Pedagogy for Teacher Presence: Applying Actor’s Training to Teacher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 121
  In Roundtable Session: Drama-Based Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Classroom Learning

Abstract

Teacher ‘presence’ refers to a teacher's "state of alert awareness, receptivity, and connectedness to the mental, emotional, and physical workings of both the individual and the group in the context of their learning environments and the ability to respond with a considered and compassionate best next step" (Rodgers, C. & Raider-Roth, M., 2006). A general assumption is that teacher presence cannot be taught and is a skill some possess naturally, others develop over time and some never achieve. A similar belief is held about the work of acting, and yet acting schools exist.
Both the on-stage work of acting and the in-class work of teaching require shared skill sets. Practitioners should be tuned into the behavior of others through listening and empathizing and utilize improvisational skills in order to react moment by moment to the uncertain and at times chaotic conditions of both arenas (Schön, 1983; Schultz, 2003; Sawyer, 2004). Actors and teachers are trying to reach an objective while struggling with various dilemmas and competing objectives (Lampert, 2001). For both professions, self-consciousness and anxiety inhibit listening, empathy, and improvisational ability. Both involve a level of role-playing; actors are trained to “get into character” by starting with the self, and one’s teacher presence is often rooted in the strong connection between one’s identity and one’s teacher self (Palmer, 2004). Finally, both arenas rely on an ensemble wherein the success of the “performance” is directly related to the strength of the community (Nystrand, 1996; Sawyer, 2004).
This study explores an effort to teach skills related to teacher presence to pre-service teachers using acting exercises developed by Sanford Meisner. This iconic approach to actor training stems from the work of Stanislavsky and the Group Theater (Meisner, 1987). The research question considers how pre-service teachers respond to the Meisner exercises and if the exercises facilitate the development of teacher presence.
Seven pre-service teachers participated in the workshop as the focal participants, meeting in six weekly two-hour sessions on a university campus. Three former teachers and four students from the University’s theater department also participated. Qualitative data sources include field notes from the teacher/researcher, audio recordings of all six workshop sessions, seven interviews with focal participants, and 12 post workshop surveys completed by the participants. Grounded and thematic theory coding was applied to the surveys, comments, and interviews to assess responsiveness to the workshops and specific exercises, and relevance found to teaching and teacher education.
While the findings suggest that Meisner exercises seemed apt for developing teacher presence, findings in this area are inconclusive because the study lacks classroom observational data to measure the extent to which these exercises developed teacher presence. However, results state that all participants felt the workshops supported teacher education, and that the majority of the exercises are relevant for teaching and useful for developing teacher presence. Participants stated that the workshops gave them the tools to cope with anxiety while teaching, and improved their listening, improvising, and problem-solving skills in classroom settings.

Author

• Anthony Johnston, University of California - Berkeley