Abstract
Most of our information on how teachers of the gifted and talented think while they plan and implement instruction is from the perspective of the researcher, not from the teacher’s perspective. One expert teacher was studied in great detail using ethnographic and phenomenological techniques. More specifically, a teacher was studied as he planned and taught two philosophy courses. After extensive observation and interviewing, the teacher’s thoughts were categorized into planning thoughts and action thoughts. The author argues that the way in which the teacher’s thoughts are linked to his practice cannot be adequately understood unless one gains access to the invisible, tacit knowledge of the teacher. The teacher’s hidden world is described in relation to how the researcher discovered it. The concept of professional practical knowledge is discussed in terms of further research and teacher training.
While a body of research exists on how teachers think in general education, there is very little information on how special education teachers think, and more specifically, on how teachers of the gifted and talented think (Coleman, Terharr-Yonkers, & Warden, 1987). At present most of our information is from the perspective of the researcher, not the practitioner (Clark & Peterson, 1986). This omission means that the categories of behavior and the models used to describe teaching practice are constructions of persons observing the act and the teacher in situ.
By ignoring or overlooking the teacher’s thoughts we omit a rich body of information about professional practice which may help us bridge the serious gap between innovations conceived and demonstrated by professors and their implementation by teachers. This paper is part of a larger project which is exploring the thoughts of special education teachers as they plan and teach in special education settings. The paper reports the thinking of a teacher of the gifted.
The Study
The Teacher
The planning and action thoughts of an accomplished teacher of gifted and talented children are presented. The teacher, who shall be called Alex, was selected because he was acclaimed by colleagues and students as an excellent teacher. He had been a teacher for 17 years. During that time he had taught exceptional children who had been labelled as autistic, learning disabled, mentally retarded, and gifted. At present he is a secondary English teacher and he teaches a course called “Theory of Knowledge” which is part of the International Baccalaureate Program. His students are gifted high school students.
Setting
The study was conducted as Alex taught two different philosophy courses to gifted and talented children in a special summer program on a university campus. He taught two week-long classes, which met for 90 minutes per session. The course met for five and one quarter sessions. The first week he taught the nature of reality; the second, the nature of time. The size of the classes were eleven and nine respectively. The students in the class ranged from twelve to eighteen years of age.
Method
The methodology of the study was qualitative in nature. Elements from two schools of qualitative methodology, i.e., ethnography and phenomenology, were used in this study. Ethnography is a methodology growing out of anthropology and sociology in which the researcher aims to understand another’s way of life from the perspective of that person. The researcher’s purpose is to understand the person in that individual’s culture. Schoolteacher (Lortie, 1975) is a fine example of this kind of approach. Phenomenology is another qualitative methodology which emphasizes that individuals construct the meanings in their lives through their life experiences. The researcher’s purpose is to make apparent the implicit meaning of human behavior from the person’s perspective (Clandinin, 1986). The reason for combining these methodologies was to enable the researcher to hear the teacher’s voice by sharing the classroom experience with the teacher. The procedures described in this paper represent one of the ways to conduct this type of research. One can analyze teaching using other methodologies. This literature has been reviewed extensively (Shavelson, Webb, & Burstein, 1986; Calderhead, 1987) and is an important source of ideas for studying the nature of teaching.
The data for this study were gathered using participant observation, interviews, and artifact collection and stimulated recall (Goetz & LeCompte, 1984; Spradley, 1980; Giorgio, 1985). More specifically, the researcher observed all classes over a two week period. Data were gathered using field notes, a teacher’s daily log, informal discussions with students, class assignments, and audiotapes of lessons and of interviews. Two types of interviews were conducted after teaching on each day. The first was a self-interview in which the teacher answered a set of questions as soon as time permitted. The second was conducted by the researcher at the end of the teaching day. The first interviews lasted about 15 minutes and the latter, 70 minutes. All interviews were framed by four questions: (1) What stands out in your mind about today’s class? (2) How do you feel during the class? (3) What do you plan to do tomorrow? (4) What changes did you make in your teaching and why? Additional questions about practices emerged during each session. Field note excerpts were used to stimulate recall, where appropriate.
