Entrance Slip: The Tact of Teaching

"They do not care for their students in the abstract, they care for their students as persons who have names and personalities and with whom they have concrete interactions."

I felt this quote was particularly applicable to me because as a teacher candidate, I can only think about my future students in the abstract. It is always easier to think about what you would do in a situation in which you are not emotionally involved. The risk of this type of thinking is that it makes the situation seem more simplistic than it really is. I do think that it is important that we care for our students but this care will make things more complicated when we have to make difficult decisions.

"The social context of any classroom incident is always too complex for any single theory or set of principles to fit the bill."

I felt that this quote was also very applicable to teacher candidates. We spend so much time discussing theory and that theory often seems somewhat basic or obvious. However, I think having these theories in the back of our minds may help us make decisions in a classroom environment where the situation is much more complex and what to do is not obvious. I believe this is what the author means by the "tact of teaching". A tactful teacher will know and understand the theories and this knowledge will inform their behaviour in the classroom, even if it is not consciously.

"But it is obviously not possible to act thoughtfully and self-confidently while doubting oneself at the same time. If teachers were to try to be constantly critically aware of what they were doing and why they were doing these things, they would inevitably become artificial and flounder."

I felt that this quote was very comforting. Whenever I find myself speaking in front of a group of people, I find that I am mostly focusing on what I am going to say next. The idea that I should also be reflecting on what I am saying as I am saying it is somewhat stressful. While I definitely see the value of reflecting, I agree that reflecting too much can be debilitating. As young teachers, we already have enough to stress about. If we start doubting ourselves, I think our teaching would only suffer.