Page 17 - Beyond Methods

CHAPTER 1
Conceptualizing Teaching Acts To teach is to be full of hope.
—LARRY CUBAN, 1989, p. 249
We often hear educators say that teaching is both an art and a sci- ence. I take this to mean that teaching is basically a subjective ac- tivity carried out in an organized way. In fact, there are educators who believe that teaching lacks a unified or a commonly shared set of rules, and as such cannot even be considered a discipline. As Donald Freeman points out,
when we speak of people “teaching a discipline” such as math or bi- ology, we are separating the knowledge or content from the activity or the teaching. These traces of activity that teachers accumulate through the doing of teaching are not seen as knowledge; they are referred to as experience. Experience is the only real reference point teachers share: experiences as students that influence their views of teaching, experiences in professional preparation, experience as members of society. This motley and diverse base of experience unites people who teach, but it does not constitute a disciplinary community.
(Freeman, 1998, p.10)
It is this motley and diverse base of experience that makes teaching challenging as well as engaging, fulfilling as well as frustrating.
It is no wonder that diverse experiences lead to diverse percep- tions about teaching. In his inspiring book The Call to Teach David Hansen characterizes teaching as a vocation. Recalling its Latin root vocare, meaning “to call,” he explains vocation as a summons or bid- ding to be of service. According to him, teaching as a vocation “com- prises a form of public service to others that at the same time pro- vides the individual a sense of identity and personal fulfillment” (Hansen, 1995, p. 2). He compares the language of vocation with the