Recognizing the complexity of teaching: teacher inquiry as a vehicle for learning

摘要

The University of Florida Studies of Teaching (Jackson, 1968; Lortie, 1975; Clandinin, 1986) describe teaching as complex work characterized by simultaneity, multidimensionality, and unpredictability. In classrooms, competing goals and multiple tasks are negotiated at a breakneck pace, trade-offs are continually made, unanticipated obstacles and opportunities arise. Each hour of every day teachers must juggle the need to create a secure supportive environment for learning with the press for academic achievement, the need to attend to individual students and the demands of the group, and the challenges of pursing multiple strands of work so that students at varying places in their learning move ahead and none are left behind (Darling-Hammond, 1997,p.69). As a leader in the field of teacher education, in this excerpt, Linda Darling-Hammond captures the complexity of teaching and leads teacher educators to the question, "How can we best prepare teachers for the challenges they will face teaching all children in 21st century schools?"