The Question Teacher and the Case for a Therapeutic Turn Within Teacher Education

Abstract

Reflexivity figures increasingly in teacher education, and different reflexive turns have produced a range of directions for thinking about teachers and teaching. This article problematizes some reflexive practices, including self-study and teacher renewal, as a means of contextualizing a call for the inclusion of a therapeutic reflexivity aimed at the “question teacher.” Derived from the psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic subject, this “question teacher” is vulnerable and motivated by forces not entirely conscious or rational. It is argued that a psychotherapeutic pedagogy enables teachers to address their existential and relational difficulties and contributes to a teacher education that sees teacher identity and practice as highly relational and situated. Examples of a fully committed therapeutic reflexivity are given, alongside some research results of their transformational potential. It is proposed that the generation of empirical evidence for the efficacy of therapeutic reflexivity will permit its advocates to answer critics and overcome a systemic resistance.

Teaching temporal reflexivity through a vehicle: Experiential-existential time around the wood fire stove of a mobile shepherd's hut

“…Although critiques of the instrumental educational logic can be abundantly found in theoretical discussions and public debates (Biesta, 2006; Lingard, 2010), the continuity of hands-on experimentations with multiplicities of time in university degrees is far from guaranteed. Existential time has to constantly find justification and legitimacy against prevailing evidence thatthe work of interiority is too inexact, complex, and costly within an educational paradigm dominated by economies of time and scale, and demanding the immediate transference of teacher learning to the classroom setting (Keck, 2020: 417).…”

“…the work of interiority is too inexact, complex, and costly within an educational paradigm dominated by economies of time and scale, and demanding the immediate transference of teacher learning to the classroom setting (Keck, 2020: 417).…”

The European Conference on Arts & Humanities 2022: Official Conference Proceedings

“…For teachers, reflective practice that draws on self-understanding in relation to theory is a crucial professional activity because it can strengthen professional collegiality when used for collaborative questioning about what is teaching, the purpose of teaching; and how different research methods generate different data about teaching (Blakely, 2020;Keck, 2020).…”