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This appendix contains parts of Chapter Four of Rob Boody's dissertation to give the readers enough information to get the most out of chapter 8. The title of Rob's dissertation, which was completed in August, 1992 at Brigham Young University, is "An examination gf the philosophical grounding of teacher reflection and one teacher's experience." An Examination of Teacher Reflection Chapter 4 This chapter is divided into two main parts. The first part is primarily descriptive, to give a feeling for how Dave Jensen teaches and how he thinks about teaching. This description is valuable in its own right. Indeed, Among Schoolchildren (Kidder, 1986) is one of the best books I have read on schogling, even though it presents little in the way of theory or explicit analysis. But the description is also a good base for the second part of the chapter, which presents six analytic themes derived in the course of the research. A few caveats are in order. First, please remember that the names used here are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the participants. Second, these results are only part of what I recorded, which is in turn only part of what I saw, which is in turn only part of what was there to be seen. Third, even what seems to only be descraption is also interpretation. As the succeeding philosophy chapter will argue, there is no neutral or objective seeing, and an observer interprets a research situation by how he or she acts within the scene -by attending to one thing instead of something else, by what he or she thinks, records, and feels- as well as by later analytical processes. Fourth, therefore, readers should not assume that what I say is really what was there or the only way it could be seen. But, fifth, on the other hand, I did not make it all up, and I am presenting good evidence for what I `ave to say. (In denying objectivity I do not want to simply substitute a radical subjectivity.) Finally, the intent of this chapter, and indeed the entire dissertation, is to open up and broaden the idea of teacher reflection. Towards that end, let me invite readers to join the process by examining their own experiences in the light of these results. Perhaps some ideas will occur that might be useful in making sense of teaching or life. It is Tuesday, January 15, 1991, the first day of second semester at Seacrest Junior High School. I have a certain sense of excitement as I walk up to the doors in the middle of the school building. Part of the reason I am so excited is that my dissertation is really starting to happen, and this is the semester to do it in. But I am also energized by the discussion Dave Jensen and I had just yesterday. It was a Monday and school was out, at least for the students, as a one-day semester break. The teachers came in and used it as a planning period for the next semester. We both knew it would be the only time for us to talk at length in a theoretical or overview fashion, before details, actualities, practicalities, and daily teaching tasks took over our relationship. So I came to talk things out with him He talked at length about what he would like to see in an ideal reading class, and I am interested to see what he will do today and this semester. I come in a little late, about 8:40. All the students and Dave Jensen have their desks in a big circle, which takes up the circumference of the entire room. I slip into a chair near the door and behind the circle. Every desk has a posterboard tag on it, with one of the following titles on it: Summarizer, Predictor, Clarifier, Question-Asker, Connector, Language Appreciator, or Teacher. I immediately recognize these as roles in the strategy known as reciprocal reading, because near the beginning of last semester Dave Jensen and I talked with a first year teacher who came to him for advice. The novice teacher had also talked about reciprocal reading. We both thought it sounded like a good idea. I imagine that Dave Jensen knew about it already, but this is the first I know gf his implementing it. This is also a different way of doing reciprocal reaching than what the novice teacher mentioned. In his depiction, only one student at a time was a Language Appreciator or Predictor, here, every student has a role. The roles used today reflect his view of reading, especially of reading this piece of literature (the Odyssey). The Summarizer retells what happened. The Predictor thinks about what might happen next, or what might have happened if a character had acted differently. The Question-Asker asks questions in regards to the text, things that are not clear, or things that would help explicate the text, such as wondering why someone did a certain thing, etc. The Clarifier answers or guesses at answers to the questions posed by the Question-Asker. The Connector makes connections between the reading and his or her own life. The Language-Appreciator notes and explains any particularly noteworthy uses of language, a particularly apt role for the Odyssey. And the Teacher calls on the other students and records their participation. Dave's only role, in theory, is to read aloud, but in fact, he steps in rather often.