All the tapes of interviews (about 40 hours) were transcribed. The audiotapes of classes were not transcribed because of quality of the tapes and the cost. Analysis consisted of reviewing the transcripts and the tapes for recurrent patterns of thought and/or behavior. The teacher’s log and field notes were used to discover and corroborate various patterns of thought that were evident in the interviews. The interview questions formed the beginning of the analysis, but they were modified as more specific questions became apparent as the teacher described his thoughts while planning and teaching. In essence, I was trying to capture the teacher’s thoughts as he experienced being a teacher.
Results
In this paper I try to bring to light the core or heart of Alex’s professional practice, that is the invisible world of teacher thought. The results are organized to provide an overview of one teacher’s thoughts, followed by an explanation of the invisible link between planning and action in this teacher.
An Overview
Researchers into teacher thought processes have attempted to categorize the many thoughts teachers have (Clark & Peterson, 1986). Planning thoughts and action thoughts were the categories in this study. The former refers to thoughts which occur before teaching or after teaching in an empty classroom when the teacher has time to reflect and to reconsider. Action thoughts occur in the classroom where immediacy and complexity are inescapable as students and teachers interact (Doyle, 1986).
Planning Thoughts
Alex intended to conduct a Socratic-type of discussion. The class was interspersed with questions and with unique activities/experiments which were conceived by him to be questions. All were designed to get the students thinking about the topic being considered by the class. Two examples are: (1) Question - Can we effect reality? (2) Activity - “Cloud poofing.” Look at a cloud and think about its shape. Did your thoughts influence the cloud? How do you know?
The teacher used a set of rather loosely formulated goals for organizing the classes. He was committed to students developing a sense of their own ability to think like philosophers. Specific objectives played a small role in planning. A daily plan emerged on the basis of what transpired in previous classes. Alex was not slavish to the plan, yet the plan seemed to give him freedom to detour spontaneously if the situation warranted it.
He followed a basic pattern each day. The class began with an opportunity for students to jot down thoughts or review their assignment. Then, Alex reviewed the previous day and mentioned comments of individual students he wanted them to recall. He had prepared a series of questions for the day. Some days were more loosely planned than others. Beginning classes were more deliberately planned than classes later in the week. He concluded with a wrap-up of the day and gave them an assignment. In sum, he appeared to have a loosely developed plan. However, in reality Alex had a very highly developed plan which was initially invisible to me. This hidden world is discussed later.
Action Thoughts
Quick, spontaneous thoughts were crucial to the success of his lessons. Time was not available for reflection. Action was the imperative. Alex expected few behavior problems to occur. Most action thoughts were academic in orientation. The situation in this program corresponded to his experience in regular programs with gifted students. Nevertheless, Alex was a powerful presence and gave off controlling signals. Some examples were: leaning forward and looking directly at students, making reference to student’s earlier comments, beginning each class with several moments for them to review their notes or homework.
The teacher had a strong sense of the flow of a class. The class was expected to move at a certain pace. Alex made “moves” to keep the class flowing. His moves were divided by me into major and minor moves. The major moves were the recurrent patterns of action and thought which characterized how he created a discussion. Eight major moves were identified: seizing the opportunity; moving on; saying nothing; the ‘quick go around’; ‘pushing kids’; ‘it’s not working’; telling outrageous stories; and restatement. Most of the major moves consisted of several subroutines which the teacher used to get the discussion to flow. All moves were intended to carry forward the momentum of the class. Some had the opposite effect. The teacher was cognizant of this, but was not always able to recover quickly.
Alex exhibited obvious and subtle differences in style while teaching the two different courses. While his general pattern was similar across classes, an observer would get a different view of his style if only one course had been observed. Alex was aggressive in one course and was gentle and more accepting in the other. He knew this. The difference in style in the two classes seemed to be related to two factors in the situation. Alex has high expectations for his classes. He expects students to become engaged in the class. The level of engagement seemed to be mediated by the characteristics of the students in the classes. The first class was composed of slightly older students with the majority of whom he had prior teaching experience. The second class had younger students who he saw as less ready, not less able, to take the risks involved in philosophizing about abstract ideas. Another factor which might have influenced his style in the second class was that one of the students in the first class thought Alex had been too aggressive at times and spoke to him about it before the second class began. It is evident that Alex has a flexible teaching style.
