"It Is So Difficult to Talk About": What Does Being a Good Teacher Mean?

• In Event: 45.093 - MTCC Roundtable Session 18
  In Roundtable Session: 45.093-3 - To Be Good, Ethical, and True: Conceptualizing Teaching

Abstract

In an era of increasingly formalized modes of teacher evaluation, this hermeneutic study sought to counter, or at least expand, the narratives of big data by exploring what being a good teacher means to individual practicing teachers. However, teacher participants had difficulty articulating their responses to this question. They actively resisted using the words ‘good teacher’ to describe themselves and struggled to find fitting language to express how they make meaning of their classroom experiences. Two implications of this challenge with language are explored: a) teachers often use the language of emotions to describe their practice, and b) teachers may lose access to those experiences that they are unable to articulate.

Author

• Kimberley A. Grant, University of Calgary