Reconstructing and Reorganizing the Experience of Being a Teacher Educator: (Re)Creating a Living Philosophy

• In Event: The Lived Terms of Dewey's Pedagogical Thinking

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand the journey—in terms of process and identity—of one teacher educator inquiry group. We use Dewey’s (1916; 1933; Rodgers, 2002) definition of education, “Education is that reconstruction or reorganization of experience that adds meaning to experience and increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience” (p. 82), and his concept of reflection to frame our study and guide in our inquiry process. Qualitative feminist methods (Reinharz, 1992; DeVault, 2018) guided analysis of our data (28 years of notes, recordings, papers, artifacts, and memories). We have created theories to live by—a living philosophy—that touches upon the unconscious, memory, death, impermanence and transition, acceptance, metaphor, liminality, intimacy, presence, resistance, love.

Authors

• Carol R. Rodgers, University at Albany - SUNY

• Claire Stanley, Antioch University - New England

• Beverly Burkett, Marlboro College

• Leslie Maria Turpin, SIT Graduate Institute

• Sean Conley, Sean Conley

• Marti Anderson, SIT Graduate Institute