Dave is reading the Odyssey aloud as I come in. At about 8:50 he stops reading and says, "Time to discuss it." Dave Jensen asks the Teacher [Jennifer‹the student filling the role of Teacher in the reciprocal reading activity] to call on Summarizers first, and especially those who didn't participate much last time, because they should all be prepared now. The Teacher, Jennifer, has a class roll in front of her, with marks for those who had participated last class period, so she calls on a Summarizer who had not. The student does a fair job retelling the story of Scylla and Charybdis. Then Dave requests the Teacher to ask another student for more detail. The Teacher asks Teresa, who adds more detail. I could see Teresa's journal and she had a full column of notes. Then a Question-Asker is called, who
asks a question about the reading, and a Clarifier is called to try and
answer it. On the second round of question and answer, the Clarifier who was called stumbles around a bit, until Dave tells him, "No one knows, just make a guess." He seems to loosen up a bit after that and makes a good guess. Dave then asks a Predictor to predict how a character might act differently in one of the situations. He says, "I don't know." He replies, "Of course you don't know, predict." Then he restates his request. This sort of thing goes on a while longer. I don't actually know of any that fully fit category d, but there are some, like Susan, who may read one type of book frequently but be otherwise a fairly poor reader. Susan only read Harlequin romances, so it was Dave's desire to help her to broaden her horizons during the class.
Category b contains the largest number of students. Category a is not so populous as b, but more than c or d. One example is Greg. He could read, and read well, but he had not read a book since first grade. Apparently he entered school being able to read, but his teacher told him that he was too young to know how to read and that instead of reading he needed to learn all the sounds and symbols with the rest of the class. He thought to himself
then, "Well, if she doesn't want me tg read, I won't." And he hasn't.
During the year he was in Dave's class he began to read, although it took months before he read much. By the end of the year he had read a number of 300+ page books. Most of Dave's students are referred by regular English teachers who have students they think Dave could help. The school counselors are also often involved. Parents play a role as well, as they must approve their child's schedule, and in some cases request their son or daughter be put in Dave's class. After the completion of the name learning activity, Dave tells the class that he will read to them. He lets them know ahead of time that they will be writing a letter to me about the chapter he is going to read. He advises them to listen carefully and to do a lot of thinking about what they are going to hear. Dave begins to read the first chapter of Robert Newton Peck's A Day N Pigs Would Die (1972). Peck is a writer of quality young adult fiction. Dave starts, "I should of been in school that April day." His normally brisk, pleasant voice takes on a louder, more forceful tone as he reads for the group. No doubt part of this is to provide sufficient volume for all to hear. Partly I think it also suggests a desire to be dramatic, to pull in these students who don't like to read, and are probably not used to listening. But instead I was up on the ridge near the old spar mine above our farm, whipping the gray trunk of a rock maple with a dead stick, and hating Edward Thatcher. During recess, he'd pointed at my clothes and made sport of them. Instead of tying into him, I'd turned tail and run off. And when Miss Malcolm rang the bell to call us back inside, I was halfway home. Picking up a stone, I threw it into some bracken ferns, hard as could. Someday that was how hard I was going to light into Edward Thatcher, and make him bleed like a stuck pig. I'd kick him from one end of Vermont to the other, and sorry him good. I'd teach him not to make fun of Shaker ways. He'd never show his face in the town of Learning, ever again. No, sir. A painful noise made me whip my head around and jump at the same time. When I saw her, I knew she was in bad trouble. It was the big Holstein cow, one of many, that belonged to our near neighbor, Mr. Tanner. This one he called "Apron" because she was mostly black, except for the white along her belly which went up her front and around her neck like a big clean apron.
She was his biggest cow, Mr. Tanner told Papa, and his best milker. And he was fixing up to take her to Rutland Fair, come summer.
As I ran toward her, she made her dreadful noise again. I got close up and saw why. Her big body was pumping up and down, trying to have her calf. She'd fell down and there was blood on her foreleg, and her mouth was all thick and foamy with yellow-green spit. [I hear
several comments like "ugh," and "gross," and several laughs from the would-be tough guys.] I tried to reach my hand out and pat her head; but she was wild-eyed mean, and making this breezy noise almost every breath.
Dave stops reading and asks the class "What could 'purchase' mean here? It surely doesn't mean its usual meaning of buying something. What other word could you substitute in its place?"
He was so covered with slame, and Apron was so wandering, there was
no holding to it. Besides, being just twelve years old, I weighed a bit
over a hundred pounds. Apron was comfortable over a thousand, and it
wasn't much of a tug for her.
As I went down, losing my grip on the calf s neck, her hoof caught
my shinbone and it really smarted. The only thing that made me get up
and give the whole idea another go was when he bawled again.
I'd just wound up running away from Edward Thatcher and
running away from the schgolhouse. I was feathered if I was going to
run away from one darn more thing. I needed a rope. But there wasn't any, so I had to make one. It didn't have to be long, just strong.
