on the receiving end, as in mentor-novice relationships. Olson (1991)
has observed that although experienced teachers often have valuable
suggestions for novices, "their competence could also magnify the novices'
sense of inadequacy" (p. 26). Having a chance to giye help and advice, and
knowing such help and advice was appreciated was thus a powerful
experience for these novices, bolstering their sense of themselves as capable,
resourceful teachers.

Through their collaborative effort to narrate and co-narrate vignettes of
teaching events, they were able to solve problems and even "rehearse" ways
of speaking to parents, students, teachers, as we can see below in the brief

excerpt from the first Sharing Circle meeting:

Christine: Do you think I'm crazy if I call this girl's mom now and say,
'Well, I'm not a doctor, but now I've seen her on regular medication,
time-release medication, and without it, and I think we have more
than enough documentation for the doctor?‘

Lauren: Well, you could also tell her (the child's mother) that it's
affecting how the other kids see her. That the other kids are getting
angry with her. (Interview Transcript, 11-02-92)

These interchanges gave them a chance to "...get the attitude of the members
of the group" (Mead, in Miller, 1982, p. 162), a process essential to the
development of their teaching "self." As Claire also noted,

191

Once you talk about it with the group like this, it's easier sometimes to
go and talk about it with the principal or someone who you're going to
have to talk to, have to talk to about it. And it was just, a lot of times
it's just emotionally relieving, too, just to get it off your chest. (Claire
Young, Interview Transcript, 6 / 93)

Belonging to the Sharing Circle also gave these six young women a place
to share and be recognized for their successes. Again, sadly, the power
relations and culture of teaching often mitigate against such joyful sharing.
Novices new to a building, younger in age, or lower in status may fear that
their colleagues will view them as "bragging" if they talk too much about
their successes. Amy, for instance, told me in our debriefing interview that
she thought her colleagues might think she was trying to make them "look
bad," when she displayed in the hallway a very successful science project her
students had completed. Novices may especially worry that they’ll be seen as
"bragging" in cases when their successes are the result of pedogogical practices
(e.g., writer's workshop, cooperative groupwork, literature circles) that stand
in contrast to more traditional practices (e.g., spelling bees, ability grouping,
commercial reading programs). The chance to be recognized by their
Learning Community peers for their accomplishments thus contributed in a
positive way to the novices' growing sense of themselves as "real" (as
opposed to student) teachers.

The chance to be "in community" over time helps new teachers in
their identity work in several additional ways. First, since the experience of
acquiring a professional identity is not like bounded or discrete (in the way
that acquiring a diploma or a teaching certificate can be) but rather complex
and always in process of evolution, teachers need multiple occasions to assess
and articulate where they are in the ongoing process, to ”take stock” of who

they are becoming, so to speak. To do this, they need to be in situations where

192
they can see themselves as others would see them. Bryk, Lee, 8: Holland

(1993), explain it this way:

personal growth and self-awareness emerge not from isolated
independent behavior but rather from sustained participation in a
social life marked by open communication, honesty, caring, and

respect. (p. 315)

Second, since part of composing a professional identity as a teacher
involves making adjustments (moving from the teacher you are, to the
teacher you envision becoming) novices need to feel supported in making
changes. Even when the change is desired, making a choice toward growth
and away from regression (Olson, 1991), involves some risk and fear of
failure. Here again, being "in community" can make a tremendous
difference, for membership in a caring community can actually empower
individuals and give them courage to explore the unknown. Schwab (1975)

notes:

Discovered capabilities continue to develop through experiences:
problems met, attacked, solved. Capabilities are tested by affecting
others by means of them and perceiving their reception by these others.
Courage to explore the unknown (new varieties of experiences) accrues
from others' recognitions of abilities so far acquired and from witness
of the successful adventures of others. (p. 37)

I saw evidence of the novices' movement toward growth choices often,
for example, when Nina took the risk to "stand up to" her colleague Brenda
over the placement of a child with ”special needs.” Nina envisioned herself
as the kind of teacher who would fight for and protect her students and their
best interests, and with validation from her Learning Community peers, she
was able to enact her vision.

