the received wisdom in teaching

The Problem with the Received Wisdom

in Teaching

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Saturday, August 31, 13

Popular Assumptions

1. Teaching comes naturally.

2. The main strategy to win the students is to be liked by them, and if you are kind and caring, then students will respond accordingly.

Is that so?

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Prof. Mary Kennedy: The Problem of

the “Received Wisdom”(Kennedy, 1999, p. 54)

“According to received wisdom, teaching is fundamentally a self-evident practice. What to teach should be obvious if you know your subject, and what to do at any given moment should be obvious from the situation. Therefore learning to teach consists of two main parts: you learn the subject you intend to teach through college-level liberal arts courses, and you refine your technique and personal style through experience in your own classroom. Most versions of the received wisdom end here. Some versions add a small role for teacher education, acknowledging that there might be some benefit from studying child psychology or perhaps research on teaching. But the role of teacher education is still considered to be relatively modest.”

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“Teaching is such a difficult practice!” ~David Labaree

(MSU Faculty 1998-2003)

• The problem of client cooperation. The student must be willing to learn what the teacher is teaching.

• The problem of compulsory clientele. Students are present under duress, otherwise students may be doing something else rather than learning algebra, literature, biology, etc.

• The problem of emotion management. Teachers need to actively establish and manage emotional relationships with students.

• The problem of structural isolation. Teachers are the only professional in the room left alone to manage 30 kids on their own.

• The problem of chronic of uncertainty about the effectiveness of teaching. The will and emotion in the teaching and learning process, the effects of teaching, the conflicting purposes of education, confusing client’s identity.

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Even if you realize it that teaching does not come

naturally, which conceptions of teaching do you have?

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Learning to teach in MSU’s Teacher Preparation

- The Internship Year

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Learning to Teach Continuum

(Feiman-Nemser, 2001)

Teacher Preparation (Before Starting the Career)

Teacher Induction (Early Teaching Career)

Teacher Professional Development(Throughout Teaching Career)

Being engaged in sustained critical inquiry towards practice

“Good teaching is

forever pursuing better

teaching.

It never arrives!”

(Ayers, 2002)

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the received wisdom in teaching

Education