Chasing old Apron through the next patch of prickers sure took
some fun out of the whole business. I made my mistake of trying to take
my trousers off as I ran. No good. So I sat down in the prickers, yanked
'em off over my boots, and caught up to Apron. After a few bad tees, I
got one pantleg around her calfs head and knotted it snug.
"Calf, I said to him, "you stay up your ma's hindside and you're about to choke. So you might as well choke getting yourself born."
Whatever old Apron decided that I was doing to her back yonder,
she didn't take kindly to it. So she started off again with me in the rear, hanging on to wait Christmas, and my own bare butt and privates
[snickers again] catching a thorn with every step. And that calf never
coming one inch closer to coming out. But when Apron stopped to
heave again I got the other pantleg around a dogwood tree that was
about thick as a fencepost.
Now only three things could happen: My trousers would rip.
Apron would just uproot the tree. The calf would slide out.
But she was far from whole. Her mouth was open and she was gasping for air. She stumbled once. I thought for sure I was going to wind up being under a very big cow. The noise in her throat came at me again, and her tongue lashed to and fro like the tail of a clock. It looked to me as if there was something in her mouth. She would start to breathe and then, like a cork in a bottle, some darn thing in there would cut it off.
Her big body swayed like she was dizzy or sick. As the front of her
fell to her knees, her head hit my chest as I lay on the ground, her nose almost touching my chin. She had stopped breathing!
Her jaw was locked open so I put my hand into her mouth, but felt only her swollen tongue. I stretched my fingers up into her throatƒand there it was! A hard ball, about apple-size. It was stuck in her windpipe, or her gullet. I didn't know which and didn't care. So I shut my eyes, grabbed it, and yanked. Somebody told me once that a cow won't bite. That somebody is as wrong as sin on Sunday. I thought my arm had got sawed off part way between elbow and shoulder. She bit and bit and never let go. She got to her feet and kept on biting. That devil cow ran down off that ridge with my arm in her mouth, and dragging me half-naked with her. What she didn't do to me with her teeth, she did with her front hoofs.
It should have been broad daylight, but it was night. Black night. As black and as bloody and as bad as getting hurt again and again could ever be. It just went on and on. It didn't quit.
He closes the book and talks to the class again. "What happened there?"
After a discussion he asks them to write a letter to me about what they just heard. "Tell him what you were thinking as you heard it, what you wondered about, what it reminded you of, what struck you about it. Say something that grabbed you, or what you foticed about the writing. Rob wall write back to you."
Dave further tells them to use correct letter form, which he describes verbally, and also writes on the board. In addition, the students are to include one or more of the following suggestions: What did you visualize?
What did you feel? What part did you like best, and why? What part
struck you as important. What did you notice about the writing? What did you
experience as it was being read? What questions do you have at this point?
What predictions do you have about what might happen next? What did it remand you of? He also writes these questions on the board. As the students write, I ponder what I have seen so far today. What Dave did this day could be labeled under the rubric of "whole language."
But I think it is instructive to note that he was not trained to be a whole language teacher. He was trained in skill and drill and mastery learning, and only came to what he does now as a teacher over time through his reflections on teaching. It is also important to note that although he has read widely in whole language (and other) views of reading and writing,
and taken courses and taught them, he is not a slave to any one view or person in the field. He freely borrows ideas from others but usually adapts them in the process. He invents as well. And he thinks deeply about the needs of his students.
He originally received a B.S. in secondary English and then taught junior high English. He noticed that his students read poorly. He tried to teach what he thought were wonderful works of literature, even for that age group, and students couldn't read them. Dave thought, "Wow, we've got to start a little bit earlier." That's when he started getting interested in teaching reading.
SeveraI years later he was teaching elementary school. For teaching reading he was following a skill and drill approach, as he had been taught to do in school. In this approach, reading is conceived of as discrete skills to be broken down into finite behavioral objectives. For each skill there would be a pretest, a posttest, and remediation if the students hadn't mastered it. Dave borrowed a book from his principal that looked interesting. He started to read that book and read all night, finally going to bed at 4:30 in the morning. The book was Reading Miscue Inventory (Goodman & Burke, 1972), and it was the most exciting professional book he had ever read.
