Teaching and Learning in the (dis)Comfort Zone: A Guide for New Teachers and Literacy Coaches PDF
Preview Teaching and Learning in the (dis)Comfort Zone: A Guide for New Teachers and Literacy Coaches
Teaching and Learning in the (dis)Comfort Zone This page intentionally left blank Teaching and Learning in the (dis)Comfort Zone A Guide for New Teachers and Literacy Coaches Deborah Ann Jensen, Jennifer A. Tuten, Yang Hu, and Deborah B. Eldridge Foreword by Sandra Wilde Copyright © Deborah Ann Jensen, Jennifer A. Tuten, Yang Hu, and Deborah B. Eldridge, 2010. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-61768-1 All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–61769–8 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-230-61769-8 ISBN 978-0-230-10236-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230102361 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Teaching and learning in the (dis)comfort zone : a guide for new teachers and literacy coaches / by Deborah Ann Jensen . . . [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-230-61769-8 (alk. paper) 1. Language arts (Elementary)—United States. 2. First year teachers—Training of—United States. I. Jensen, Deborah Ann. LB1575.8.T425 2009 372.6(cid:2)044—dc22 2009039979 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: January 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Foreword by Sandra Wilde vii Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Notes on Contributors xv 1 Where Is Your (dis)Comfort Zone? 1 Part I Teaching and Tensions 2 Choosing Words 17 3 Cultivating a Reflective Stance 33 4 Observing the Lesson 51 5 Acting into New Ways of Thinking 69 Part II Tensions of Literacy Teaching 6 Understanding and Moving beyond Labels 83 7 Teaching Effectively Means Learning from Our Students 103 8 Learning from Parents and Families 123 9 Teaching under the Accountability Umbrella 147 10 Pulling It All Together beyond the (dis)Comfort Zone 165 Index 181 This page intentionally left blank Foreword Sandra Wilde Wait, isn’t life supposed to be about getting more comfortable? The authors of this exciting book have turned that conventional wisdom on its head. They demonstrate that in our work as teachers, the margins where comfort and discomfort overlap are not only the spaces where professional growth occurs but the key to staying engaged and happy throughout our careers. There’s a conventional wisdom about teaching careers: that there’s no career ladder, that teachers leave the profession because every year is the same and there’s only room for a few to get promoted to administrative positions. Visions of aging teachers using the same stale lessons and faded bulletin-board displays for thirty years. Teaching is, however, a profession (the one devoted, after all, to the life of the mind) where reflection and growth must be central. Our knowledge and understanding of four commonplaces of education—teacher, learner, subject matter, and milieu (Schwab, 1977)—constantly change, and the good teacher grows as a professional in large part through continuing to respond and adapt through learning and reflection. We understand more than we used to about the role of the teacher, the diversity of learners, the intricacies of subject matter, and the role of education in serving all mem- bers of society. As professionals, we don’t stick with what we learned in our initial training but keep up in the field, not only through the traditional methods of reading journals and attending conferences but through con- stantly examining and changing our practice. Just as in medicine, practice alters as knowledge in the field grows and changes, and practitioners (physicians and teachers) are part of a com- munity that develops in sophistication over time. The role of the literacy teacher has changed from someone who reads out of a teacher’s manual to someone who understands how learning happens, how students differ from each other, what reading and writing involve, and how language and culture are intrinsic pieces of children’s lives. Yet it’s not always easy for teachers to get to this point. This is where the (dis)comfort comes in. It’s a challenge, for instance, to recognize that a lesson didn’t go well, or that some of your students aren’t improving in viii Foreword reading, or to invite a colleague to observe you and give feedback. This book takes lessons learned from working with teachers in a graduate liter- acy program and turns them into tools that teachers can use on their own to ramp up their practice. The authors’ great insight is that the internal cog- nitive and emotional processes of professional growth can be jumpstarted by practical, empirical practices such as asking students to write exit notes about what they learned, or thinking about the language you use with kids, or examining how your teaching is addressing content as defined in state standards. These avenues to growth take us out of our comfort zone, but not in a bad way, no more than getting up from our comfort zone on the couch to go hear a lecture is a bad idea. Just like kids, teachers benefit from working in their zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), pushing them- selves beyond where they are at the present moment. And this is what makes teaching not only rewarding but also fun. Who needs a new job title when you can be developing lesson ideas based on your assessment of students, joining other teachers in study groups to explore what’s new in the field, and getting to really know and understand your students’ families and community? One of the many things I love about this book is the way that it pro- vides invitations to teachers at every level, from preschool to the university. Everyone’s had those moments where a class just didn’t go well and you start to question your whole philosophy of teaching. All teachers worry about the students who are harder to reach, who have a harder time with learning. All of us wonder if we’re connecting with students whose cultures differ from our own. Teaching and Learning in the (dis)Comfort Zone invites us not to jump off the cliff but to dive into the pool, with tools we can use to swim rather than sink, and make our work lively, thoughtful, and satisfying rather than merely comfortable. References Schwab, J.J. (1977). Structure of the disciplines: Meanings and significances. In A.A. Bellack & H.M. Kliebard (eds), Curriculum and evaluation (pp. 189–207). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological pro- cesses. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Preface We all love a good story. During the rare moments we have together over a cup of coffee or minutes before a meeting, we exchange stories of our lives: of our children, our families, our friends, the schools we have vis- ited, and the sometimes funny, powerful, or woeful tales of our teachers. Many of these stories have informed our practice and helped to shape our curriculum in response to what we have been told and to what we see in schools. And we share these stories in our classrooms to help illustrate our own learning and teaching. Now we would like to share some of the stories with you. A Community of Learners We are from a learning community that can be characterized as a group of learners who “focus on problem solving and inquiry, . . . learn through action, reflection, and demonstration; and establish a learning atmo- sphere that is predictable yet full of real choices” (Short & Burke, 1991, p. 5). As faculty members in a graduate program in Literacy Education in a public college located in a large metropolitan area, we strive to embed these characteristics in our program, curriculum, and instruc- tion. We bring to our teaching and research years of experience working in schools as teachers ourselves, staff developers, and curriculum special- ists. We also bring our experiences as avid readers, productive writers, world travelers, and mothers of seven children ranging in age from nine to young adult. The majority of our students are initially certified full-time teachers who work in the city public schools. Some work in charter, private, and parochial schools in the city and also in suburban areas. Most of them are in their twenties, with one–three years of teaching experience. They bring with them to our learning community their increasing understanding of children with diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds and learning processes. They are trying to balance the complexities of teaching literacy in inner city schools while adapting to the challenges of the multidimensional demands of teaching and learning in one of the largest urban school districts. At the same time they are pursuing gradu- ate degrees.
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