A third and central aspect of developing a teacher identity involves
what Bill Ayers (1993) calls "naming" oneself as a teacher. He argues that it is

important for teachers to come to label, to define themselves as teachers. My

193
initial response to this point was to say, "But of course, how could teachers

not name themselves as such?" It turns out, however, that in many cases,
teachers do not actually identify themselves as teachers. Nias' (1989), for
example, found that many of the teachers in her study taught for years before
they felt able (or willing) to call themselves "teacher." I had been intrigued at
the first Sharing Circle meeting by a vignette begun by Amy, in which she
described an event at a class party when one of her students asked if their
"real teacher" was coming back. Val chimed in and spoke as if she were Amy,
talking to the student, saying "I'm you're teacher!" (Sharing Circle
Transcript, 11 / 2/ 92). The vignette was one all participants resonated to, and
they all excitedly joined in its creation. Clearly, being named "teacher" by
one's students was of great importance to them.

At other points in their daily working life, the novices relied on
students, students' parents, other teachers, even myself to name them as
teachers, to give them validity and establish their identity. But by having a
chance to present themselves in interaction with children, other teachers, and
parents in narratives told to other Sharing Circle members other teachers
(people whose opinion they valued), the novices were, in effect, having a
chance to name themselves as teachers. In the debriefing interviews held at
the end of the year, each one of the six expressed a belief that although she
had things to work on and improve, she thought she was a "pretty good

teacher. Lauren, for example, told me:

Everyone told me, ’You’re going to hate the first year’ but I didn’t....I
was very happy about it. I feel I accomplished alot, that I did a good job,
that I’m a good teacher. There were some things that I would change
for next year, but there are a lot of things that I am going to continue
doing.” (Lauren Moffett, Interview Transcript, 6 / 93)

194
Finally, the Sharing Circle was an arena in which the novices could

identify, discuss, "try on" and critique alternative Teacher Discourses (and
thus alternative teacher identities) for themselves. I believe that this
opportunity was especially important for these novices, because the Teacher
Discourse community in which they had served apprenticeships while still
teacher candidates, often stood in contrast to the Teacher Discourse
Community they encountered in their workplaces.

The chance to think through the implications that the different
ideologies would have for their practice may help them to be able to make
more informed decisions in the future. Gee (1990) believes that having a
chance to think about one's own (or others') Discourses in a reflective and
critical way can produce "meta-knowledge" or insight about what one knows
and can do. Members of Secondary or non-dominant Discourses (e.g., the
Learning Community Discourse) need to possess meta-knowledge if they are
successfully to resist, manipulate, or negotiate their way through the
dominant Discourse. As more and more teacher education program exhort
their students to "teach against the grain" (Cochran-Smith, 1991 ; Goodman,
1987) of traditional practice, such conversational opportunities become more

critical.

I"'ElSllllQ‘ El

While this study answered some of my initial questions, it raised a
number of new ones in their place. These questions fall into two general
categories, one set having to do with the membership of conversational
”study” groups, the other set having to do with facilitating such groups.

While the Circle members’ shared background as graduates of the

Learning Community Program functioned in a positive way by giving them

195
them what Amy called a common ”base” from which to begin building

community within the group; it also was a limitation of this study. Even
though the novices were from different cohort groups and did not all know
one another beforehand, they still had much in common by virtue of their
teacher education experience. I do not know if they would have constituted a
discourse community or as readily negotiated common conversational
ground had they not had this previous experience. This raises the question of
whether and how other ”Sharing Circles” (made up of members lacking such
history) could be formed. What kind of common interests and experiences
would members need to have in order to sustain an intimate, extended
conversation about their identities as teachers? Could novices from different
teacher education programs (and thus different Teacher Discourses) constitute
a successful group? If one formed a group composed of experienced as well as
novice teachers (in an attempt to help members build bridges between
differing Discourses), would beginners still reap the same benefits as in an all-
novice group? Although similar studies indicate that when teachers at
different career stages do come together over a common interest (i.e., those
who want to explore the teaching of mathematics in a particular way,37 or
who have an interest in exploring the genre of teacher autobiography
through reading and writing38 ; or who had an a deeply-felt commitment to
working with "diverse" students),39 a sense of community can be created, I
am still left with questions, for example, how strong must this common

interest be? Conversely, how much ”difference” must there be in members’