The message of the book to him was that the mistakes a teacher sees happening in reading are not mistakes at all, they are miscues. That is, they show how a student is thinking and act as a window into his or her head. They show what a student is cueing into. None of the "mistakes" are random; they are based on something. As Dave puts it, "That just blew me away." It was a difficult book to understand, but it gave Dave the motivation to grapple with the ideas and to implement them in his classrooms. "I tried for eleven years to make sense out of it and to try some of those things just in that one little book. You know, it never occurred to me to write to the author or the publisher for more information. Not until I've gotten into writing myself have I realized that I, even though I was the teacher, had to go through the same evolution my students do‹to learn that there is a human being on the other side of that blackprint."
He asked about the book at the local university while taking graduate classes and also asked around the school district in which he taught. No one knew much about the book; the most information he received was, "Well, I think those people are somewhere in Arizona."
He had become very proficient at mastery learning. He was awarded
Teacher of the Year in another state. He had students who were at the
bottom of a school that was itself was at the bottom of the eleven junior high
schools in the district. In his two years there, he brought his students up to
the middle of the pack on standardized tests. It looked really good. "But you
know what?" he said, "The kids didn't like to read, and it finally got
through my thick skull. So what if they can master at 80 percent or better at
cause-and-effect, so what if they can break down words, so what if they can
do this, that and the other. If they still won't touch a book with a ten-foot
pole, what have you accomplished?" At the same time he was still trying to
make sense out of the Goodman and Burke book, without any support or
background knowledge.
At this time Dave was really searching. Even though he was doing what anybody would consider good things, he did not feel he was meeting his goals of helping readers. But then, in 1984 in Secondary Reading, he saw an advertisement for a ten-day workshop by these authors. He went down to the workshop for 10 days. In his own words: "It just changed everything. Everything made so much sense. I took 85 pages of notes. And I have gone over and over those notes countless times. And things have even made more sense as I've experienced some of it." He heard Ken and Yetta Goodman and Dorothy Watson conduct the seminar on Miscue Analysis and whole language. He met the other people attending the wgrkshop who were also struggling, who were going through the same kind of searching and struggles he was, and others who were more advanced and had a lot of experience and were coming just for a refresher, one at a nearby university who was doing exciting things in Dave came back ready to set the world on fire. He had been given their name of some whole language. Dave contacted her and began going to a whole language
support group. Seven years later he still attends almost every month. Theother members are mainly teachers also trying to make sense out of these philosophies of language learning and how such assumptions impact instruction and learners. A professor or two often acts as mentor.
The school bell rings, releasing me from my reverie. The kids file noisily out into an even noisier hallway. Those students assigned first lunch are off to eat, those with second lunch have one more class before lunch. Dave's fifth hour class has first lunch.
The two of us ate our lunch in his room. Dave rarely eats much, often a small can of juice, a piece of fruit, and a piece of bread. During the 25 minutes allotted for lunch, we talk and he further prepares for the next three classes of remedial reading. There have been times we have talked in general, but more usually we talk about specific students and activities. He
often changes what he does in the following three classes by how things go
in the fourth period class. We often talk while he is grading or running errands around the school.
Fifth period has more students than the other sections, and the name game takes so long they have less time to write a letter. Sixth period, it seems, is the one to worry about this semester‹they seem unexcited by his reading, and make unrelated comments. For exarnple, while Dave is talking to the class, Grant belligerently yells "Why am I here?" not once but many times. Another student, Finette, can't remember a thing about the chapter. In sixth period, students finish the name game quicker because there are fewer students, so Dave has them draw a picture of the most poignant part of the chapter for them, and also ask any questions they have about the class. Seventh period goes much like fourth period did.
After school is out, Dave tells me that, overall, the day went much better than he expected. As I sat in his room while he filled out the attendance sheets, I began to think about what I have seen today and what we talked about yesterday. Yesterday, Dave began our discussion by opening the large blue lab notebook in which he keeps his thoughts and writings and notes and says, "I did some thinking over Christmas holiday‹totally colored by how much time I spend [doing school related work], feelings of lack of valuing for what I do [by others], and my inundation‹so it may not "work." I could see a date written in his notebogk‹December 30. So I thought to myself, yes, this is a time when he has more time to himself and is released from the daily grind of school. It is also New Years, a time when people reflect back and take stock and make plans for the future. But under the hope of what he could do to help all of his students better lurks a couple of his longtime bugaboos: he often feels burdened by the amount of time and emotional energy teaching takes and the lack of appreciation.
His energy and enthusiasm and confidence built as he continued. "My question was, What would the dream reading program look like in junior high school to really make a difference for the kids? It is not a dichotomy, but I see two general types of kids along a continuum: those who are proficient readers but are reluctant or not into reading, and the less skilled in reading. I need to do something to address the needs of both. To work this out I asked myself two questions: One, what would the students feel
like when they left this ideal program, and two, what could they do?"
