| Drawing on Myers' concept of translation/critical literacy (1996), the author contends that the role of the teacher as a person is more important than ever in establishing the interpretive community in the English classroom. Developing a reflective practice, therefore, means not only understanding what one does in the classroom, but reflecting on the role and effect of self in teaching. Research in the last ten years has pursued the development of understanding the self in teaching through reflective practice, autobiography, and personal teaching metaphors. However, these lines of inquiry tend to isolate a teacher's identity within the confines of the classroom, and are driven by assumptions and theories rooted in western cultural epistemology and psychology. To study the interaction between the personal and the professional in a more inclusive fashion, the author worked with a high school English teacher to develop a reflective process integrating the concepts of Taoism and Schon to ask: What is a teacher's Way? The author found that the teacher's Way was driven by an intricate connection between the personal and the professional, and could be explicated by a reflective process based on a Taoist/Schon conceptual framework. This process included an examination of metaphors describing the teacher's personal ideals and teaching values garnered through interviews, autobiographical writing and classroom observation. Finally, the study found that focusing the reflective process on the teacher's personal history and self outside the classroom allowed the teacher to clearly see what, how, and why he teaches in a profound and positive manner. |
