Pedagogical Process Knowledge

This project has reaffirmed my belief in teacher inquiry as a powerful tool for teacher growth and development over the life span. The processes of reflective practice have enabled me to connect my past, present and future work together in significant and generative ways. At each stage of my career, when a change has occurred, I have been able to draw upon my past knowledge to inform my actions I take in my new and often very different contexts. Through monitoring and inquiring into my own struggle and identifying the complex strategies I have implemented to adapt to these changes,I have made visible to myself and others my pedagogical process knowledge as illustrated in my circle of inquiry.

Second Stage as Transformative

I have also learned that I prefer to make my contribution to education by working on a "second stage" or alternative space that has a relationship with but is not embodied in the "main stage" institutions. I see the work of the Drama and Inquiry elective as such a space.

Drama as Inquiry/ Inquiry as Drama

Maxine Greene has written that "artistic-aesthetic rendering pushed the boundaries of experience and opens up new ways of looking at the world and engaging with an experienced reality... We make possible the privileged moment through which our students can live." In their final course reflections, students have attested to the different ways in which this class "touched [their] souls" or "changed [their] characters." They wrote about this class as a chance for self-exploration and growth. I would like to continue to explore the ways in which this course offered students the opportunity for critical self relfection and the relationship between teacher inquiry and student inquiry. In addition, I would like to continue to explore the specific characteristics of drama and the ways in which it allows for, even demands, the mutual coexistence of multiple perspectives, competing ideologies and contradictory realities.