In Rehearsal: Complicating Authority in Undergraduate Critical-Inquiry Classrooms

Abstract

GEORGIAIf we in teacher education want emerging teachers to inquire into the complexities of authority and to reimagine how it might operate in schools, then we need firsthand experience troubling it in our own classrooms. To this end, we -three reading education professors -problematized our classroom authority as we sought to enact critical inquiries with preservice teachers. In this qualitative study, our contention is that preservice teachers, in addition to eventually having to manage curriculum, must also face the reality of having to function as authority figures while still maintaining a classroom conducive to meaning making. However, in order to interrupt their traditional images of teacher as authority figure, they need to experience contrasting images. This article provides three lenses through which to explore how authority can be reimagined in critical-inquiry reading education courses.

Development of a Classroom Authority Observation Rubric

“…Still other research offers faculty anecdotes about classroom experiences (Hackelton, 2002). There is also a strand of research that explores authority in democratic or student-centered classrooms (Brubaker 2009;Fecho et al 2000;Fried and Amit 2008). Several of these studies use actual classrooms for data collection, include student reactions to authority, and explore authority as the negotiation of shared power.…”

Listening to Anthony

“…Eurydice Bauer (Fecho, Commeyras, Bauer, & Font, 2000) wrote about her classroom that the students and I were constantly in flux, trying to find our center. I began to see this constant motion as a dance, because as students created and expressed their understanding of a topic, I attempted to respond with flexibility and adapt to each student's learning need by following their lead and establishing new direction.…”