The Invisible World of Professional Practice
Most of what I have reported can be seen directly while observing his classes and looking through his notes and plan book. However, this information does not explain much of Alex’s teaching. In this section I will describe an aspect of a teacher’s practice which is invisible to observers. I shall demonstrate that students of teaching can get access to this invisible world and that this invisible world leads to a greater understanding of teaching practices. I also shall show how some aspects of the invisible world are more accessible than others. Accessibility refers to the ease with which the invisible world is apparent to the observer and to the teacher.
The Invisible World to the Observer
A very significant part of his planning and action was invisible to me when I began this study. No direct evidence of this invisible world can be found from either the documents he creates nor the field notes. The invisible world was revealed in the course of extensive and frequent interviews about what he was thinking and feeling. The thoughts which were invisible initially were at the heart of his professional practical knowledge which he presumably acquired through 17 years of teaching. Several pieces of the invisible world deserve further explanation because they provide significant insights into his teaching practice and possibly into other teachers’ practice.
The Grey Backdrop
It is impossible to understand what he does without appreciating the ever-present “grey backdrop.” Alex used this term one day while discussing his thoughts. The term seems to capture the idea of a deep reservoir of experiences which he brings to bear on planning and teaching. Much of it is partially hidden because it is blended into his behavior. To understand how his teaching is carried out one must keep in mind four pieces of the grey backdrop. These pieces are ordered in terms of their accessibility from relatively easy to relatively difficult.
Piece 1: The flow
The flavor of what constitutes a good discussion to him can be sensed by noting some of the terms Alex used at various times to describe his classes: clicking along, engaged, starts rolling, movement, pushing, momentum, bouncing, churning around, sluggish, building on it, playing around, flowing, and potboiling. Taken together, these words convey the ideas of action and of creation. He influences the pace of discussion to help students (and himself) create a new way of looking at some topic. The relationship between action and creation is a process in which his actions influence students to consider alternative possibilities as the class creates, individually and collectively, new meanings. “I think classes that are based primarily on discussion develop momentum, . . . almost a group pace eventually. The group kind of coalesces and develops it.” This first piece of the invisible world was most readily accessible to me.
Piece 2: The right atmosphere
Alex tries to create an atmosphere that is conducive to sharing ideas and feelings. He is very cognizant of how vulnerable students can be and how fearful they can be to express their ideas before others. In this summer teaching situation he does not have time to let this kind of environment develop. At various points (it is not clear what keys this behavior), he expressed his feelings or encouraged the class to talk about how they felt when presenting an idea in response to a question or when doing a demonstration.
Alex will “seize” upon unsolicited expressions of feeling by one student as an opportunity to get the others to consider their feelings. Examples of expressions of feelings were helping them realize that it is common not to think about this material and helping them accept the fear of looking stupid to others while they philosophize. In his view they need to realize they have common experiences which legitimize their ability to consider philosophical issues.
There are other aspects to his concern for the “feeling” atmosphere of the class. At various points along the way in a class he may “pump up the kid.” At these times he compliments a student or refers to that student’s comments in order to show the student the thought was valued by him. Another indication of his concern for the emotional tone of the environment is when he will permit adults, including himself, to offer their viewpoints. On no occasion did he express his view until after the students were finished. He is mindful of the importance attached by students to adult pronouncements on philosophically abstract topics. He wants a mutual exchange of ideas on the strength of the ideas, not on the perceived authority of the speaker. When he gives his version of an assignment, he tries to do something which expresses his view and continues to keep new interesting stuff before the class. He makes no effort to convince them of his viewpoint.
Lastly, during demonstrations he is particularly aware of the unsettling nature of what he is asking students to do.
