Avoiding Practice Shock: Using Teacher Movies to Realign Pre-Service Teachers’ Expectations of Teaching

Abstract

Pre-service teachers often have unrealistic expectations of teaching. They often create an inspiration/content dichotomy in which they expect relational activities to trump content delivery. Unchecked, these misaligned expectations can lead to practice shock, the disorienting and sometimes traumatic identity crisis that often occurs during the first year of teaching. Teacher preparation programs can use course-based reflective activities to provide structure and impetus for reevaluating expectations. This article studies the effects of these activities on two undergraduate pre-service teachers. Popular Hollywood teacher films were used to confront and challenge candidates' expectations of teaching. An analytical framework based on Baudrillard's (1995) simulacra provided an interpretive structure for revising expectations, and structured reflections and course assignments were used to assess candidates' changing beliefs. Results suggest that the combination of teacher movies, an interpretive framework, and structured reflection has the potential to change candidates' expectations of teaching.

Adjusting Personal Expectations: An Analysis of Early-Career Teacher Narratives

“…As Williams (2002) observes, "encouraging early-career teachers to become aware of their non-formal and unplanned learning is likely to be as important as ensuring that formal learning needs are met'' (p. 10). Accordingly, this study supports other research (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009;Cattley, 2007;Cook, 2009;Delamarter, 2015;Johnson et al, 2015;Olsen, 2008;Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013;Sutherland & Markauskaite, 2012;Tait, 2008) in suggesting that teacher education has a crucial role to play in encouraging preservice teachers to identify and confront their initial expectations of themselves as teachers.…”

“…As early-career teachers negotiate the transition to the profession, they often confront a gap between their initially idealistic visions of themselves as teachers, and what they find to be realistic to achieve in practice (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004;Delamarter, 2015;Morrison, 2013). For Pillen, den Brok and Beijaard (2013c), the mismatch of personal expectations with the realities of the profession may even lead to a number of "professional identity tensions" (p. 88), or, as Delamarter (2015) explains, a professional identity "crisis" (p. 3). For Lauriala and Kukkonen (2005), this involves conflict between the interconnected dimensions of actual self, ought self and ideal self.…”

“…Central to the present study is the significant volume of research indicating that early-career teachers have unrealistic expectations of themselves as teachers, and that there are significant consequences for individuals who struggle to reconcile their beliefs about what is desirable, and what is in fact possible, within the time and institutional limitations of teaching (Cook, 2009;Delamarter, 2015;Kyriacou & Kunc, 2007;Pillen et al, 2013c;Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013;Trent, 2016;Wilson & Deaney, 2010). Nevertheless, early-career teachers often feel dissatisfied, frustrated and disillusioned in compromising their initial expectations of themselves as teachers, impacting upon teacher quality and attrition (Flores & Day, 2006;Gallant & Riley, 2014;Gaudelli & Ousley, 2009;Pillen et al, 2013c;Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013;Trent, 2016).…”

“…The concept of teacher identity, then, is not only complex, but defining it is difficult, as research draws attention to teacher identity from a variety of perspectives (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009;Beijaard et al, 2004;Morrison, 2013). These include intersecting discourses in which teachers participate (Alsup, 2006), narrative (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006;Sfard & Prusak, 2005), the role of a robust teacher identity in building resilience (Day & Gu, 2014;Johnson et al, 2015), the role of emotions (Flores & Day;Pillen et al, 2013a), conditions and contexts that influence teacher development (Delamarter, 2015;Morrison, 2013), and the responsibility of teacher education to provide opportunities for the development of teacher identity (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009;Tait, 2008;Cattley, 2007;Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013;Sutherland & Markauskaite, 2012). Beauchamp and Thomas (2009), in their review of research on teacher identity, also note the variations in the language used in the literature, with the terms building, creating, constructing or forming an identity used interchangeably.…”

“…In recent years, there has been an increase in the volume of research exploring this phenomenon (Delamarter, 2015;Kumazawa, 2013;Pillen et al, 2013c;Trent, 2016), and a variety of definitions have been used in these studies to classify and describe it. Conflicts between what early-career teachers desire, and what they find to be possible to achieve in reality, are what Pillen et al (2013c) refer to as professional identity tensions.…”