Oct 10, 2006

Teaching Practicum Workshop: 1 October 5: 06

Teaching Dossier | Teaching Philosophy

The teaching dossier is a document that is written by – teachers, educators. Within a teaching dossier is ‘the’ deeply embedded personal manifest otherwise know as a teaching philosophy.

On a more linear level, the teaching dossier is a document-ing of one’s own accomplishments and contributions the active participatory embodiment of teaching/learning. Since this document is a reflection of a constantly evolving, temporal and subjective experience it ought not to remain is fossilized as many ‘documents’ tend to. Rather, the Teaching dossier shall be referred to as the ‘ever evolving’ mutable document.

As for the logistics: ten pages long (obviously for a person with less or more experience the length may vary). Other pertinent documents may also be appended following the main body. Teaching Philosophy| Carlos Torres: " There is one thing that Paulo has said over and over again, which is, 'You don't have to follow me. You have to re-invent me.'" (http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/scheurich/proj3/giroux6.html)

“Banking education, which emphasizes the teacher's role as the active one in the teacher-learner relationship is an anti-dialogical approach. It serves the oppressor by denying the learner an active role in the learning. Paulo Freire felt that for the learner to move from object to Subject, he or she needed to be involved in dialogical action with the teacher. Dialogic action has two basic dimensions, reflection and action”(http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/scheurich/proj3/freire4.html).

The tasks for progressive educators in Freirian theory are:

1. "...to unveil opportunities for hope, regardless of the obstacles" (p. 9).
2. to accept the political and directive nature of education.
3. to express respect for differences in ideas and positions.
4. to respect the educands, never manipulating them.
5. to be tolerant, open, forthright, and critical, teaching is not simply the "transmission of knowledge concerning the object or concerning the topic"(p. 81).
6. to teach so that educands can learn to learn "...the reason-for, the "why" of the object or the content."
7. to challenge educands with a regard to their certitudes so that they seek convincing arguments in defense of the why.
8. to respect popular knowledge, cultural content...this is the point of "departure for the knowledge (that educands) create of the world.
9. to understand that the "perception of the why of the facts...lead us to transcend the narrow horizons of the neighborhood or even the immediate geographical area, to gain (the) global view of reality..."(pp.87) (http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/scheurich/proj3/freire5.html)

For me the purpose of including these quotes is for the purpose of exercising background reading. My own interpretations of a teaching philosophy may be informed in part by outside sources, theorists and practitioners, though a personal philosophy is a subjective amalgam of collective influences. As for me I imagine myself employing that which I have read of Friere and Giroux to enlighten my own future experiences. I enjoy the fact that a teaching dossier laid atop a foundation of a teaching philosophy is in its actualization, an act of self-reflexivity. This process of self-reflexivity is of paramount importance, perhaps a necessary ingredient for anyone partaking in the act of dialogical learning.

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