Turning to the Artistic:

Developing an Enlightened Eye by Creating Teaching Self-Portraits

Janet C. Richards

The University of Southern Mississippi

Long Beach, Mississippi

 

Paper presented at the International Conference,

Self-Study in Teacher Education: Empowering our Future,

Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, England August 5-8, 1996

 

Turning to the Artistic: Developing an Enlightened Eye by Creating Teaching Self-Portraits

Teachers at all levels are becoming interested in self-study as a means of exploring and enhancing their teaching practices. Defined as "a deliberate attempt to collect data ... that can offer insight into professional practice" (Clift, Veale, Johnson & Holland, 1990, p. 54), self-study is situated in a variety of theoretical perspectives including symbolic interactionism, sociology, action research, constructivism, and anthropology (Elliott, 1991; Grant & Fine, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1989; Nias, !989; Teitelbaum & Britzman, 1989; Vygotsky,1978; Watson & Watson-Franke,1985). Historical antecedents for self-study can be traced to the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1894-1977), who believed in the importance of examining one’s own intentions and actions. Noted feminist pedagogists also emphasize the benefits of studying the self (Belenky, Clinchey, Goldberger & Tarule, 1986; Hollingsworth, 1994; Witherell & Noddings, 1991).

 

Self-portraits of teaching practices

One innovative technique that I find helpful for studying my teaching practices is to create self-portraits of my actions and teacher talk in the classroom. Self-portraits (i.e., drawings or sketches that depict the ways we view our inner and outer selves), have the capacity to reveal our self-perceptions and constructions of reality (Dobbert & Kurth-Schai, 1992; Harmon & Gregory, 1974; Pitman & Maxwell, 1993). Drawing self-portraits allows us to uncover and become sensitive to what we consider significant about ourselves, forces us to look carefully at who we are, and helps us to consider our strengths and shortcomings (e.g., see notable self-portraits created by da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh).

 

Creating self-portraits : A four-step recursive cycle

In order to create a self-portrait, I find that it is helpful to implement a four-step recursive cycle of thought and action. The first step involves a conscious effort on my part to monitor a particular aspect of my teaching that I wish to explore. Decisions to initiate this self-monitoring phase can be triggered by my own concerns about preservice teachers’ learning or by my preservice teachers’ uncertainties, confusions, or comments. For example, a preservice teacher recently wrote in her journal: "Dear Dr. R., I can’t figure out all of my notes - you talk fast!" Therefore, I made a conscious decision to monitor my speaking rate during lectures and seminar discussions in order to determine if I need to speak slower. This self-monitoring stage also may be stimulated because I want to pause, consider, and document specific dimensions of my teaching that I think are particularly noteworthy.

 

In step two I carefully consider the teaching problem or event, posing questions to myself, such as, "How did I come to be this way?" ( Kapuscinski, Browne, Krentz, Cooper & Goulet, 1995, p. 103), reflecting both in a systematic and in a non-sequential, intuitive way until I develop some insights about my behavior. Reflection demands that we stop and take stock of our actions, "looking inward at our thoughts and thought processes, and outward [at the teaching context. Through reflection] we become aware of ourselves" (Kemmis, 1985, p.141).

 

In the third step I document my discoveries by creating a teaching self-portrait. Drawing forces me to see myself with an "enlightened eye" (Eisner, 1991). As Eisner (1985) notes, "it is to the artistic we must turn, not as a rejection of the scientific, but because with both we can achieve binocular vision" (p. 199). Finally, I reflect further about the portrait’s content, trying to develop some further understanding about my actions. I ask myself, "How might I do things differently?" (Kapuscinski et al., 1995, p. 103), until I come up with alternative behaviors.

 

Recently, following the described four-step process, I created the following self-portrait depicting my instructional delivery during an initial meeting of a field-based reading methods course. The audience is a group of preservice teachers enrolled in their first reading class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After creating my portrait and reflecting upon its content, I recognized that, just as I had suspected, I talk too much on the first day of class. Good teaching is NOT telling and delivering information. Rather, good teachers maximize opportunities for learners to construct their own knowledge by engaging them in challenging learning activities mediated by a competent facilitator "or in collaboration with capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). As a reading teacher educator, more effective ways for me to help preservice teachers come to individual and shared understandings about teaching reading at Bayview School include:

1) leading an interactive discussion in which I draw out, extend, and build upon the preservice teachers’ beliefs and background knowledge about elementary schools and the teaching and learning of literacy;

2) displaying slides, photographs, and videos showing former preservice teachers and their students working at Bayview School;

3) inviting a group of former preservice teacher program participants to share their perceptions, experiences, and knowledge gained;

4) forming collaborative groups and encouraging the preservice teachers to work together framing questions and concerns about their future activities at Bayview School; and

5) sharing authentic teaching cases written by former preservice teacher program participants (Shulman, 1992; Silverman, Welty & Lyon, 1994).

 

Self-portraits and preservice teachers

Creating self-portraits also provides opportunities for preservice teachers to develop a conscious awareness of their own performances with students and to address discrepancies and "incongruities between what they intend . . . [and] espouse, and their actual teaching behaviors" (Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993, p. 86). After drawing my teaching self-portraits I share them and my reflections about their content with my preservice teachers. I also model the four-step cycle that I use to complete my drawings. Then I help the preservice teachers explore and document their own teaching practices by leading them through a similar process of self-awareness and reflection. When their self-portraits are completed the preservice teachers share them with their peers. Because every teacher and teaching context differs, we discuss the uniqueness of each portrait. We also talk about the effectiveness of some of the teaching behaviors displayed in the portraits (e.g., see Portrait number 7), and since there is no one correct method of teaching, we help one another brainstorm and formulate possible solutions to practices that need improvement. In addition, I remind the preservice teachers to review their teaching and their teaching self-portraits often. Looking at one’s practices in an ongoing, careful, and deliberate way is crucial to professional growth.

 

The following self-portraits were created by preservice teachers in an advanced reading methods course. Their drawings illustrate problem areas that are typical to many novice teachers (e.g., too much teacher-talk, not following through on group management plans, not staying focused on a lesson, and not giving students sufficient time to complete work (see Portraits 2-7).

 

Discussion

Creating self-portraits is a novel way to conduct self-study of teaching practices. Drawing and sharing self-portraits with peers presents opportunities for teachers at all levels to identify teaching behaviors that are not congruent with pupils’ growth and to pinpoint teaching actions that are beneficial for pupils’ learning. Analyzing the content of the drawings also can help stimulate teachers’ awareness of appropriate and inappropriate teaching actions and "teacher-talk" that they might otherwise overlook. Most importantly, creating and sharing self-portraits of teaching practices allows teachers to collaborate and to improve the quality of their work by developing an enhanced understanding of themselves and "the nature and impact of their performance" (Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993, p. 19).

 

References

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