Demoralization and Schizophrenia: What Lives Should Teacher Education Prepare Candidates For?

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium brings together central contributors to, and users of, the contemporary research literature documenting and analyzing the plight of teachers in the age of educational reform. In this session, presenters draw upon this growing body of knowledge to address the vexing dilemma it poses for teacher educators: to honestly prepare candidates for work that many practitioners find demoralizing and at odds with the values and commitments that inspired them to join the profession; or to educate them guided by a more hopeful (but potentially romanticized) vision of professional practice rich in the moral rewards of educating human beings.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Lives of Teachers

Chair

• Richard D. Osguthorpe, Boise State University

Papers

• Teachers and Teacher Educators in Distress: Dispatches From New York and Iowa - Margaret S. Crocco, Michigan State University

• From Reflective Nostalgia to Reflective Practice: Undermining Myths With Memories - Jessica Lee Hochman, Pratt Institute

• The Schizophrenia of Contemporary Teaching and Its Implications for Teacher Education - Matthew N. Sanger, Idaho State University

• Demoralization and the Role of Personal and Professional Integrity in the Lives of Teachers - Doris A. Santoro, Bowdoin College

Discussant

• Barbara S. Stengel, Vanderbilt University