Tropics of Teaching

by Tochon, Franois

• ISBN13: 9780802036858
• ISBN10: 0802036856
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

Teacher education and research on teaching are surrounded by 'a culture of niceness' which can prevent the expression of problems experienced by teachers and researchers. Based on the premise that deconstruction and demystification are a necessary counterforce to 'shared myths,' Franois Tochon offers a provocative, original assessment of mass educational concepts and teacher education, leading to a challenge of rethinking pedagogy in general.The author identifies three shaping metaphors: 'productivity' (output standardization; business efficiency), 'warfare' (strategy; expertise), and 'priesthood' (the enlightened subject) ? which he argues stifle individual growth in a classroom context. He then advocates an entirely different approach, which he terms 'a countermethodology of self-reflection, rather than an incursion into the life of the Other.' This approach is achieved, in part, via a technique he calls Action-Poetry: a means of research and educational activism.Tochon's original contribution to educational scholarship ? and his direct challenge to educators themselves ? is the practice of reflective, situated research with classroom observation (his own journal entries are included in the text). Tropics of Teachingis a call to education specialists and to scholars in social and literary studies to rethink current education curricula, policies, and philosophies.

Author Biography

Frantois Tochon is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He has written eighteen books and more than one hundred articles and book chapters.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	3	(8)
Myths in Teacher Education: Towards Reflectivity	11	(32)
Deconstructing Presence: Behind the Educational Myth	43	(28)
The Situated Researcher and the Myth of Lived Experience	71	(12)
Exploring Educational Spaces: Mythic Territories of Experience-Sharing	83	(26)
A Manifesto for Didaction: Action Poetry as an Empowering Myth	109	(18)
Afterword: The Myth of Security	127	(14)
Notes	141	(2)
References	143	(14)
Name Index	157	(4)
Subject Index	161