 

37See Featherstone (1993) for a description of the Investigating Mathematics Teaching (IMT)
Study Group.
38There exists a rich literature of "teacher stories," written by, among others, teachers like
Vivian Paley (1990), Herbert Kohl (1984), and James Hemdon (1971). This literature is a
potentially rich source of material for a beginning teacher study group.

9See Florio—Ruane (1994) for a description of such a study group comprised of preservice
teachers.

196
beliefs or experiences so as to push the group forward without being

detrimental?

A second category of questions that this study raised for me has to do
with my role as facilitator. What must I (or other facilitators of such groups)
learn in order better to foster members’ growth? How much intervention is
helpful, and how much responsiblity should participants assume for
negotiating and renegotiating the agenda and course of the conversation? I
raise these questions in part to critique my role in the Sharing Circle. At the
beginning of this study, I felt strongly that I wanted members to ”control” the
conversation, and thus worked hard to limit my authority as group leader. I
wanted the novices to feel free to initiate topics and move the conversation
in directions they thought would be most helpful to them. However, as I
studied the transcripts of their conversations, I noted that I had missed
several (if not more) opportunities to encourage members to explore
important issues. For example, at our December meeting, Christine reported
that she had run into a fellow Learning Community student at the mall. This
student, Rikki Parks had taken a job teaching in an inner city school. She had
painted a vivid picture for Christine of the challenges and dangers of working
in such an envionment. Christine relayed this picture to the group, telling a
chilling story of the children’s school lives and the disciplinary tactics used by
school staff to control students’ behavior. Christine then added that Rikki
had gone to a jeweler to have her engagement ring made too small so that it
couldn’t be removed from her finger.

Listening to this narrative, I had anticipated (and hoped) that the group
would seize the opportunity to discuss teaching in inner city schools, and
examine more closely issues relating to discipline and equity. Several of the

group members, however, were more intrigued by the news that Rikki was

197
engaged, and shifted the conversation in that direction. By the time they

finished talking about the resolution of what had been (when they knew her)
a stormy relationship to her fiancee and her upcoming wedding, the teachable
moment had passed. As someone with more years of classroom experience
in settings similar to Rikki’s, (a ”more knowlegeable other”), I could have
intervened, and directed the conversation back to a discussion of Rikki’s
teaching experiences, but instead remained silent and thus let a potentially
educative moment slip by. I am not entirely sure, even now, whether I
should have taken a more directive role in shaping the group’s discussion in
this instance. Before implementing another ”Sharing Circle” group, though,
I feel it would be helpful to think more about what might be gained (and
what would be lost) by making the facilitator’s role a more directive one.
Speculating on the educative moments missed-and capitalized upon-~in this
largely peer-led group raises a further set of implications and unanswered
questions about this work. To what extent can peer dialogue be a workable
form of education for beginners, and for experienced teachers?

I believe that this study can inform how we think about working with
new teachers (both at the preparation levels and after their entry into
schools), in that it places conversation and storysharing at the center of the
learning to teach curriculum. This idea is important for several reasons.
First, it adds to other studies which have investigated the possibilities and
limitations of conversation-based teacher learning (see for example, Florio-
Ruane et al., 1990), and suggests that this alternative to more didactic forms of
teacher education is worth further exploration. Second, it supports the view
that teachers (even novice teachers) do play an active role in their own
socialization and professional growth (Goodman, 1987; Zeichner 8:

Tabachnick, 1985). Third, it suggests that novices are capable of participating

198
in their own professional development. To continue past efforts to identify

and ”remediate” novices’ deficiencies may offer less promise than offering
them support and encouragement to control their own growth and

development as teachers (Clark, 1995).

