Teacher Socialization

1. Teacher Socialization Theoretical and Practical Dimensions http://ncrtl.msu.edu/http/ipapers/html/pdf/ip897.pdf

2. What is teacher socialization? • Lortie, D. (2002). Schoolteacher: A sociological study (2nd ed.) “One cannot undo centuries of tradition with a few simple alterations” (p. 230). TEACHER SOCIALIZATION The formation of teaching perspectives and approaches as a result of influence from any individual, group, or institution; sometimes stated as the process of becoming a teacher, or learning to teach.

3. Endemic Uncertainties • Teaching is a complex job that looks easy

4. “Teaching is a complex job that looks easy.” • “To a music lover watching a concert from the audience, it would be easy to believe that a conductor has one of the easiest jobs in the world. There he stands, waving his arms in time with the music, and the orchestra produces glorious sounds, to all appearances quite spontaneously. Hidden from the audience—especially from the musical novice—are the conductor’s abilities to read and interpret all of the parts at once, to play several instruments and understand the capacities of many more, to organize and coordinate all disparate parts, to motivate and communicate with all of the orchestra members. In the same way that conducting looks like hand-waving to the uninitiated, teaching looks simple from the perspective of students [and others] who see a person talking and listening, handing out papers, and giving assignments. Invisible in both of these performances are the many kinds of knowledge, unseen plans, and backstage moves . . . that allow a teacher to purposefully move a group of students from one set of understandings and skills to quite another over the space of many months.” (Bransford, Darling-Hammond, and LePage, 2005)

5. Endemic Uncertainties • Teaching is a complex job that looks easy • Why is teaching so complex? • Aim: change the behavior of involuntary clients • Conditions: • Isolationism (teaching is a lonely profession) • Shared Technical Culture is elusive • Cumulative effects of education • Inability to measure the effects of teachers • Contradictory goals of education (public and private) • Broad-based clientele (students are not our only clients)

6. Apprenticeship of Observation ThinkWriteShare • Think of some of your favorite/least favorite teachers growing up. List some defining qualities of those teachers.

7. Apprenticeship of Observation from Zeichner & Gore (1990) • “I definitely will use a lot of different things like she did.” • “I don’t want to be like that.” • “I wanted to do things for children that were not done for me.”

8. Apprenticeship of Observation • By the time a person enters teacher education, she or he has spend approximately 13,000 hours observing teachers. • Compared to other occupations, education students have much more opportunity to form preconceptions about the nature of teaching.

9. Apprenticeship of Observation • Reflexive Conservatism: • Provides students with a storehouse of practices to fall back on • Individualism leads to Narrow Pedagogy: • Pre-service teachers tend to use themselves as the model for the students they will encounter (Grossman, 1991) • Breaking with personal experience via Overcorrection • Hollow Model: • Provides access to only a limited, passive view of teaching • Teacher Education • Low socialization impact

10. Apprenticeship of Observation Critics • Mewborn and Tyminski (2006) • Empirical evidence not convincing • Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998) • Snark Syndrome • Richardson and Placier (2001) • Ecological forces of socialization

11. Occupational Socialization Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model

12. Discussion Questions • 1. What kinds of changes, if any, do you think occur in most teachers’ philosophy of teaching and learning over the course of the formal teacher education program? • 2. What factors seem to be associated with preservice teachers’ ability or inability to reify the concepts/approaches to teaching and learning imparted by the university teacher education program?

13. Three Paradigms of Teacher Socialization Research • Functionalist • Generally positivistic approach based on rigorous scientific guidelines; major assumption: schools shape teachers, who are merely passive “cogs in a machine”; seeks to explain things “the way they are,” not to problematize “the way things are or could be”; • Interpretivist • Anti-positivistic, complex, humanistic “individual choices,” seeks to understand socialization as a phenomenon that is socially constructed • Accepts the possibility that socialization is not top-down process • Critical • Criticizes what is taken for granted, rejects notion of “socialization”; gender, race and class issues are central tenets.

14. Pre-Teacher Education Influences on Socialization • Evolutionary Forces (Stephens, 1967) • Psychoanalytic Forces (Wright, 1959) • Apprenticeship of Observation (Lortie, 1975)

15. Christopher Columbus • Admiral of the Ocean Sea • In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue • Discovered America • Proved that the world was round • Because of his voyages, American civilization began to flourish

16. How sustaining are the effects of AOO? • Jordell (1987) posits that the role that formative life experiences play in socialization of teachers diminishes over time. • Nias (1986) claims that teachers continue to draw on personal experiences as students up to 10 years.

17. Forces in typical pre-service teacher education • Core coursework – although increases in cognitive development, general liberalization of values, sophistication which student reason about moral issues, not much is known about how this affects teachers. • Methods courses – studies show that such coursework has minimal effect on subsequent actions of teachers. Many researchers posit that the hidden curriculum in programs has the most significant effect on teacher socialization, although the empirical evidence is weak. • Field Experiences – socializing impact of limited preservice field experiences is weak and ambiguous.

18. Different Breeds? • Lacey (1977): • 2 broad orientations of teaching candidates • Professional • individuals committed to a career as classroom teachers; identified positively with traditional schooling experiences • Radical • individuals committed primarily to a set of ideals about social change that might be realized in or outside of the classroom; identified negatively with traditional school experiences

19. PARTING SHOT If teachers’ apprenticeship of observation are not consistent with the values espoused by the teacher education program or the school, what are the implications? Can teacher educators expect teachers to adopt radical views about teaching and learning without addressing the apprenticeship of observation?