ERIC Number: EJ1065299
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1536-3031
EISSN: N/A
More and More Often: The Power of Hindsight
Grant, Grace E.
Issues in Teacher Education, v24 n1 p75-80 Spr 2015
As president of the California Council on Teacher Education from 1994-1996, teacher educator Grace Grant reflects on the first conference she attended of the then California Council on the Education of Teachers in 1976 at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. The keynote speaker was Gary Fenstermacher, the then-director of teacher education at the University of California, Los Angeles. He had just recently read Robert M. Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and used it as a metaphor to challenge the attendees to think hard about the sources for quality in their work as teacher educators. In his address, Fenstermacher went on to warn educators to pay attention to both the art in teaching and living, and to the science of problem solving skills in diagnosing and shaping the technical skills of teaching. He foresaw the coming press for rationality in teaching and called the attendees to remain strong to a perception of the education of teachers as one that balances both pulls. As Grant muses on Fenstermacher's quality and Pirsig's attitude as the seeds that began her life as a teacher educator, she questions, after 30 years of active participation in Cal Council, if there were things, in hindsight, that she wishes she had said, and had said more often, to colleagues and students. She then presents 10 comments that she wishes she had included more often in her CCTE years and her years as a teacher educator; she wishes she had paid more attention to them, or had modeled them more regularly, or had said them more often.
Descriptors: Teacher Educators, Teacher Attitudes, Conferences (Gatherings), Novels, Figurative Language, Problem Solving, Teaching Skills, College Faculty, Reflection, Advisory Committees, Communities of Practice, Interpersonal Relationship, Teacher Student Relationship
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive; Opinion Papers
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A