E'lI] 1.11.5 lIl°S|l

Harold Rosen (1988) has observed that "in the end stories about the
past are also about the future" (p. 86). For the novices in this study, the
narratives heard and told in the Sharing Circle have indeed become stories
about their past, as they have since successfully navigated through the
induction years, and are now beginning their fourth and fifth years in the
profession. Christine has recently taken a temporary leave from the field for
personal reasons, but the other four are still teaching. In my recent
conversations with them, they told me that they still love their work, and
believe they are doing it well. If Rosen is correct, and stories have the power
to transcend time, then I would like to believe that the Sharing Circle
experience may continue, in some way, to inform their teaching identities in
the years to come.

I would also like to believe that this "story" of the Sharing Circle might
encourage teacher educators to look for ways further to extend future
teachers’ preparation experiences beyond their time in our teacher education
programs. For we share a responsibility with school and district personnel to
see that novices' introduction to the profession is both educative and
humane, and that their transition from teacher candidate to full-time teacher
is accomplished in ways that engender "...self-esteem, competence,
collegiality, and professional stature” (Colbert and Wolff, 1992, p. 193). To

accomplish this goal, we must begin in earnest to restructure the teacher

199
induction experience as it now exists. Current staff development efforts,

including mentoring programs, are not yet adequate to address all of novices'
needs, nor do they take advantage of novices’ potential actively to control
their own professional development. Among other things, we need to find
ways to reduce the feelings of isolation that novices’ typically experience; give
them the social and intellectual tools to do more than merely "survive" their
first teaching jobs; and provide them multiple forms of support so they will
be able to use these transition years as a time for continued learning, self-
discovery, and professional growth.

If we are to accomplish this, we must continue to learn more about
novices’ early teaching experiences. We must pay close attention to what they
are attempting to learn, and to the ways in which they bring together their
images, understandings, and experiences in pursuit of a professional identity.
Only when we understand these things will we be able to design experiences
that will better promote and support novices’ learning.

Through this dissertation, I have attempted to develop a deeper
understanding, and ideally, an appreciation for, the intricate and complex
process of composing a life as a teacher. Though there is still much work to
be done in this area, this study joins a growing body of literature showing
beginning teachers as dedicated, caring people who work hard to construct
lives for themselves as the kind of teachers who make a difference in the
school lives of children. Further exploration of the kinds of conversations
and communities most conducive to teachers' continued growth and
development can only benefit us all, teachers, teacher educators, and the

children for whom we all work.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

Learning Community Program Handbook

APPENDIX A

Learning Community Program Handbook

Learning Community

    

Collaboratio

An Alternative Teacher Education Program
College of Education

Michigan State University

Susan Florio-Ruane
Coordinator
1990-91

Updated September 1990

200

201

Learning Community Program
A Teacher Education Program
Emphasizing Personal and Social Responsibility

The Learning Community Program prepares teachers to teach school subjects effectively while
also focusing on the development of personal and social responsibility among students. We believe that in
order for individuals to gain a sense of their own efficacy, they must not only acquire the knowledge and
skills necessary for taking independent action in the world, but they must also learn to value collaboration
and cooperation in groups, to give and receive help. Human efficacy requires engagement with the
community in which one lives. The Learning Community Program is committed to the view that there is
no genuine personal growth that does not have social consequences, just as there can be no collective social
decisions that do not affect individuals.

Much can be done to increase the sense of community within classrooms. However, if schools
and classrooms are to become learning communities, teachers must be skilled in fostering cooperation in
learning. Through the study of theories of culture and human development, students in the Learning
Community learn to use existing curricular materials wisely and to create new ones that foster an
appreciation of diversity and learning that is meaningful and shared. In addition, Learning Community
students learn to discuss and think critically about their own practice as life-long learners. Students in this
program of study become aware of the many related communities of home, neighborhood. school, and the
teaching profession and the interactive impact these communities may have on classrooms and teaching.

