Kumar Ch.1

When reading one quote right from the start jumped out to me; it was the quote on page seven about the role of the teacher that said, “the teacher has been variously referred to as an artist and an architect; a scientist and a psychologist; a manager and a mentor; a controller and a counselor; a sage on the stage; a guide on the side; and more.” In my first teaching class ever at ISU, on the first day, my teacher began class saying that a teacher wears many different hats; meaning a teacher can be and is all of the various things mentioned in the above quote. A teacher’s role can never be distinctly defined; chances are it is always changing day to day since a teacher never knows what to expect, or what will happen. Like the chapter states, teachers can be seen as technicians focused on content knowledge, fact and rules; teachers can be reflective practitioners who are context-sensitive, and whose actions are grounded in intellectual thought, or they can be seen as transformative intellectuals where pedagogy is embedded in relations of power and dominance to create and sustain social inequalities. The point is teachers can be and are everything our text talks about; the proper phrase being having “relative tendencies, with teachers leaning toward one or the other at different moments” (17).  A teacher’s role is always changing to meet the changing classroom dynamic and needs of all the diverse learners.