Our job is not only to educate our students, but also to pay close attention to everything that happens in the classroom and analyze it. We are expected to use the information and data that we discover from our analysis in order to see the potential that all students possess. Teachers are seen in a positive light in this book. Teachers are also given advice for many practical ways that they can analyze situations and find funds of knowledge in students of urban areas. Ballenger speaks very frankly about negative behaviors that many teachers fall into when they become overwhelmed or uninformed. She is not judgmental when she speaks about this, because she understands that she has been there before too.
It is reassuring that Ballenger says this method is not like a magic bullet. She knows that what she is recommending to teachers is not foolproof and it is also not something that can happen quickly. Teachers must work at this method and practice it before they have "mastered" it. I choose to put mastered in quotation marks because I believe that teachers never really master anything...they are always learning new ways to continue improving their practices. It is also impossible to use the same method with all students and expect it to work because all students have different needs and respond differently to different teacher strategies.
I am personally interested in improving my teacher research and am excited to use these strategies that Ballenger has spoken about in her book. How do you all feel about that?
I like your take on Ballenger's representation of teachers. I feel that Ballenger places teachers who do this kind of work in a positive light, and all teachers have the potential for this work and practice. She pushes reflective practice
ReplyDeleteAlso, Ballenger represents teachers as collaborators. Remember, she became part of two teacher-research groups, The Brookline Teacher Researcher Seminar in 1988 and Cheche Konnen Center (CKC). She writes, "both these groups were committed to the principle that teachers learn from sharing their practice and exploring their students' ideas" (p. 4). By coming together, a teacher can reflect on his or her own practice and revisit things that happened in his or her classroom alongside other teachers who can offer fresh and varied perspectives--enabling that teacher to see what he or she may not have been able to see alone.
As a future educator, being just in student teaching placements, and internship classroom I am definitely looking to improve the way I do things in the classroom. The strategies Ballenger has talked about in the book are resources that I will definitely use to improve my teaching.
ReplyDeleteStephanie I couldn't agree more with you when you say, "I choose to put mastered in quotation marks because I believe that teachers never really master anything...they are always learning new ways to continue improving their practices. It is also impossible to use the same method with all students and expect it to work because all students have different needs and respond differently to different teacher strategies".
You are right! Teachers never MASTER anything... there is always room for improvement and different ways to teach the same idea or topic to your students. I think one important part of being a teacher is knowing your students and knowing that every year you will have different students with different abilities therefore your lessons will need to be adapted to fit their needs. I always think, if you are teaching the same lessons the same every single year, you are not meeting the needs of your students. Students are not all the same, and it is important for us to be reflective of our teaching.
I definitely agree with you, Stephanie. Ballenger's positive tone reassures teachers that although there is no foolproof method, teacher research is helpful to us when we need to be reflective in our teaching and listening of children. I love that Ballenger gives practical ways to analyze data and conversations so that we can find the value of their conversations. I think we all have the problem of "not enough time". Therefore, it's a struggle to let students talk about more than our desired topic, but when we give students that time, we begin to see the value where we had never placed it before.
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