The Learning Community Program is designed for students seeking an elementary provisional
teaching certificate and planning to teach in grades K-8. It is currently not available to students planning to
teach at the high school level.

Educational Goals of the Learning Community

The relation of school and classroom to the wider community, the social contexts of teaching and
learning, and the classroom as a community are concerns that undergird this program emphasis and reflect
its distinctive perspective on the roles of the teacher. The goal of this program emphasis is to help teachers
to become skilled at crafting learning communities out of the everyday realities of classrooms. In so doing,
it is hoped that graduates of this emphasis area will encourage in their pupils propensities toward personal
achievement. cooperative learning, and social responsibility. Thus, graduates may help their pupils not
only to master academic content, but to become responsible community members within and beyond the
classroom.

Characteristics of Learning Community
The Propensities

A Learning Community teacher is one who possesses certain W toward the school
curriculum, the learning environment, personal and social responsibility, and rational processing. These
perspectives are expressed in propensities, which are internal dispositions toward acting in specific ways.
The Learning Community teacher seeks to create a collaborative community for individual and group
growth and welfare. The following list specifies these characteristic propensities.

202

Learning Community Propensities
W
A propensity to:

take a W of the instructional process in which managerial decisions are integrally
related to pedagogy;

seek integration of the subject matter content as a cornerstone of the curriculum;

use of the Willi! as resources for teaching and learning;

WSW
A propensity to:

view learning as interaefixe;
foster riskzmsing;

engage in dim about the consequences of personal action for the well being of others and
for the group as a whole;

encourage students to have a W thus minimizing the
tendency to locate all decision-making within the role of the teacher.

W:
A propensity to:

W and expectations among class members and develop a sense of common
purpose;

W in the life and work of the classroom;
W

W
A propensity to:

create opportunities to learn that involve W interdependence, and my

among learners and that arise meaningfully within classroom, school, or community;

create an atmosphere in which judgment W and WW while class
members W and shared understandings;

view the Wmfleeuxulannemfmmmumment who uses past experience to
shape future action in a cycle of planning, teaching, and reflection.

The Knowledge, Skills and Predisposition of the Learning Community Teacher

In order to create and maintain a Learning Community, the graduates from our program emphasis

need particular knowledge and skills. What follows is an enumeration of the knowledge and skill objectives

of the Learning Community keyed to courses in our emphasis area. A Learning Community teacher should
have knowledge of the following:

major theories and ways of understanding culture and social life particularly as they bear on the
interactions of individuals in groups ( TEZOOD, TE350D);

203

(b) major theories of human development (intellectual, social, emotional, physical) particularly as
they pertain to group behavior, individual differences and the relation of these to teaching and
learning (TEZOOD, TEZOID);

(c) an understanding of the academic disciplines (e.g., mathematics, science, language arts, social
sciences) as they play a role in the life of the community and as they are imparted to new
generations as cultural tools as part of community membership (all methods courses);

(d) the use and critique of existing curricular materials and school practices in terms of their potential
to instill valuing of diversity, interdependence and reciprocity in learning; and the integration of
curricular content in genuine learning situations (all methods courses; TE37OD, TE47OD);

(e) the design and implementation of innovative curricula that are integrated and based on genuine
concerns of students and their communities 80 that (1) subject matter knowledge is acquired image
as it is applied to the concerns of learner and community; (2) subjects (and skill areas within
subjects) are combined as a viable means to address complex learning goals; (3) the management
and content of instruction are viewed holistically within the design of the curriculum (all methods
courses; TE37OD, TE47OD, TE48OD); and

(t) the acquisition of a repertoire of teaching strategies and instructional activities that promote
individual and cooperative learning in the classroom (all methods courses; TE370D, TE47OD,
TE480D).