“I know when you ask kids to do an experiment that it can be scary if [the students] don’t understand the directions. It can make [them] feel like [they’re] left out. So I’m trying to maintain that level of safety assurance by going around and asking people how they are doing, . . . or whatever. I know that it can interrupt what they are doing also, but I’m not sure how to get around it.”
During the demonstration on “Cloud poofing” he was observed moving from student to student encouraging and cajoling them to try to make clouds disappear by looking at a cloud and thinking about it. Creating the right atmosphere was the link to many of his actions.
Piece 3: “Making it concrete.”
This piece is more invisible because it is never written in his plans and is rarely phrased this way to the students. The frequently used phrase by teachers has a special meaning for him in philosophical discussions. “I push for the concrete.” Alex attempts to move them from the safe world of the abstract to actual situations in their lives where they have to apply what they have been saying abstractly.
“And so my premise is that if I push them into the concrete, they’ve got to come to grips with, OK I believe this or whatever the thing we might be discussing. . . . And my experience has shown that by doing that with people, with kids those abstract things don’t stay abstract.”
Most classes had instances when Alex made moves to have his students be more concrete in their expression of their opinions.
Piece 4: The “final position.”
A more invisible part of Alex’s professional practice was the final position. He describes this process,
“One of the things I try and do before a discussion like this is think about a final position. How I’d answer some of my own questions so that in a sense I’ve already had a dialogue with me. . . . [Before class] or in the evening, whenever I get it in . . . is when I have the dialogue with the class. These are with me. There aren’t any kids in the dialogues, just me. . . . I sort of do my own assignment in front of me.”
The dialogue seems to have a purpose of helping him build a structure for the class. He does not want the class to appear to be random to students. He thinks there ought to be a thread of argument so the class discussion gets somewhere. Because Alex wants to “allow a kid to develop their (sic) own philosophical ideas,” he cannot have an overarticulated structure. “If you set the parameters too tight, then . . . they don’t get an idea. They fill in the blanks.” Conversely, if the structure is nonexistent, then “kids would be totally at sea. I mean, it’s unfair to them to say OK, there’s no rules, not in a week.” Thus, “final position” provides him with a way to organize the discussion in his mind so that the actual class can have unity and spontaneity.
Summary—Grey Backdrop
The grey backdrop is evident in all his classes. His sense of flow, of the right atmosphere, of making if concrete and of final position can be seen in his teaching. They seem to qualify and shape his daily plans and actions. These are always present in his thoughts, but rarely at the surface of his thoughts.
The Invisible World to the Teacher
As the study went on I was able to discover a part of the invisible world which was most deeply buried in his professional practical knowledge. In the preceding section Alex was able to articulate his hidden world in the course of our interviews with no direct effort on my part to make it happen. In this section I shall describe two pieces of his practice which he did not articulate until I probed him. These might also be called the tacit, invisible world of professional practice.
Typology of classes
Earlier the point was made that much of his plan is not written. The “grey backdrop” seemed to describe his unwritten thoughts which came out in the interviews and were at the core of his planning. In the course of observing his classes I detected some patterns to his classes. Through interviews I discovered that he had a generalized expectation and specific expectations for his classes. The generalized expectation was for how a course in philosophy would go forward or unfold. In Alex’s words,
“I’m saying that during the five day period that I’m kind of thinking that’s sort of what’s going to happen, and I plan around it. I try and plan to make it more confusing in the beginning in the sense of raising it, throwing out more and more questions. … I think I’m trying to support the various views that are happening sort of in the middle period, in addition to countering them at the same time. And trying to push everybody to come to some sort of at least provisional resolution so that they walk away feeling like they have a piece of something and not that it’s totally confused.”
Alex’s courses both weeks followed the pattern. It was the same pattern as I have discovered.
Not only did there appear to be a generalized pattern across both courses, but I also suspected there might be an expectation of a pattern within certain classes. If he had an expectation for individual classes I had no verbal evidence because Alex did not spontaneously mention expectations for specific classes. In response to a question about whether he had any narrower expectation for classes, he replied at first he did not have any. However, when I supplied some observations and excerpts from my fieldnotes about an introductory class he was able to comprehend the question. He generated five examples of expected patterns for individual classes.
