A Land before Time

Abstract

to develop and test theories, methods, and techniques. Having expended so much effort doing so, we quite naturally wax eloquent about our findings. Seldom, in contrast, do we encourage teachers to use their professional judgment to thoughtfully and analytically decide when (and when J L R not) to use our ideas. Presidential So, if I was to give another presidential address today, I would talk about Retrospectives my attempts to develop teachers who are thoughtfully independent of authority figures. I would argue that, to do so, I have learned I must set aside my personal preferences in teaching reading. Instead, my focus must be helping teachers develop their own vision for what they want to be as reading teachers, and how to use that vision as a moral compass to guide them as they make decisions. Only if they possess such a personally moral sense of where they want to go will they have the strength and courage to deal effectively with the complexities and dilemmas of day-to-day reading instruction. But I know I am going against the grain whenever I present the idea to colleagues, I am invariably met with the question, yeah, but what if the teacher has the wrong vision? The assumption persists that there can be only right vision. Somehow, we must separate our own position as researchers (and the vision that drives it) from our teacher education responsibility. Our dual roles of researcher and teacher educator require from us vastly different psychological orientations. When we do research, it is quite proper that our vision drives us, because we tend to study what we value. But when we are in our reading educator role, we must set aside our preferences and, instead, help teachers develop professional positions independent of us. It means that when we teach teachers we have to be less powerful so teachers can learn to be more powerful. Am I still going against the grain? Probably.