Such knowledge objectives are augmented by acquisition of skills in planning, curriculum design,
and instruction. By means of extended journal keeping and discussion over the course of their professional
education, the students practice the "habit of reflection" upon their professional activities. Extensive work
in the methods and materials for integrated instruction focuses on the ability to identify meaningful
occasions for learning in the everyday lives of students in classroom and community. A focus on group
processes in teaching and learning and opportunities for micro teaching enable students to experience both
the ways in which the content and measurement of instruction are interwoven in the enactment of classroom
life and ways in which they may be isolated for critical examination and reflection.

In addition to the knowledge, skills, and dispositions described above, the Learning Community
offers students an introduction to the use of computer technology in teaching and learning. In a special
section of the course, CEP434, Computers in the Classroom, and in numerous projects and activities for
independent study, the Learning Community introduces prospective teachers to the role of technology in
cooperative learning, language arts, social studies, math, and science methods. Students learn to use
computers thoughtfully as part of the learning environment in elementary and middle school classrooms and
in support of professional activities such as planning, communicating with parents and the community, and
networking with other teachers.

Students selecting the Learning Community program emphasis may already have predispositions
to group work, social action, and values clarification. However after they arrive, it is expected that upon

completion of their preparation experience, the graduates will have acquired the following attitudes. The
Learning Community teacher:

(a) demonstrates self-esteem, respect and sensitivity to others in the W in
her/his

(l) attitudes of caring, genuineness, empathy, and helping,

(2) orientation to problem-solving by means of rational
discourse, and

(3) engagement in constructive interactions; and

204
(b) acknowledges and participates in the W

(l) as a life-long learner,
(2) in identification and resolution of social problems,
(3) by sharing ideas with other professionals,

(4) by taking social action in the form of educational
leadership.

Description of the Learning Community Course of Study and Its Requirements

The Learning Community is a six-term educational experience that includes coursework in a
variety of formats, diverse field experiences, and directed teaching. Each course that is a part of the overall
curriculum of the Learning Community will be described in detail. However, before presenting the
individual courses and field experiences it is useful to consider an overview of the program. The following
chart illustrates the course of study followed by a typical student in the Learning Community Program.
Included in the chart are all of the courses and field experiences required and the order in which they are
taken.

As can be noted in the chart, the course of study for the program emphasis can be construed as two
interwoven strands. One strand is comprised of the foundational courses in theories of culture and human
development ('I'EZOOD, TE201D, and TE350D). Another consists of courses in methods, materials and
management of instruction (TE310D, 311D, 312D, 313D, 315D, 316D, and 318D). The third strand is
comprised of the field experience, student teaching practicum, and proseminar courses (TE37OD, TE470D,
and TE48OD). As will be seen in the descriptions that follow, great effort has been made to relate these
three strands meaningfully to each other.

A important feature of the program emphasis is the effort to integrate methods courses both within
content areas and across them. The Learning Community offers to its students a four-course integrated
literacy experience that treats reading, writing, speaking, and listening holistically and in ways that open the
possibilities of integration of language arts/reading and children's literature with other areas of the
curriculum (TE310D, TE311D, TE312D, TE313D). At the same time, the four-course sequence satisfies
the requirements for certification in the State of Michigan.

Integration is manifest in the methods sequence in several ways. Each of the methods courses treats
the instructional process in a holistic, integrated way in that management, materials, and methods are not
isolated from one another but are taught in concert. In addition, courses such as the literacy series, and
mathematics and science methods integrate cognitive developmental objectives so that students learn to
teach toward more complex cognitive operations such as open search and situational use of skills along
with less complex ones such as recognition, algorithmic and application activities. Finally, throughout the
program, opportunities to identify ways to integrate subject matter and practice developing integrated
curricula are afforded the students.

In line with state certification requirements, the NCATE guidelines, and recommendations of
various learned societies (e. g. the Council on Anthropology and Education of the American Anthropological
Association), many facets of the Learning Community curriculum address problems of education in cultural
perspective. One course has an explicitly multicultural focus (TE350D). Issues of language and culture as
they relate to acquisition of skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening are also treated in the
integrated literacy sequence. Also in line with the requirements for state certification and the NCATE
guidelines, the program emphasis offers direct, early, and substantial participation in school settings.

