Learning to Teach: A Critical Approach to Field Experiences

by Adams, Natalie G.; Shea, Christine M.; Liston, Delores D.; Deever, Bryan

• ISBN13: 9780805854701
• ISBN10: 0805854703
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-22
• Publisher: Lawrence Erlbau

Summary

This text is designed to assist preservice and inservice teachers in creating a critical and reflective dialogue with themselves, their assigned classroom cultures, and the larger school environment. It engages readers in a series of classroom and school-based activities, observations, and exercises that can be used in any teacher education course with a field component. Different from other field experience guides, this text aims to disrupt traditional conceptions of teacher education and field experiences--by emphasizing the problematic nature and dynamics of public schooling, and encouraging readers to seek a greater awareness of their own attitudes toward and connections with these educational processes.Learning to Teach: A Critical Approach to the Field Experience, Second Edition: *dramatically reconceptualizes the field experience by asking preservice and inservice teachers to be active and critical researchers of classroom practices and processes; *provides a coherent framework for analyzing both structural and cultural aspects of schooling; *provides specific exercises to help preservice and inservice teachers evaluate and understand the intersections of race, class, gender, and culture in "real life" school settings; and *grounds the observations of everyday school life within critical, feminist, and poststructuralist discourses. New in the Second Edition: A new section,"No Child Left Untested," has been added to help preservice teachers explore the implications of a very changed post-September 11world in which xenophobia, violence, patriotism, citizenship, and democracy have taken on new meanings. The introduction to the book as a whole, the section introductions, the retained activities in existing sections, and the references have been throughly updated.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction	xv
Some Important Terms and Concepts	xv
A Note on Observing in Classrooms	xxi
Notes	xxii
Preobservational Activities: The Exploration of Self
Introduction	1	(2)
Called to Teach	3	(2)
Significant Past School Experiences	5	(2)
Finding a Sense of Place	7	(2)
Multicultural Self	9	(2)
Prevailing Privileges	11	(2)
Cultural Portrait	13	(1)
Notes	14	(3)
Regulating the ``Schooled'' Body
Introduction	17	(4)
Seating Arrangements	21	(2)
The Sick Building/Classroom Syndrome: Observing Classroom Design and Climate Factors	23	(2)
Reading the Physical Structure of the School	25	(2)
Teacher Movement in the Classroom	27	(2)
Regulating the Female Body	29	(2)
Regulating the Male Body	31	(2)
Regulating the Teacher Body	33	(2)
Compulsory Heterosexuality in Schools	35	(2)
Dress Codes	37	(2)
Rituals of Schooling	39	(2)
Fighting Violence in the Schools	41	(2)
Taking Control of the Classroom	43	(2)
School Punishment	45	(1)
Notes	46	(1)
Pedagogy and School Cultures: Issues of Race, Class, and Gender
Introduction	47	(4)
Textbook Analysis	51	(2)
Moral Messages in Everyday Instruction	53	(2)
Teacher Wait Time	55	(4)
Brain-Compatible Classroom Exercise	59	(2)
Classroom Dialogue 1: Frequency	61	(2)
Classroom Dialogue 2: Content	63	(4)
Classroom Characteristics and Climate	67	(4)
Shadowing a Student	71	(4)
Student Resistance	75	(2)
Student Ridicule and Harassment	77	(1)
Notes	78	(1)
The School as an Ecosystem
Introduction	79	(6)
Metaphors of Classroom Praxis	85	(2)
Images in the Classroom	87	(2)
Student Governance and Decision Making	89	(2)
Faculty and Staff Governance	91	(2)
Role of Local School Boards	93	(4)
Politics of Educational Decision Making	97	(4)
Assessing Family--School Relationships	101	(6)
Assessing the Parent--Teacher Relationship	107	(4)
School-to-Work Linkages	111	(4)
Extracurricular School Activities	115	(4)
Violent Schools?---Safe Schools?	119	(6)
Cyberspace, Digital Age Equity, and the Virtual Classroom	125	(4)
Notes	129	(8)
No Child Left Untested
Introduction	137	(4)
Best Practices	141	(2)
Highly Qualified Teachers	143	(2)
English Language Learners (ELLs), Immigrant, and Migrant Students in Schools	145	(2)
No Child Left Untested	147	(2)
``Other Mothering'' and ``Colortalk'': Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners	149	(2)
Healthy Bodies and Healthy Minds	151	(2)
Notes	153	(2)
After the Field Experience: Now What?
Redesigning the Curriculum	155	(1)
Rethinking Student--Teacher Relationships and Learning	156	(1)
Redesigning Classrooms	157	(1)
Redesigning Teacher Education	158	(1)
Note	159	(2)
Index	161