Educational Practice Of A Teacher. Pedagogic Keys That Guide Actions.

Author(s):

Susana Orozco Martínez(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

19. Ethnography

Format:

Paper

Session Information

19 SES 10, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

15:30-17:00

Room:

B105 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Andrea Raggl

Contribution

This communication is part of the Research Project: Professional Knowledge in Primary Education Teachers and its Implications in Initial Teacher Training: Case Studies (EDU2011-29732-C02-01. Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain. 2011-2014) and its analysis focus on the research about a pre-school teacher, Esther, in charge of 24 three-year-old children. The inquiry comprises the ways and means in which professional knowledge is deployed in a thinking relationship with her experience, with the purpose of discovering the pedagogical keys guiding her teaching practice.

The research objectives that I am setting out in this study are: to analyse the knowledge of the teaching experience; to find its pedagogical keys; and to transfer this knowledge to university education.

Defining experience, or rather what makes an event or situation become experience, has lead several authors to go deep into the subject (Gadamer, 1977; Dewey, 1995; Arendt, 1996, 2005; Larrosa, 2003; Reggio, 2010); and to the creation of several disciplines. Abstract explanations and definitions point out, without unanimity, what is interpreted as experience. Exists, however, common ground, and it that refers to experience’s potential of learning (Reggio, 2010).

I share some authors’ (Arendt, 1996; Contreras y Pérez de Lara, 2010; Larrosa, 2009) view that experiences are such if they become knowledge, if we can learn from them, if they are thought-provoking (Contreras y Pérez de Lara, 2010), if we reflect upon them. Otherwise, they would just be repeated passing actions, that happen (Larrosa, 2009), without a teaching and enriching meaning. To center our attention on the value that a personal experience can hold does not imply to focus on a visible and perceptible experience. Some experiences are intern and imperceptible and they are valid and rich for our lives. Profound experiences that took place –occurred– but that we are unaware of their real importance. And when a question, an important event or something that happened, triggers it, this significance is revitalized and acquire a new meaning.

The pedagogic trend that stands for learning from experience acknowledges the importance that personal learning stories and biographies acquire for many people to the identity and personal and professional careers. Generally, this kind of knowledge has been devaluated by science and scientists, who favoured the search for objectivity and generality, as the exclusive validation characteristic. Hence we should ask, however, if the subjective aspect behind every experience invalidates what one sees and seeks (Boud, D.; Cohen, R. y Walker, D. 2011).

The interrelation between participant observation and crossed conversations made possible to discover all those pedagogical keys and knowledge that guide and give meaning to the learning-teaching process Esther triggers. These keys refer to the educational foundations, principles or procedures that guide teachers in preparing, planning and developing their educational intervention.

To transfer educational realities to the university classroom, and discuss and analyze them, makes possible for teachers and students to think and take a new stand on the educational interrelationship and on building their future teaching role.

Method

The research is of the qualitative-interpretative type in education, supported by ethnography, biographical narrative research and hermeneutical phenomenology. The following steps were taken: negotiation process, fieldwork and finally an analysis and interpretation stage, which is currently in progress. The ethnographic process carried out with Esther, along with the interrelations between participant observation and conversations about what takes place in the classroom and her concerns, fears and expectations brought relevant information to the research (Hammersley, 1994; Velasco Maillo, 2007; Guber, 2011). A conversation is taken to be a dialogue, interaction and interrelation produced between two or more people, where both contribute to the creation of a text, story or narration. The continuous presence in the field has made possible the understanding of that knowledge which is difficult to formulate, unfold in the classroom’s daily routine and that is strongly linked to those experiences, narrations and stories children share; here lies the bridge between what these children know and what the school is trying to teach them. This is the reason the field journal became an important tool for analyzing and interpreting what happened in the school and the classroom. This last stage is currently in progress.

Expected Outcomes

The results obtained on this stage of the research are partial. However, the procedure carried out so far allows inferring some of the pedagogical keys deployed by Esther in the classroom. They are: reception, care and accompaniment; children’s gradual search for independence; and understanding and attention towards the individual processes students are carrying out. Reception is interpreted by Esther as a continuous accompanying and caring process towards the other: children, families and colleagues. She accompanies the children, giving them a new perspective to their lives and stories, listening to them and helping them to be able to gradually act on their relationships with others, with themselves and with their immediate surroundings. Children’s gradual search for independence is made evident during the circular planning of activities that helps the student: freedom of movement, habits and responsibility for certain activities. The attention towards individual processes allows each one to receive what they need; whether this is more attention or more freedom. What is important is not if one is a fast or slow learner; what is worrisome is when the process stops. To consider children from a wide biography lets us attribute a “reflexive meaning to what happens in the classroom, considering the pedagogic importance these experiences might have for these children” (van Manen, 1998:67). The pedagogical keys recognized in Esther have a common thread with the way she understands, feels and lives education: as an ethic occurrence. The educational practice is unfolded in singular and multi-faceted situations; it is a circumstance when teachers and students “create” themselves in the educational activity itself.

References

Bruner, Jerome. (2013). La fábrica de historias. Derecho, literatura y vida. Argentina: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Boud, D., Cohen, R. y Walker, D. (Edits.) (2011) El aprendizaje a partir de la experiencia. Madrid. Narcea. Connelly, F. M. & Clandinin, D. J. (1995). Relatos de experiencia e investigación narrativa. En Larrosa, J. Déjame que te cuente (11-59). Buenos Aires: Laertes. Clandinin, D. Jean (1985). “Personal practical knowledge: A study of teachers’ classroom images”, en Curriculum Inquiry. 15 (4), 361-385. Clandinin, D. Jean y Connelly, F. Michael (2000). Narrative Inquiry. Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Conle, Carola (2006). Teachers Stories, Teachers Lives. Nova Publishers. Contreras, J. y Pérez de Lara, N. (2010) “La experiencia y la investigación educativa”. En Contreras, J. y Pérez de Lara, N., Investigar la experiencia educativa. (21-86) Barcelona. Morata. Pág. 21-86 Larrosa, J. (2009) “Experiencia y alteridad”. En Skliar, C. y Larrosa, J. (comps) Experiencia y alteridad en educación. Rosario (Santa Fe, Argentina) Homo Sapiens, Pág. 13-44. Malinowski, B. (2007) Introducción: objeto, método y finalidad de esta investigación. En Velasco Maillo, H., García Castaño, F.J. y Días Rada, Á.: Lecturas de antropología para educadores. (21-42). Madrid: Editorial Trotta. Noddings, Nel (2002). Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education. Teachers College Press. Orozco Martínez, S. (2013, julio) Hilvanando saberes desde la relación pensante con la experiencia de una maestra. III Congreso Internacional de Etnografía y Educación. Madrid. Orozco Martínez, S. (2009). Las clases de catalán en personas adultas. Fuente de saberes y relaciones. Estudio de caso en mujeres inmigrantes. Tesis doctoral no publicada, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, España. Reggio, P. (2010) El cuarto saber. Guía para el aprendizaje experiencial. Xàtiva. Edicions del CREC. Stake, R. (1998). Investigación con estudio de casos. Madrid: Morata Van Manen, M. (2003). Investigación educativa y experiencia vivida. Barcelona: Idea Books. Wilcox, K. (2007). La etnografía como una metodología y su aplicación al estudio de la escuela: una revisión. En Velasco Maillo, H.; et al. (Eds.). Lecturas de antropología para educadores. (95-121). Madrid: Trotta.

Author Information

Susana Orozco Martínez (presenting / submitting)

Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

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