I took the Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) to reflect upon and find out my teaching style. I found the TPI quiz exciting, but very challenging. Exciting, because (well, let’s be honest) everything related to “teaching” is exciting! At the end of this quiz, I was able to find out more about who I am as a teacher and my teaching philosophy. It did come with challenges, though…
Looking at my results, at first, I was appalled at how “low” I was on Transmission and Social Reform. I thought to myself, “How can that be?” But reading through the descriptions of the Five Perspectives, I realized that it’s not that I don’t find Transmission and Social Reform important, it’s that I find the other perspectives more readily related and more important to my class at the time. Reading on Apprenticeship, Developmental, and Nurturing, I realized that those three categories are what truly differentiates my experience at Charles Dickens Elementary from any other school. It thrives on seeing each student as an individual, learning at different paces, being at different places, and coming to school with different experiences and knowledge. All teachers need to have “Transmission” in one way or another, because that is traditionally what a teacher was to do (in my opinion). Teachers teach things in a timely manner, assess and evaluate, etc. And in terms of the “Social Reform” perspective, I want to improve this in my teaching. It’s possible that I didn’t think much about this during my practicum because I was in a K-2 classroom and “Social Reform” seems to be more of an intermediate trait, but then I’m forgetting about the power of a child’s voice and the changes that can be made with that voice.
I’m really glad that I took the TPI quiz because it gave me a chance to really reflect on what I did during my practicum and the philosophy that I took away with me.
Some challenges:
During the quiz, I found it really difficult to truly understand what the quiz statements were trying to ask me to think about. For each statement, I had about five different thoughts and scenarios run through my brain – does it mean this? Or this? Or maybe this? – which forced me to consider the statements more “generally.”
Hi Olivia,
I think your reflection here is an important one…
“I?m forgetting about the power of a child?s voice and the changes that can be made with that voice.”
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do in an exchange is listen and observe. There is something about really feeling heard and understood that is critical to building any kind of a relationship – teacher/student, colleague/colleague, boss/employee. I encourage you to continue to reflect on this theme during your time here. What does it take to truly listen? How does someone know that they have been heard? What are the consequences when people don’t feel understood?
Interesting post Olivia, you have really managed to bring out the extent that the TPI is a reflective tool and that our teaching practice is influenced by a complex set of factors related to the situation we are teaching in. You also located the each perspective of the TPI as an aspect of a teachers role, we are nurturing, developmental or transmission focused based on the situation rather than always conforming to one role over another.
I hope to hear more about your experience at Dickens. Education at all levels could learn from this student-centered and cooperative approach to learning.