"Such a program would have this characteristic: the student would feel
competent. It seems to me that many of my students do not read because
they do not think they can. But I'm nervous about them simply feeling
confident, because I have some students who feel they are competent and are not. So they should both feel confident and show they are competent.
But to whom? Probably to me. I also have a distorted view of the world, as do these students who mistake their reading competence in either direction, but I work with other kids and teachers and so have wider horizons."
Turning to the notes in his daybook, he read, "Behaviors the students should exhibit:
From other discussions I know that he sees reading, writing, listening,
and speaking all as aspects of literacy. He often encounters resistance from
students who don't want to write. They usually don't want to read either,
but if it is a reading class they are at least willing to do a minimal amount
for a grade. But they seem to feel that writing should not be required in a
reading class.
The need for authenticity is part of one of his underlying themes. That
is, Dave does not want to impose either reading or writing tasks on students
just as skill builders, but only in the context of doing important things.
At this point in our discussion, Dave began grading exercises from the end of the previous semester (grades don't have to be in till the end of the week). The next hour or so of our discussion took place as he graded. Because of the pressure of his work, we often talk while he does other things. Experienced teachers seem to develop the ability to multi-task, to do more than one thing at a time. Such teachers often have dearned "tricks" to
get things done faster as well.
I chimed in at this point, "And it's even more complicated if we bring in writing. What about the ones who are not so bad at reading but are poor gr reluctant writers?" I was here thinking of Thomas as an example, who was an excellent and non-reluctant reader but who would not put pen to paper.
Dave noted that some of the students are really pretty capable, but they don't feel they are and so do not act as if they are in most circumstances. Then he began to detail tactics to bring his desired goals to pass. "I would like to have lots of group sharing of books to read. If they are reading they will have some to share. I will introduce lots of books and provide hooks." Sometimes he introduces books simply by telding about them but more often he tells about a book and reads short selections from it. Occasionally he reads an entire chapter, as with A Day No Pigs Would Die. He asks the students to maintain a sheet in the class journal to record books they might like to read in the future. Any of the books he shares are good candidates for this list. Sometimes students come up after he shares a book wanting to check it out right then.
Group books often used include Deathwatch, The Witch of Blackbird Pond,
The Book of Three, The Outsiders, and A Summer to Die.
Dave continues his list: "I want to have lots of probing of thinking. They just must think here. It is much easier for teachers if students don't think; they dof't have to deal with hard questions. I will support the less proficient readers. Not that they will know who is in which group. And I will help all of them reflect on their reading, of course."
He sighed. "It sounds so wonderful, but how to pull it off? I have always wanted to do it, at least since learning about whole language."
After Cloze, Dave moves on to "Retelling. Could be that I'm expecting too much too soon to get them into reflecting. Some don't even know what's in the text, like Kent. That kid doesn't know what he's reading." Dave had checked on Kent as he was reading Deathwatch. Kent told him nothing, and responded to Dave's prompts with "I don't like to think as I read."
"Retelling helps students be determined to get meaning. So many of them just keep going on even if it makes no sense to them, they see it as not their problem."
"I wonder how or where they got that?" I wonder.
Dave thinks that having students reflect is crucial to reading. But it is also true that if they don't pull anything out of the reading to reflect on, then reflection doesn't make much sense. And he does have students who have trouble getting anything out of their reading. Kent is a very good, or should we say bad, example. As Dave puts it, he has defined reading simply as seeing words and turning pages. Nothing else happens; there is no human connection. I still wonder how students become like that, that they can "read" and get nothing and not worry or care about it. I imagine that the artificiality and coercive nature of schooling has a lot to do with it.
At this point Dave finished grading, and I prepared to leave Dave to more grading from last semester and more preparation for the new one.
In many qualitative studies, research starts from the actual terms the participants use. It then becomes a matter of teasing out the culturally held ideas about this particular term. Spradley uses this approach very effectively in discussing tramp culture (see You Owe Yourself a Drunk, Spradley, 1974).
Retrospective Analysis: There are certainly times when Dave would. after the fact, think about what had just happened to make sense of it. The
problem with describing reflection in this way is that it ignores many other facets of reflection that are not retrospective, neither are they as conscious and deliberate. It ignores the larger context of his life. In addition, nothing is said about how such reflections make a difference in the present or future. That is, even if a teacher looks back on a teaching experience and thinks, for example, "I don't think that the students got very much out of this lesson," it is not clear how this will or will not factor into future teaching experiences.
