In Case You Teach English: An Interactive Casebook for Prospective and Practicing Teachers

As we were writing this book over the last two years, we interviewed several beginning teachers, held formal conferences with dozens of new and experienced teachers, and engaged in innumerable casual conversations with a variety of teachers. In addition, we surveyed preservice teachers about their expectations for their impending careers. Two themes emerged from our research: Preservice teachers are anxious about what is about to happen to them as they enter the profession; and many new teachers suffer a great deal as they try to navigate the tricky waters of becoming a professional educator. We know many teachers. We believe that teaching is a significant undertaking, with long-lasting effects on individuals and communities. We cannot afford to lose talented teachers because they were ill-equipped to contend with the challenges, annoyances, and frustrations that can grow into career-ending episodes. We hope that this modest effort in some way equips teachers with the strategic stepping-stones to help them to avoid disaster. In short, we hope to reduce the suffering and keep talented teachers in the profession. FOCUS OF THE TEXT A characteristic feature of the casebook is that it requires the user to interact with others. The strength of the casebook lies in using the text with other critical thinkers. Unlike a self-help book that prescribes practices, the casebook invites the user to engage with others in exploring possible responses to troubling situations. Our own experience as teachers tells us that learners develop some valuable habits of mind when they immerse themselves in significant conversations about issues that have relevance to their lives. The discussion reveals that reasonable people can see the same issue in astoundingly different ways. The variety of opinions exposes the possibilities. Challenges and questions prompt the thinker to use logic. Thinkers who develop a model for reasoning learn to support claims by providing grounds, to consider exceptions to generalizations, to represent fairly the opposing views, and to assess the alternative opinions. A series of conversations about some compelling cases highlights the image that teachers do not have to labor in isolation; in fact, we hope that readers will realize that the most satisfying and productive way to function as a teacher is to proceed in concert with others. Each case in this book portrays as realistically as possible the tangled network of possibilities and considerations that necessarily infuse any thorny teaching experience. We hope to make the situations tough, and we want to pressure the readers of the book to make the hard choices. Experience tells us that difficult teaching situations are tough because there are factors that constrain us, and alternative perspectives that challenge us. We contend that the use of this casebook will promote critical thinking. Our understanding of critical thinking involves the recognition of multiple points of view or the identification of several courses of action. Critical thinking necessarily involves the assessment of the relative merits of the points of view or the courses of action. In many instances, the assessment involves the weighing of advantages and disadvantages associated with each choice. With practice, the reader of the casebook will develop the habits of the critical and strategic thinker who can reasonably project the likely consequences for choices and embrace the choices that will promote the greatest benefit and cause the least damage. ORGANIZATION OF THE TEXT We understand that instructors may not want to assign their students to study all of the twenty cases included in the book. We have included a Grade and Issues Matrix inside the front cover to support the selection of the cases that might be the focus of a group's discussion. In this sense, the book is nonlinear. There is no need to progress from Case 1 to Case 20. The readers will pick and cLarry R. Johannessen is the author of 'In Case You Teach English: An Interactive Casebook for Prospective and Practicing Teachers', published 2001 under ISBN 9780130623102 and ISBN 0130623105.