Overturning the Rules
and Creating Amiable Classrooms

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(cont.) - Page 8

Resistance to change

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  All the teachers note the role of resistance in the process of change. Laurie said, “When I entered practice in 1984 or ’85, I was very much a controlling sort of teacher. I was very consistent, [thinking] this is the fastest, most convenient way we could get it all done.” She added that after the radical change in her practice, it was interesting to look back on the way she had been. The teachers agreed that it is difficult to think there are better ways to function as early childhood educators.

  Bobbie-Jo commented that when she began as supervisor, one teacher said, “You’re that Reggio girl, and don’t think for a minute you are going to do that here!” Whatever interpretations people make of the term Reggio, advocates of the Reggio approach note that they first create their practice out of whatever provocations stimulate a sense of ownership and participation in their own teaching. “Of course we’re not going to force you to do anything,” Bobbie-Jo responded to the teacher and proceeded to talk with staff about their view of children and what they wished to see in the center. She described how an especially resistant staff person was later overheard telling visiting teachers the results of following the children’s lead: “I can’t believe what a difference this has made. I am no longer stressed when I go home.”

Teachers taking ownership of their teaching practice

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  What happened and how did it happen? From the teacher educator’s perspective, Callaghan believes a crucial moment in changing practice was beginning with teachers’ images of children: “To start with the view of the child is pivotal.” Making this positive image of children explicit permits a conscious investigation of whether the pedagogy of teachers supports their images of children. When teachers see mismatches between their newly explicit image of what children can do and their teaching practices, they begin to see openings for doing something differently that better honors their values.

  Once the reexamination of established practice had begun, possibilities for teachers’ participation in creating their own pedagogy opened up. Teachers asked, “What’s possible?” or “Do you think we could _____?” Bobbie-Jo noted that “the adults are doing exactly what we are doing with the children. We are asking the children, ‘What are the possibilities on this? What can happen? Make your theories. Let’s try it out. Let’s revisit that.’”

  What has happened is a change in teacher stance. There is a new disposition to think in terms of possibilities, to invent in response to context—an aspect of good constructivist teaching (Forman 2002). Laurie commented that this change requires redefining what it means to be a good teacher and that expectations for job performance also have to change.

  These teachers are no longer “keepers of the routine” (Wien 1995), programming according to the production schedule, but partners with children. If teachers take control of their own practice, and of assessing the match between their values and their pedagogy, then teaching becomes not performing a job to someone else’s criteria, but instead living in responsiveness to children and families and sharing a broad sense of possibilities about all the ways to participate together. Something about the change is profoundly democratic, if democracy is conceived as full creative participation of all members of the community.

 

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