Writing and Teacher Culture

Our studies at Acadia this summer included this class, as well as another called Families, Schools and Community Support. Dr. Phil Ferguson briefly discussed, during one class, the concept of Apprenticeship of Observation. It is an interesting idea, and one I think may apply to how some teachers approach how they support struggling readers and writers.

The concept, simplified, concerns the "training" or apprenticeship that students receive from their teachers over the thirteen years of their public schooling, watching their teachers perform the "front stage" aspects of the job. Following this apprenticeship, many feel that they know what a teacher's job is and how best to perform the job - basically, the same way... the same methods and pedagogy teachers used to teach them. In the case of teachers (specifically student teachers during their practicums), they may enter the profession with what they know from their past teachers' performances, but lack the knowledge of what the rest of the occupation involves, as well as new and best pedagogical practices.

For students struggling in any academic area, teachers will sometimes attempt to use remedial strategies inappropriately, or will fail to support the student at all. I tend to wonder if this isn't based on the Apprenticeship of Observation concept. As Michaela Borg (2004) writes in a paper reviewing this concept:

As these teaching behaviours are largely unanalysed, they remain ‘intuitive and imitative’ (Lortie 1975) and have been described as ‘folkways of teaching’, that is ‘ready-made recipes for action and interpretation that do not require testing or analysis while promising familiar, safe results’ (Buchmann 1987: 161). This model thus provides student teachers with ‘default options’, a set of tried and tested strategies which they can revert to in times of indecision or uncertainty (Tomlinson 1999).

Borg, M. (2004). The Apprenticeship of Observation. ELT Journal, vol. 58, 274-276. Retrieved from: http://203.72.145.166/ELT/files/58-3-8.pdf

I think to the reading by Leslie Broun, Take the Pencil Out of the Process, when she describes how difficult the actual physical act of writing can be for some students, so much so that it impairs their ability to focus on any content (even when they have a lot to say). Allowing students to use assistive technology for writing tasks makes a lot of sense, since it can take the stress of the physical writing away and open the door wide to fascinating thoughts and opinions that were, in essence, "trapped" by the pencil. Broun's plea to teachers not to focus on the futile effort of penmanship “longer, harder, and louder" is humorous, but also frequently true.

That isn't to say that remedial strategies are always inappropriate. Pencil grip problems in young learners may be corrected with remedial fine motor skills and practice. This can also help with some dexterity issues. However, remediation is still used too often in cases when compensatory strategies would be much more suitable.

In the end, we teachers must keep the outcomes in mind. If we are assessing writing content, what does it matter whether the writing is done on a computer, on an iPad, through speech-to-text software, or using a pencil in a scribbler? This is a cultural shift for some teachers, but one that I think is important as we continue to improve on our methods to support all learners in front of us.