THE STUFF OF REFLECTION Chapter 4 Reflective Teaching: An Introduction 2 nd Edition Routledge 2013 Kenneth M. Zeichner and Daniel P. Liston Labor Thinking and Feeling Metaphors and Images Some of us were lured into teaching by our love of particular subject matter. For other teachers it was the intrigue and satisfaction offered by a community of engaged young minds that attracted their attention. For most teachers there is, sooner or later, the realization and understanding that the classroom is a messy and engaging place in which to work.

Students are sometimes described as “angels”, “beasts”, or “comedians”. Learning is depicted as “transmission”, “transformation”, and “regurgitation”. In this chapter we want to extend an understanding of teachers’ understandings and framings to include the emotional realm as well as the use of metaphors and images… and to address, more specifically, the process of reflection.

A number of years ago Arlie Hochschild (1983, and 2003) introduced the notion of particular kinds of work as entailing “emotional labor”. While sometimes the notion refers directly to the emotional regulation certain workers or professions are expected to display “on the job”, more generally it also refers to the kinds of emotional processing engaged in distinct kinds of professional tasks. In Teachers' Work R. W. Connell (1985) capably depicts teachers’ everyday chores and engagements. Teachers create emotional relationships with their students, and Connell maintains that managing these relationships "is a large part of [the teacher's] labor process. Keeping order, and getting the kids to learn, both require operating on the emotions of the kids through the emotions of the teacher" (p. 117). Teaching As Emotional Labor

Thinking and Feeling Antonio Damasio's goes on to suggest a role for emotion in rationality: In teaching and learning settings separating thinking and feeling, reasoning and deliberating usually imply that we have some logical and reasonable strategy for producing decisions and selecting an appropriate response. I suggest... that certain aspects of the process of emotion and feeling are indispensable for rationality. At their best feelings point us in the proper direction, take us to the appropriate place in a decision- making space, where we may put the instruments of logic to good use.[…] Emotion and feeling, along with the covert physiological machinery underlying them, assist us with the daunting task of predicting an uncertain future and planning our actions accordingly. There seems to be a cultural and professional reluctance about combining reflective teaching and reflective feeling. This reluctance seems to grow out of a strong and resilient norm against commingling thinking (reasoning) and feeling (emotions). Antonio Damasio (1995) maintains, "not a whisper is ever heard about emotion or feeling". We tend (for the most part) to accept a division between reason and emotion, one that can be strong, insular, and quite durable.

Damasio summarizes a neurological process whereby we learn, re-learn, and build upon past scenarios and emotional reactions. His basic thesis is something like this: Having had experiences similar to the ones we are undergoing now, we recall past events and reactions. This enables us to sort through and respond to our present situation. When we begin another school year and meet a fresh set of faces, orchestrate a classroom discussion around a heated and controversial topic, meet with a frustrated parent and anxious student, or run into a colleague who hasn’t quite understood us in the past, we recall past responses and events and then both respond and react. The claim is basically that through life and learning we come to refine many of our emotions and that these emotions enable us to focus our attention on the potential and likely outcomes of life events, both negative and positive ones. This focusing of attention enables us to deliberate more effectively and efficiently. Both authors view many of our emotions as dispositions developed and acquired over time and not as unknown forces erupting from some irrational and blind source. In this view, reason and emotion can not be separated since they are intertwined, both neurally and as a result of our daily interactions.

Metaphors and Images in Teaching In addition to the different sources of teachers’ theories, these understandings also include different types of knowledge and can be expressed in a variety of ways. Propositional knowledge includes claims about teaching and schooling that can be said, more or less, to be true or false. It is said that images and metaphors are not frequently used for argumentative purposes and tend to function evocatively. Michael Connelly and Jean Clandinin (1988 and Clandinin, 2006) emphasize the role of images and personal narratives in teachers' practical knowledge. They point to an image as: Something within our experience, embodied in us as persons and expressed and enacted in our practices and actions. […] images are part of our past, called forth by situations in which we act in the present, and are guides to our future. Images as they are embodied in us entail emotion, morality and aesthetics. They view this practical knowledge as a rich interweaving of images, experiences, understandings, and personal stories that guide and inform teachers' actions.

Connelly and Clandinin found that teachers and principals act, in part, on the basis of their images and metaphors. As a result of viewing instruction as the "planting of seeds," one teacher derived practical guidelines for action. She felt justified allowing children to choose their own activities because she "knew they would learn in a more interesting way". Another teacher who viewed the classroom as a "home," felt that classrooms and homes should have gardens where plant life can thrive. For this teacher, her home and her classroom were places where "growing things" became an integral part of daily life. We believe that teachers are capable of continually developing their practical theories, their images, and their conceptions of teaching as long as they continue to teach. The reality is that many teachers' theories are much more complex than some of the caricatures we have offered.