Comprehensive development of teachers based on in-depth portraits of teacher growth

Abstract

We must now acknowledge that much effort at school improvement has gone amiss, largely due to the failure to recognize, honor, and build upon the growth and wisdom of teachers. Teacher professional development is weighted too heavily in favor of the short workshop model presenting intervention strategies to alleviate perceived deficits and is notably disconnected from the teacher as a person. Actual teacher growth processes are largely assumed, not understood. Here, teacher growth is directly considered in terms of comprehensive inner growth involving the whole person. Personal and professional growth is understood as a deeper unity unfolding in the teacher's life. In my doctoral research (Goodwin, 1999), four individual teacher portraits were developed to express the essence (or unity) of the teacher growth story. Each portrait was constructed to stand on its own as a valid human document (Witz, in press). The growth portraits acknowledged (a) a deeper meaningful and unified foundation (Rubin, 1985, p.36) and (b) the profound significance of understanding teachers' ways of being, "habits of the heart," and the "inner self" (Neufeld & Grimmett, 1994, p.211). The portraiture was based on a collaborative, co-investigative in-depth interview methodology involving recognition, empathy, and identification (Witz, Goodwin, Hart & Thomas, 2001). The research work aimed to deepen the discourse on the meaning of the self-transcendence/-realization of teachers (Goodlad, 1997); clarify the linkages between curriculum/subject matter, teaching, and student learning in relation to teacher growth; enhance the status of teachers in society (Schoenfeld, 1999) by showing actual depth and complexity of teachers and teaching; and bear directly on teacher education through greater insight into the nature of teacher growth. The first part of the chapter presents a brief argument for looking at teacher growth comprehensively as a phenomenon in its own right. Next is a short summary of the qualitative methodology used to get at the deeper essence of comprehensive growth and the development of individual portraits. Snapshots of two teacher growth portraits are then presented. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the meaning of the portraits and implications for teacher development. © 2005 Springer.