Language Arts - Teachers as Learners, Apr 1995

Teachers who are learners always have a degree of uncertainty about what they are doing. Uncertainty is what keeps the inquiry process going. This reflection by a teacher educator who spent a year teaching a thirdgrade class helps us see the realities of a teacher’s internal decision-making process and day-to-day interactions with children in the classroom.

Imitation may be the greatest form of flattery, but focusing one’s vision and going beyond imitation is the path by which the teacher becomes a learner and, as a result, a better teacher.

The importance of not getting caught within one’s own narrow vision when reflecting on classroom practice is well illustrated in this teacher’s account of one year of writing instruction in her fifth-grade class.

Understanding connections between our own lives outside of school and ourselves as teachers helps us see how to link the worlds of home and school for our students.

We do not teach a program or a curriculum; we teach our students. And, ultimately, it is from our students that we learn to be better teachers, as these stories from one teacher’s preschool and elementary school children so richly demonstrate.