Without question there was an introductory class or the Sunday plan which includes ground rules for discussion, introductions, and provocative questions to get them going, and an assignment for the next morning. Other kinds of classes he described were: 1. first day classes in which I anticipate doing a lot of talking and “everybody has to sort of agree that we’re starting . . .” 2. “you’re telling me” classes in which one presents his or her viewpoint to the classes; 3. “definitional classes” in which information is gathered; 4. “synthesis classes” in which “I ask them to try and start putting things together.” Part of this is the group developing a working group synthesis and part is the individual pulling new stuff togehter.; 5. “wrap-up days” in which stuff gets summarized in order to end a period of instruction or as “a method to generate steam in the classes.” Taken together, the specific patterns for individual classes suggest a typology of classes. In Alex’s mind there is a set of expectations which describe his plan (but never appear in a plan book) and guide his actions in his classes (but are never verbalized).
Telling outrageous stories
A second piece of the invisible world which was inaccessible to him without probing was the “move,” telling outrageous stories and jokes. A major part of his action repertoire was a set of moves which could be categorized as telling outlandish stories or jokes. The move was evident in every class I observed. The move was so ingrained into his practice that he never mentioned it in two weeks of conversations about what stood out in his mind, his feelings, his plans and changes he made while teaching. I was amazed at this omission because he seemed so tuned into his teaching. In our last interview I mentioned that he had never said anything about this teaching technique. Alex laughed uncomfortably and expressed his surprise that he had not mentioned it. After this, he launched into a long explanation of the place of humor in his teaching and the function of some of the subroutines he engages in when executing this move.
The jokes are not actual jokes which someone might tell. Rather they are stories which are absurd or poke fun at an idea. Their intent seems to be to keep the lesson moving and to “shock them into awareness.” He regards absurdity as something which is discrepant from normal thought so he uses it frequently. These stories or examples can be ridiculous, gross, crazy, etc. “Sometimes I’ll say things that normally aren’t said in school . . . that I hear kids talking about, you know they use that kind of stuff to gross each other out, so I gross them out.”
He has many uses for jokes, but there is limited evidence that he thinks of these reasons while he is teaching. I have found it difficult to identify examples in the record where his reasons for using jokes might be operating. I have found examples of jokes for most of his purposes, i.e., examples, shake them up, tension reduction, expression of anger, control, ideas are fun, binding the group, and zany. I have not seen examples of self deprecation.
Since jokes can be found in all his classes, it is apparent that they comprise a significant part of his teaching. He does not plan these stories; they come spontaneously. He recognizes that certain kinds of comments work. He, upon occasion, uses set stories which have worked in other classes, but this is infrequent. The most outstanding feature of this teaching strategy is that it was so automatic that he never mentioned it when he talked about planning or described his actions, yet his practice was filled with instances of this technique.
Discussion
In this study I explored the thinking of a teacher of gifted children in a special program. My intent was to begin to fill a gap I had detected in the literature on teachers of the gifted and talented. In the course of the study I changed my perspective from studying teacher thinking to studying the professional practical knowledge of a teacher. By studying one teacher in depth I wanted to find out what a teacher experiences as he is teaching. To accomplish this task, a methodology was used which allowed the teacher’s voice to be heard. It was a combination of ethnographic and phenomenological techniques.
The study described one teacher’s professional practical knowledge and how it was used as he planned and taught. Much of his professional practice was not readily visible. I found myself in a situation which is analogous to that of someone studying icebergs. What one sees on the surface provides a very incomplete view of the size, shape and volume of the iceberg. Similarly, what I saw in his classes and in his notes was only a glimpse at the surface of a hidden world of professional practical knowledge and skill. The difference between the visible and the invisible is demarcated by the accessibility of his practice to himself and to me as an observer.