Program of a Typical Student

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall Winter Spring
Juniors TE200: Personal and TE31 lD- Methods TE313D
Social Dimensions of of Higher Level Oral Language
Teaching (3) Reading and and Children's
Writing (3) Literature (3)
TEZOlD: Student TE316D: Methods TE318D: Science
Learning and of Teaching Social Methods for
Development (3) Studies (3) Learning
Community (3)
TE310D: Methods TE350D: School TE37OD: Field
of Developmental and Community Experience in
Reading (3) (3) Learning
Community (3)
TE37OD: Field TE37OD: Field
Experience in Experience in
Learning Learning
Community (1) Community (3)

Seniors 'I’E312D: TE470D: Student TE470D: Student
Integrating Teaching Teaching
Reading and Practicum (l2) Practicum (12)

Language Among or
Subjects
TE315D- Teaching TE48OD:
and School Proseminar in
Mathematics (3) Learning

 

 

 

 

 

Community (2)

 

*Students in Special Education should anticipate a longer program of study with graduation occurring after

the seventh term.

I"CEP434, Computers in the Classroom, is also strongly recommended as an elective professional course or
to supplement majors or minors.

Tentative Time Table for Applications, Interviews and
Decisions for New Admits to the Alternative Programs

1990-91

 

Fall 1990

Winter 1991

Spring 1991 ,

 

Application filed

with alternative

programs by 7th
week of term

November 9

February 15

May 8

 

Interviews for
alternative
programs
completed by 9th
week of term

November 23

March 1

May 22

 

Decision about
alternative
programs
placement made
by last week of
final exams

December 7

March 15

June 5

 

 

R.S.V.P.

 

December 28

 

April 5

 

June 26

 

 

206

Application for Consideration of Placement in the
Learning Community Program

 

 

 

 

l 9 90 - l 99 1
Date of Application:
| First Name: | Last Name: J
| Student Number: | Birthdate: |
I Social Security Number: - - I GPA: I

 

Local Address: Permanent Address:
Street: Street:
No. No.
Ci : Ci
State: State:

 

Phone: Phone:

Please list our Academic Major, Minor(s):

I Major Minor(s)
l
l

 

[What is your planned date of graduation:

 

I 1. Have you been admitted to the College of Education?"

 

I 2. In what term will you achieve Junior Standing?

 

I 3. Are you plannirg to major in: (check one) (if neither, please move on to question 4.)
I Child Develtmment, or I Special Education

 

[4. Are you in Honors College?

 

[5. When will you (or did you) complete TE101?

 

I 6. Who was your TE 101 instructor?

 

I 7. Please list the Math courses you have taken or are currently taking:

L

__L L L __ _ _ L __L

 

8. Please list the English course you have taken or are currently taking:

 

——1

 

 

I 9. When will you be eligible to take Math 201? I

"Placement in Learning Community is available only to students who are admitted to
the College of Education. Students should consult their advisors concerning
admission procedures.

207
On a separate sheet of paper please ME one or two paragraphs on each of the following:

1. Describe the development of your interest in teaching.

2. Describe how you learn best.

3. What do you see as the major problems facing teachers?

4. What qualities and experiences do you have that would make you a good Learning Community
teacher?

5. How do you think Learning Community will help you learn and grow as a teacher?

Please return this form to:

Ms. Tena Harrington
College of Education
302 Erickson Hall

East Lansing, MI 48824

You will be interviewed by one or more of the following members of the Learning Community Program:

Dr. Susan Florio-Ruane
Dr. Helen Featherstone
Ms. Corinna Hasbach
Ms. Sandi Isaacson

Ms. Sharon Schwille

An interview will be scheduled as soon as possible after you turn in the application to the Learning

Community Office. You should return to the Learning Community Office for your interview. If you have
any questions at all please feel free to call the Office at 355-8292.

