IP 87-1 Teaching knowledge: The lights teachers live by.
Abstract
Although school teachers are appointed to a particular office, it is unclear whether much of what they know is special: restricted to official role incumbents and exceptional, or marked off by character, quality, or degree from ordinary knowledge or common sense. The ambiguities of teaching as a career--comparatively low pay and status and little opportunity for advancement--imply that occupational commitment may not be necessary for acquiring teaching knowledge, that the folkways of teaching may suffice. This paper analyzes "teaching knowledge"--the lights teachers live by--to address these issues.
The paper introduces four categories of knowledge: the "folkways of teaching," "local mores," "private views," and "teaching expertise." The folkways of teaching describe "teaching as usual," learned and practiced in the half-conscious way in which people go about their everyday lives. Local mores constitute teaching knowledge held and used like the folkways and mostly based on them, yet local mores are more variable and likely to be articulated as maxims or missions. Teachers' private views are personally compelling, arising from the peculiar experiences, feelings, and characteristics of individuals. What marks off teaching expertise from the folkways, local mores, and private views is less what associated knowledge is about than how it is held and used. Although it can build on the folkways, teaching expertise goes beyond their mastery or skilled performance by including (a) judgments of appropriateness, testing of consequences, and considerations of ends rather than means, and (b) less typical modes of practice, such as explanation, discussion, and the deliberate management of value dilemmas. This paper analyzes, in detail, the "folkways of teaching," arguing that they are known by acquaintance, through participation, and as common sense.