As these pieces of his practice became visible I began to see how significant the invisible was to his teaching. One cannot understand what this highly competent professional does unless one considers the invisible part of teaching. One can learn much about teaching from observing what he does, but one misses the core of his practice. Planning thoughts and action thoughts become more coherent and integrated when one discovers the invisible world.
Within this teacher there exists a large unwritten and unobservable collection of knowledge which apparently influences his observable planning and action. “Grey backdrop” was his term, which to me represented this part of his professional practical knowledge. Whether other teachers have such a term is unknown to me. Alex was cognizant of having a grey backdrop when he had “deja vu” kinds of experiences as he was teaching. In other words, although the precise situation was new, he had been there before and he knew it.
Alex seemed to know that he could neither predict what the outcomes of specific moves would be, nor could he predict how a class would go in very precise terms. He did know that if he made certain moves, the probability of the class going in the appropriate direction was increased. He hoped they would work. Alex was disappointed when a class didn’t work the way he wanted, but he seemed to accept the uncertainty of what he was doing. Experience held the possibility that classes were salvageable.
Whatever professional practical knowledge is in an absolute sense, this kind of knowledge cannot be separated from experience. The connection between experience and teacher thought and behavior was so strong that Alex was unable to talk about his practice without referring to past teaching episodes. One should not infer from this that he did not talk in abstract terms about his philosophy of teaching and his practice; rather he could not talk for any length about a specific practice or group of practices without the authority of his experience entering the explanation. It is this point that impels me to think that personal professional practical knowledge is based on experience.
It is obvious that Alex is an experienced teacher. He seems to have a set of routines or moves for handling various teaching situations. Because professional practical knowledge is based upon experience, it would be unwise and inappropriate to expect a new teacher to be able to function as Alex does. Since the new teacher is relatively inexperienced, one wonders if a new teacher would have less invisible knowledge.
This teacher had a host of moves to further the discussion. These moves were set, but they seemed to retain some flexibility because of variants within the move. I think the moves were largely guided by his professional practical knowledge which may function as a kind of gyroscope which corrects for unexpected and unpredictable changes in any classroom discussion. The invisible world may allow for the spontaneity in a lesson, but much of the apparent spontaneity is neither random nor thoughtless. Teacher educators need to keep this in mind as we develop better descriptions of what competent teachers do. Following from this point, I see his thinking as being more recursive than linear. I use the term recursive because the term describes a dynamic process in which the thinker continuously uses information gained in the immediate context as feedback for modifying his on-going practice. His in-class notes and the grey backdrop are key elements in the recursive loop of planning and action.
Some pieces of his professional practical knowledge are more hidden than other pieces. Tacit knowledge is a special kind of knowledge because it does not “stand out” in the teacher’s mind. The practice is so habituated that a teacher is barely aware of it. Two examples, e.g., telling absurd stories and the topology of classes, of this kind of knowledge were evident in this study. The extent and import of this kind of tacit kowledge needs to be studied in greater detail.
Some of the invisible world of professional practice is accessible to researchers. Employing some of the methodology of this study other researchers may want to examine this area in detail. At present we are conducting a series of studies on different kinds of special education teachers to see what similarities and differences exist among them and between them and regular educators.
The findings have implications for understanding teachers. It is not clear how generalizable these findings are to teachers in general and in special education. Several indicators suggest these findings are worthy. One is the teacher has stated that this sounds like his teaching practice to him. Two, the similarity of my general findings to the literature on elementary teacher suggests the generalizability of these findings. However, I am certain from other research we are conducting that there is some similarity and some differences between the content of professional practical knowledge of a teacher of the moderately/severely handicapped and a teacher of the gifted. Three, from this kind of research we can more clearly explain to ourselves as students of teaching what teachers do. Lastly, this kind of research enables us to show preservice teachers that we recognize the complexity of what we are asking them to become. These findings also seem to point to the need for teacher training programs to become more reflective in orientation.
Footnotes
Reprinted from “The Invisible World of Professional Practical Knowledge of a Teacher of the Gifted,” by L. J. Coleman, 1991, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14, pp. 151-165. Copyright © 1991 by SAGE. Reprinted with permission.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.