Preparing Teachers for Relationships With Students: Two Visions, Two Approaches

Abstract

Meaningful teacher–student relationships are linked to a range of positive student outcomes. However, there is limited research on how teacher education programs attempt to prepare teachers to form relationships with students. This article employs comparative case methodology to explore how two different teacher residency programs—No Excuses Teacher Residency and Progressive Teacher Residency—attempt to prepare their teacher residents to form meaningful relationships with students. Drawing on theoretical work by Martin Buber and Paulo Freire, this article finds two very different approaches to teacher–student relationships: Instrumental and Reciprocal. It concludes by discussing the implications of each.

Freire’s Dialogic Process as a Means of Facilitating the Teaching of Controversial Public Policy Issue

“…As the data that emerged from this study of three pre-service teachers carrying out their student teaching practicum experiences in an urban setting attests, there is great potential in using the Freirean dialogic process in order to facilitate discussions of controversial public policy issues. In many ways, these findings reinforce the latent possibilities that scholars have noted for several years (Thiesen-Homer, 2021). That these teacher candidates were able to conduct effective lessons employing the Freirean dialogic process during sporadic moments in leading classes as guests in their cooperating teacher's classroom is the testament to the power of this process.…”