ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present some of our thinking about the complexity of reading, both the process as it occurs in the human mind and the choices you’ll make about instruction reflective of your understanding of the process. However, they might feel too much administrative or even collegial pressure to make that move. Their decisions will directly affect their teaching. Reflective teachers’ decisions are responsive to any factors that might erode or undermine their students’ success. Cultivation of relationships with students and colleagues is another facet of reflective teacher development. Increasingly, each school year, all four of the case teachers lived teaching as relational work, responding to the cognitive and emotional needs of their students and cultivating ever-deepening relationships with them. They include this brief case because it represents a scenario that is unfolding across our country and provides readers with an opportunity to consider how they will respond to some of the political pressures on teachers.
