Teaching With Self: The Power of Authenticity in Alternative Education

• In Event: 75.042 - The Power of Teacher Beliefs in Shaping Policy and Practice

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study exploring nineteen alternative high school students’ descriptions and understandings of good teachers. More specifically, it emphasizes the importance of teaching with self—or the ways in which teachers’ authentic, identity-infused practice served as essential supports to students’ learning and development. Findings highlight participants’ ideas about how good teachers brought their selves to bear in practice, and how teachers’ unsuitable, externally-driven, or hidden selves negatively impacted effectiveness. The paper also describes the structural and bureaucratic obstacles to authentic teaching named by participants, and concludes with implications for teachers, teacher educators, educational leaders, and policy makers working to develop, support, and retain strong teachers in the highest needs schools.

Author

• Jessica Blum-DeStefano, Teachers College, Columbia University