MSU is an Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity Institution

APPENDIX B

Interview Protocol

APPENDIX B

Interview Protocol

Interview Protocol
for
LC Literacy Group
(Individual)

Introduction
Thanks for taking the time to meet with me today. I'm really glad to
have an opportunity to talk with you individually. This interview is
going to focus on two big issues: first, what it's been like being in the
teaching profession during this past year (or two), and second, what it's
been like to participate in this sharing group? With your permission,
I'd like to audiotape our conversation today and perhaps even
transcribe portions of it later. What you tell me today will really help
me to better understand your experiences as a beginning teacher. Let
me stop now and ask whether you have any questions about this
interview.

Can you talk a bit about your experiences as a teacher this year? (Probe:
What is it like to be out for a year or two?)

(For the second year participants: How was this year--your 2nd year of
teaching~ compared to your first? Did it make a difference belonging to
this group? In what ways?)

Biography
As teachers, we draw on many experiences to sustain us and to shape
our practices-- we draw on our own family histories, our own
schooling experiences, critical events or readings, things we learned
from significant people in our lives, etc.-what kinds of experiences do
you find that you've drawn upon this year?

How would you characterize our LC Sharing Circle? Can you think of a
metaphor that would describe what it's like to be in this group, or how
this group has worked for you?

208

209

Thinking about the conversations that we had, can you talk a bit about
what it felt like to participate in the Groups' discussions? (Probes:
group dynamics, turn-taking, whether you felt you had enough time to
talk, or were able to talk freely, etc.)

If you were talking to another teacher in your school about this group,
what would you tell her about the things we do?

Learning (Link this question with the one above)

As you just mentioned, our group has read autobiographies of other
teachers, kept journals, and met together monthly to talk about
teaching. Which of these activities was valuable to you 8t and why?
(Also probe here to get a sense of how they would define "valuable.")

Narratives

ri'

Can you recall one of the stories that you told in one of our group
meetings? What did you learn from telling this story (or others like
this one) of your students, your experiences with teachers, parents &
other staff, and your teaching?

Did you tell this story to other people (e.g., friends, other teachers at
school, or a family member)? Was telling stories in our LC group
different in some way from telling stories to other people?

Can you recall a story (or stories) that one of the other people in our
group told? What did you learn by listening to this or other stories
group members?

What did you learn by reading published accounts of other teachers'
experiences?

What did you learn by keeping a journal?

What didn't you get help with (and wanted help with) in this group?
Were there things about the group or about the project that you didn't
like or wish you could have changed?

210

What do you know now about literacy teaching and learning (or
teaching in general) that you didn't know before our group started
meeting together?

Other
Is there anything you would like to bring up or discuss that was not
covered by these questions?

APPENDD( C

Transcription Conventions

APPENDIX C

Transcription Conventions

Following Tannen (1989), the following transcription conventions were used:

 

 

indicates sentence final falling intonation
indicates clause-final intonation
! or ? indicates rising intonation

nndefljne indicates loud intonation

BOLD accent on words indicate emphatic stress
/ indicates pause of 1/ 2 second or more
[] indicates overlapping speech

-- clause interrupted

 

211

 

212
12.] E IS] . I .. C I. 11 l'

Amy

But ah, so she was in the building for a Halloween party and one of my kids saw her walking
down the hall—I think she might have I'd never seen her, and one of my kids—we're standing
there, and her game was done and the other games were going on. My parents were totally
doing the games and I was standing there by the door talking to a mom, and um, she said:
'THERE'S OUR TEACHER!"

And my heart just went --

[ ]
"Ohh NO!" (group chants— )

55’

then-
[ ]

I'm you're teacher!

5 E

Yes. I was like: "Em." And then one of the other girls said, "Are you cleaning the room
cause Mrs. V. is coming back? and I'm like "HQ." And I felt bad afterwards,

Cl . l'
I know!

Amy

that’s what I’m saying, but I got this little attitude, I'm like "HQ." (laughs)

lei
but she didn't know any better-

Arm:

-no, and then she said, she made me feel better, she said: "Well, that's good, because you're
fun."

(Group laughs)

1&1

Awwwwh.

(Sharing Circle Transcript, 11 / 02/ 92)

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