Battle-cries from the front lines: A hermeneutic dialogue with a secondary learning assistance teacher
Date
2000
Authors
Thorsen, Frances G.
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Abstract
This study examines a secondary learning assistance (SLA) teacher's struggling practice. The purpose of the work is to question whether or not reflective practice will alter the teaching and growth of this teacher and, if having taught for over twenty years, how will her values and beliefs regarding teaching change through the process of reflection.
The methodology engaged in over a six-month period, is hermeneutics in the form of two hermeneutic conversations. The first conversation revealed five dominant themes relating to the SLA teacher's work: lack of time, lack of teaching, meeting, paperwork, and overwhelming responsibilities and duties. The teacher reviewed these themes. The second conversation, taking place in October, resulted in the immediate non-reflective confirmation of the themes seen as a text disembodied from her own practice. A request to read sections of this body of work led the teacher to see herself as an anonymous teacher. Berating the person, this teacher realized the narrative was this teacher. This visualization, that I have termed reflection-in-the-making, allowed for the co-participant to view her teaching life from a reflective standpoint. A more in-depth review of the themes through the telling of her own 'teacher life story', resulted in her decision to leave teaching.
Eight days later, this teacher began to recognize her core as 'teacher'. Having stripped away the extraneous duties of her job, she found the 'profession' of teaching. Returning to teach, having set her own terms, she worked with non-designated students.
This study relied on narrative for it is the center of teacher practice, recognizable across the profession and often embodied in the 'collective teacher voice'. The work itself illustrates the core of reflective practice; the relationship between reflective practice, narrative, and 'teacher'; and reveals the personal 'self through story.
Moving from theory to practice, this work suggests that policy implications are directly related. Governing bodies must clearly define the SLA teacher and hear their narrative voices; school administrations need to provide more assistance of a secretarial nature to SLA teachers; university education programs need to teach about the importance of narrative, action research, and reflective practice through example rather than theory. More value needs to be given to narrative in educational research, as teachers are narrative.