30 years ago, I came across the work of Magdalene Lampert and was impressed. By the writing, the clarity, the insistence on immense respect for the complexity of teachers' work. Then time came and went, kids that were born during academic reading and writing grew up amidst more academic reading and writing, and I sort of but never quite forgot the work of Lampert. How much fun it was to re-read her 1985 text How do teachers manage to teach? ! I love the way she hooks me on a narrative which she returns to several times before providing the closure - the need for which kept me reading. I love the way in which the word "manage" takes on a different meaning after reading through the paper. I love the way she equates managing teaching with having internal debates with oneself about ways to manage problems that cannot be solved. The ambiguity a teacher feels confronted with difficult choices can be used constructively to manage the situation rather than pick one of several problematic choices. A teacher may draw on research for this, but research can never suggest a best way out of the difficult situations.
Some of these ideas have been picked up on by Patricio Herbst and Daniel Chazan in their notion of practical rationality. The fundamental idea, as I understand it, is that teaching actions are justified with respect to (a) the norms of teaching this particular content, (b) the professional obligations on the teacher - of course impacted by the teacher's knowledge, competencies, beliefs (or patterns of participation), and identity. They use this to aim for descriptions of mathematics teaching activity generally, not specific to individual teachers. As they so clearly write, it is a way out of only doing applied experimental work on mathematics education research (Herbst & Chazan, 2011).
Clearly, these are useful perspectives in engaging in research on the practice of mathematics teachers. I'm busy writing up a paper on "Tanja" who breaks with the norm I had in mind when she changes strategy in the middle of a lesson shaped around an exploration to almost give learners a procedure to follow. Unpacking her reference to the obligations she mentions in interviews I conducted with her (as part of TRACE) helps me understand the dilemma she may have felt. It also helps me engage her more in the future, because she chose a way out rather than manage the situation (in my current interpretation at least).
That way, it also helps me in thinking about teacher education. When Grossman and colleagues write that
“… professional education must help novices attend to the complexities of interaction, whether in a classroom, congregation, or therapist’s office, and to respond in the moment under conditions of uncertainty.” (Grossman et al. 2009, p. 2060).
there is no distinction made between responding to uncertainty through making difficult choices or through managing in Lampert's sense. If indeed teacher education pedagogies must include representing teachers' practice to student teachers, do we represent this aspect of managing, do we deal with dilemmas, internal debates and conflicting sides of one's identity? If such pedagogies must include decomposing practices so that they can be analysed and understood, do we analyse situations to which we cannot as teacher educators offer solutions? And if we do so, do we do it with more than the standard answer that the way forward "depends"? And if such pedagogies include engaging students in approximations of practice, do we put students in situations of dilemmas under more controlled circumstances? Which dilemmas could we work with constructively?
Some people say that a classic in literature is one that can be read again and again as one ages, offering something new at each read. To me, Lampert's text may well be a classic, not because it offers me something new every time, but because it reminds me of some key issues that I tend to forget in my attempt at making the profession accessible to students. Even though I deal with dilemmas in my own teaching regularly.
Perhaps we should make our students read her text?
Have a lovely summer if you are on the Northern hemisphere. Otherwise, enjoy your winter break.
/Iben
References
Grossman, P., Compton, C., Igra, D., Ronfeldt, M., Shahan, E., & Williamson, P. (2009). Teaching practice: A cross-professional perspective. Teach. Coll. Rec., 111(9), 2055-2100.
Herbst, P., & Chazan, D. (2011). Research on practical rationality: Studying the justification of actions in mathematics teaching.The Mathematics Enthusiast, 8(3), 405–462.
Lampert, M. (1985). How do teachers manage to teach? Harvard Educational Review, 55(2), 178-194
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