"Confused on a Higher Level about More Important Things"

Battaglia: Teaching as a creative, decision-making activity rather than a routine, habitual act that can rely on recipes for success.

ME: This is an interesting way to describe teaching -- a "decision-making activity." I understand and know the other definition, as a habitual act that relies on recipes, or a bog of special tools, for success. I once had a professor of mine describe another teacher this way -- he teaches with personality alone. Since, I've taken that to mean that the teacher was too student-centered, and worried about the student's enjoyment, rather than coupling personality with a purposeful knowledge of the discipline. There were times in my past that I wondered if I was teaching with personality alone.

I know the recipe idea well too, but I've never bought into that idea of trading assignments or activities that work in one class, and offering them up to another for use in their class. It seems to me that the contexts are too different. Moreover, I worry that the task or activity itself overshadows the reason you might choose to do it.

Battaglia: teachers were talking more about teaching and less about students.

This seems, to me, a wonderful result. I know I have to be careful when talking to colleagues about complaining too much about students because it sours my attitude and makes me unnecessarily harsh with students. It's easy to do, much easier than asking what can I do to make my student understand more, perform better, because it shifts the burden from students to teacher. But, on the other hand, I do believe strongly in students being accountable for their own learning and work. Hmmm.

Battaglia: Without support and reinforcement, teachers are unlikely to institute the new ideas they learn from prof development.

Good point. As teachers, we should understand the necessity of reinforcement and repetition.

Battaglia: Teaching is often done in isolation.

Damn if this isn't true. I've always said that teaching is a lonely business, but it doesn't seem like people seem to understand how I mean this.

Battaglia: Cognitive coaching -- coach teacher thinking, not behavior.

hmmm, seems a less adversarial approach. Plus, the whole idea of cognitive coaching, which comes from psychology, is that you can't change behavior until you change the thinking that inspires the behavior.

Battaglia: "sage on the stage" vs "guide on the side". teach skills of cooperative learning.

A reminder: you have to teach students how to work together cooperatively, just like I teach them how to revise and respond to peers' work, I need to understand and figure a way to teach collaborative learning in my classroom.

I suppose I've been working under the assumption that it's obvious how one works well together with a group, but do I really understand the group process? Probably not.

Battaglia: Thomas Greenfield, "Language is power. It literally makes reality appear and disappear. Those who control language control thought -- and thereby themselves and others."

Cool quote. I need to find the article this comes from and read it. "Against Group Mind: An Anarchist View of Education" (1982).

this article is interesting. Battaglia is speaking of job coaching, but she also speaks to teaching. She notices that certain language puts Jaye on the defensive, sort of, and he feels like the power has sort of shifted into her court, and rather than being an ally, she's becoming the sage. I wonder, I really wonder if this is true for students and teachers, or do students want and need someone to take charge?

Battaglia: My questions took on an almost mantra-like quality / action research is an attitude.

Focus on the questions, keep them in the fore, change attitude, make improvement a priority. Hmmm, this makes me feel better, the understanding that the purpose of action research is improvement, because that lessens the feeling that you need to be perfect already. I always have that feeling, a perfection-complex, but if I can adopt the action research attitude, I can lessen my own stress and pressure.

Battaglia: Action research cycle: PLANNING, ACTING, OBSERVING, REFLECTING.

This was a ggod article because it made me think about action research, and showed a bit about how to go about doing it, but moreso, it made me think about my own teaching, my own pedagogy. Battaglia, as a job coach, deals with many of the same questions I have about teaching.