Growing Up Teaching:: From Personal Knowledge to Professional Practice

Focusing on personal knowledge and how it influences teacher development, "Growing Up" Teaching follows one teacher, "Kay," from her years of teacher preparation through her time as a seasoned veteran. What emerges from this intensive 10-year study is a more complete picture of teacher development that will help us to better prepare and support our pre- and inservice teachers.

Essential reading for everyone who seeks to understand teachers and the profession of teaching, this book offers:

• A holistic view of learning to teach over time that challenges traditional boundaries among pre- and inservice education, curriculum, supervision, administration, staff development, and research.
• Insight into many important issues, such as the link between theory and practice, teacher retention, and how to get teachers to change timeworn pedagogical practices.
• Concrete examples that show how a teacher's prior experiences can be brought to the surface and reconstructed--rather than suppressed and viewed as an obstacle to learning.
• An integrated approach that looks at one teacher's personal knowledge about teaching and learning juxtaposed against that of other teachers, including several from China and Japan.