ABSTRACT
What kind of teacher am I? This is a challenging question. You should not be drawn into thinking that this is a simple, obvious and straightforward one to answer. To answer it, we have to be honest with ourselves and have an ability to reflect on what we do and why we teach in a particular way. Describing what we do is a good starting point; after this we need to move on to trying to explain and then justify our teaching, both to ourselves and to others when called upon to do so. Our values play a key role in this process. Throughout our teaching careers we think and behave in certain ways and believe in certain things, such as how far our teaching can be called ‘educational’, about what we can offer children and what our capabilities are. What we do, think, and feel about teaching constitute our sense of professional identity. We can reveal and communicate this identity when we address and articulate an answer to the question, ‘So what kind of teacher am I?’ To begin to tackle this question, we need to look at what we do. Sometimes teachers talk in specific terms – for example, ‘I am a specialist in teaching English and I am very confident in assessing and diagnosing children’s reading skills through the use of miscue analysis with my Year 2 class.’ At other times teachers may convey what they do in more general terms – for example, ‘I try to give every child in my Year 2 class the opportunity to achieve their full potential.’ Describing what we do is a good starting point in exploring the issue of being a professional. In doing this, we are often making the tacit explicit (Polanyi 1962, Day 1991). This is a process where we make the things that give our teaching its shape, direction and purpose more conscious, more knowable, and therefore more open to inspection and critique. If we reflect on these descriptions of practice, we give ourselves the chance to learn from our experiences of teaching. This can help to move our practice forward.
