Continually "Becoming" and "Being" a Teacher: Imagining a Recursive Process of Teacher Dispositional Development

• In Event: 30.080 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 30.080-13 - Redefining Dispositions: Alternate Methods for Examining Teacher Characteristics

Abstract

In this theoretical paper, I assert that the process of “becoming” a teacher and the embodiment of “being” a teacher, dispositionally, are intricately interconnected and continually recurring. Current literature around teacher dispositional development often conceptualizes growth along a series of stages, implying a linear and cumulative progression of development. This theoretical paper proposes a different perspective. I theorize that the inner work of “becoming” a teacher, engaging in reflective practices that stoke self-awareness and critical consciousness is a contingent and recursive (Lesko, 2001) process of moving through thresholds or ways of being (O’Donohue, 2008), and I assert that it is this inner, invisible processing that gives rise to the manifestation of external behavioral attitudes and actions of “being” a teacher.

Author

• Jennifer Niedzielski, University of Minnesota