Seeing Singularity in Teaching: The Promise of Humanities-Based Educational Research for Ongoing Teacher Education

• In Event: The Relevance of Humanities-Based Approaches to Teacher Education

Abstract

Teacher attrition, a perennial concern of educational researchers, has received renewed public attention in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Responding to the problem of attrition requires understanding what drives teachers to leave the profession, and what motivates them to stay. A recent nationwide study found “teacher voice”—meaning individual teachers’ perceived influence in their school and control in their classroom—to be a principal factor in determining whether teachers remain in or exit the profession (Garcia et al., 2022). Teachers who enjoy autonomy in their classroom and who understand themselves as making a meaningful contribution to their school community stay; teachers who lack this autonomy tend to leave. This data, I suggest, may point to an unintended consequence of an exclusive focus on generalized, evidenced-based practices in teacher education and professional development. As a teacher, the science of learning continually informs and improves my pedagogy. However, I argue that an exclusive focus on the learning sciences risks fostering a diminished appreciation of the singularity and uniqueness vital to the practice of teaching.
In this presentation, I will share findings from a humanities-based empirical study through which I sought to “bear witness” (Hansen, 2021) to teaching as a deeply human practice characterized by singularity and interpersonal encounter. By pairing narrative accounts drawn from long-term observations of a single teacher at work with descriptive philosophical analysis that draws on Edmund Husserl (1960, 1989) and Edith Stein’s (1964) insights about empathy, Gabriel Marcel’s (1950) notion of personhood, and Jean-Luc Marion’s (2002) understanding of “gift,” I will illuminate a kind of learning that happens through interpersonal encounter which, while occurring alongside the acquisition of knowledge and skills, exists in an entirely different realm. Such learning, I argue, is proper to teaching as a practice carried out by singular, non-interchangeable persons.
I will conclude by drawing out the implications of my observations and analysis for both educational research and teacher education. First, they illustrate how philosophically-grounded educational research attuned to the singularity of teaching practice can remind scholars, administrators, and educators of the aspects of teaching that cannot be captured by the methodological scope of the learning sciences. Furthermore, I will suggest that attending to singularity in teaching is a practice that can be taken up by school administrators and teachers as an effective and ongoing form of teacher education and will offer illustrative examples, drawn from my experience as a practitioner, of forms such practices might take.

Author

• Rebecca Sullivan, Montrose School