One issue not well discussed in the literature is what exactly it is that is looked back upon. Dave Jensen, for example, saw things in his classroom that many people would not have seen. But there is always more that could have been seen. And there are different ways of seeing. Thinking of reflection merely as looking back on experience assumes the neutrality and givenness of experience.
Another slighted issue is that for such reflections to make a difference depends on a lot of things that are not discussed. For example, if Dave decides that a class did not go well and reflects on it, how will that affect tomorrow's classes? The class he reflected on is already past, and presumably tomorrow's plan is not identical. And if teaching is not mechanical, but a human activity, then the results of reflection are not mechanical in nature, and their influence not of a causal nature. A third issue is that there is a tendency to lose connection with the other person in thinking of reflection as retrospection. Retrospection is always after the fact, and it can be very introspective.
Dave Jensen does sometimes seem to do something like Cruickshank's (1987) analysis of effectiveness of methods and techniques. But he works with real lessons to real students, not contrived situations, as does Cruickshank. And, like most teachers, Dave usually reflects alone. As part of a larger teacher education approach, Cruickshank's method may well be a useful approach for limited objectives; but it is not a good description of how practicing teachers reflect.
1. Direct action temporarily inhibited, so that thinking may take place.
Suggestions of what to do occur; if more than one option exists, inquiry
proceeds. Dave Jensen did not stop teaching the students so he could reflect; he did his sit-down thinking after teaching hours. But why do we
assume that no ideas can come while action is taking place (see, for
example, Schon, 1983; also pp. 43-46 above). This model says nothing about where the suggestions come from. Is it always necessary to have cgmpeting suggestions for inquiry to proceed?
2. Felt uneasiness transformed through identification and articulation into an intellectual problem to be solved There certainly was some sense of this happening, although Dave taught for years before the major
breakthrough occurred in 1984. It was much more than an intellectual problem. The knowledge required was not something he could get entirely from books or talk. He had to feel his way into it, and develop practical knowledge to guide him in carrying out what needed to be done.
3. Working hypothesis developed to guide data collection. His original
data was gathered probably without hypothesis, as is most ethnographic data. Gathering data to support or refute a particular hypothesis has the tendency to cast everything in terms of that particular hypothesis and ignores much else that may be going on. Too often an hypothesis becomes a straight jacket.
4. Proposed solution elaborated and connected with other things through a reasoning process. This certainly occurred in the case I am discussing, but Dave's "solution" is not in essence a methodological or technical solution. It anvolved a different way of relating with students and of seeing the process and pedagogy of reading; it was a different form of life.
6. Attempt made to verify the hypothesis through empirical testing. Further refinement of the hypothesis and further testing can occur if the initial test does not verify the hypothesis. What kind of evidence would confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis? Dave Jensen continually tests his activities, but on the grounds of what specific hypothesis? This is not to say that he does not employ verbal formulatigns that sound like hypotheses, for
that he does not test these. I am simply pointing out that the process of hypothesis testing is not as straightforward as the model suggests. For example, if we take a verificationist approach, making a hypothesis and looking to see if the predicted results occur, we are unable to certify our hypothesis due to the logical fallacy of affirming the Consequent. More than predicate calculus is required. !
Post-reflection. In post-reflective period, a feeling of "a direct experience of mastery, satisfaction, enjoyment (Dewey, 1933, p. 200J. This is not Dave's usual state at all. He continues to be troubled by his teaching and the needs of his students. He does often feel satisfaction when students he works with do well and break out of bad habits. But he still worries about he others.
Van Manen: One could always, of course, spread Dave Jensen's actions out along van Manen's hierarchy. Following Noffke and Brennan's critique, however, to do so tends to ignore the connections between the levels in the hierarchy, and the idea that all of the levels are needed. In addition it takes as the ideal state something that does not reflect Dave's situations. Take, for example, his moving from book reports to his version of written
book sharing‹"For Our Reading Pleasure.' Perhaps there is not really that much difference. Perhaps it is only a difference "in technique." Or is it? Could the change in technique be seen as a way to promote free speech community, not as an impediment to it? "For Our Reading Pleasure" is intended to be a way to let students talk more about what they got out of a book, and in a way that might invite other students to want to read it. Several students who disliked many aspects of the class nevertheless took this social aspect of the class very seriously and spent much time preparing their submissions.
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